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First Person

I’m David: This is My Layoff Story

Posted February 3, 2009

As anyone knows who has ever lived through a layoff (and, increasingly, this is a category that includes most of us), job losses have a ripple effect that just keeps growing, spreading a host of negative emotions throughout families and communities.

Most people don’t talk about this, except within their small circles of friends and relatives. Maybe they’re ashamed; they’re probably afraid; they’re certainly confused about what to do next.

Call us naive, but The Whiner wonders whether it’s just possible that there might be fewer layoffs, even during difficult economic times like these, if corporate leaders understood what job loss is like from a family’s perspective. Kudos to our two newest Guest Whiners, David Levy and Heather Pemberton Levy, who have written two extraordinary pieces for us about job loss. (Don’t miss Heather’s piece.)

By David Levy

There’s an exchange in the movie Donnie Brasco where Lefty Ruggiero, a made guy (played by Al Pacino), explains the essential truth about life in the Mafia. He tells Brasco (Johnny Depp), “In our thing, you get sent for, you go in alive, you come out dead, and it’s your best friend that does it.”

That’s how I felt the morning of November 3, when Michael walked into my office and said curtly, “Come on, we’re going down to HR.”

Some back story: I was a VP at a mid-sized marketing agency and Michael was one of our clients. When he left his firm, he came to the agency and became an SVP, and my boss. I was thrilled; Michael and I had known and respected each other, and we looked forward to working together.

Almost immediately, we began making changes to the agency: shifting around personnel, creating new processes, establishing new capabilities, building a more personal yet more accountable work culture. I think of what Michael and I accomplished in the time we worked together at the agency with a tremendous amount of pride.

But it didn’t last.

“Come on, we’re going down to HR.”

Now I’d been down to “HR” before, but on the other side of the desk – I’ve let a few people go in my career — and this day’s conversation with “HR” proceeded according to the usual script.

My manager (Michael) brought me in, we both sat down, and the woman from “HR” began talking. She started talking about the “business environment” and how “the agency has to make some changes now,” etc. Blah. I knew the drill.

For the life of me, however, I didn’t think it was me. (Can you say “denial”?) I thought we were discussing a game plan to go into the next office — our team’s office, where five people worked — and lay THEM off. I thought Michael was going to say, “So David, we are letting go of Susan and Angela” (not their real names). “You take Susan. I’ll take Angela. You talk to Susan first.” But no. Their names weren’t mentioned.

Yet after two minutes, MY NAME hadn’t been mentioned either, forcing me to ad lib the scene and say, “Hold up a second — we’re talking about me, right? You’re laying me off.”

“Yes, indeed, it is you. I’m sorry,” muttered “HR,” amidst uncomfortable giggles.

That’s when I stopped listening. My mind raced with a thousand thoughts. Who was going to tell the team? Who was going to manage the team? What about the work that was left undone? What about my personal files on my computer, would I get to keep them? Do I have a spare jump drive to copy files onto?

“…you will get paid for today…”

My tax software. Shit, what about my tax software? Could I get that too? “…there’s a small severance package that will last until.…” And all my music files? And the pictures of my kids? Could I keep my cell phone? Could I keep the number? How am I going to cart all this stuff to my car? Do they have boxes for all my books and frames and other assorted office crap? Did I need to walk around the office and get my own boxes?

And those boxes are going to be heavy. Who is going to help me carry them out? What’s the etiquette here? Can you ask a soon-to-be former colleague to help you move boxes out of your office into your car? That’s a Seinfeld episode if ever I heard one. Maybe there’s a hand truck? “…and your COBRA benefits will kick in as soon as.…”

Will my frames crack in the boxes? Should I get some newspaper to pack them with? How many frames do I have? There’s the picture of my dad and Charlie. The one of the kids in the basement. The one of Charlie with the guitar. Boy I love that picture. I hope it doesn’t shatter in the move to my car. What if I have to go to the bathroom? When I walk by everyone, what do I say? “Hey, how are you … Just going to the bathroom for the last time here … Yep, I got laid off.”

No, I can use the OTHER bathroom out near the front door and avoid talking to anyone. Whew. “Please don’t tell anyone about this until later this afternoon. There will be other layoffs today and an announcement…” Should I leave the office through the back door? That means a perp walk past everyone.

So through the front door it is…but WAIT! That means walking past the office where my team sits! They will see me! They will see me carrying boxes! They will see me carrying my guitar! They’ll know something is up. What should I do? Walk fast? Run? How am I going to get OUT of here?

Is my résumé up-to-date? Is it on my work computer or my home computer? How long will it take me to update? How long have I been at this job? Am I going to look like a job jumper? Now I have to contact recruiters and post my résumé to TheLadders.com and CareerBuilder.com and Monster and Yahoo and Larry’s Résumé Service and the Connecticut job bank and “…we appreciate your service to the agency and wish you well.”

What am I going to tell my wife?

Wow. That’s a good question.

But let me get the hell out of this office first before I worry about it.

There’s a lot more to that day that I could share — they had a hand truck, someone lent me a jump drive, I got to keep my cell phone number — but let’s fast forward to the end of the script. It has a happy ending.

Unlike Lefty I did not “come out dead.” Over the course of the next few weeks I conducted a social media job search. The social media platforms I used were Facebook, LinkedIn, and Plaxo profiles.

The first thing I did was to expand all three networks; I “friended” just about anyone I knew and sent out invitations to former and current colleagues on Linked In and Plaxo. A few people ignored me, but most accepted the connection requests.

Each new connection gave me another set of eyes that could help faciliate the search. And since every connection got updated automatically through RSS feeds, I was able to be efficient in getting the word out (follow the saga here). That resulted in my landing a position at another agency, as SVP.

My new job was a promotion. With a raise. I started on January 5.

And Michael? We’re still tight. We meet every Monday for breakfast. In our thing, friends don’t kill each other. They remain friends.

The Whiner wants to know: How do you relate to David’s story? What would you tell him, if you could? Have you ever tried relying on social media yourself when job-hunting?

Reader Comments

  1. Arlene

    Good for you in finding a new job–with a promotion, no less! In this economy, that’s practically the last reel of “Rocky.”

    One thing we should all keep in mind, though–don’t keep important personal files on the work computer, because you might lose access suddenly.

    Also, I don’t know if people might think this is too severe, but I stopped “decorating” workspaces with even modest personal stuff like family photos back in the 80s. The whimsicality of work these days can do too much damage to your self respect to give it that much access to your heart.

    Congratulations on surviving and growing from a bad thing that might have been so much worse.

  2. Crayon

    Add jump drives to your tech survival kit and an empty cardboard box with bubble wrap in your car trunk. You never know.

    Glad things turned out ok for you David!

  3. Karenza

    Like Arlene, I don’t keep much personal stuff in my office any longer for this very reason. Only stuff that can fit in my bag and I can carry out the door myself.

    David – I commend you for being able to remain friends with Michael. I don’t know if I could remain friends with someone who allowed me to blindsided like that. When you were alone in the HR office, it would have been kind of him to let you know straight away what was about to happen!

  4. paprikapink

    How many times in your life have you said, “It’s not what you said, it’s how you said it that hurt”?

    I think it was at the end of another relationship — me breaking off with him, him breaking off with me, I don’t even remember — that I realized that we tell ourselves that lie almost every time we have to hear something we don’t want to hear. “You didn’t have to say it like that.” I think what’s really going on is “I didn’t want to hear that.” Period.

    Some news there is just no good way to deliver. It was awful for Joanne to know for months that the lay-off was coming (I’ve experienced that, and yeah, it is awful). It was awful for someone else to find out as they’re being asked to sign the “by accepting this severance I agree not to sue” papers (been through that — simply awful). Let’s just accept it: It’s awful any way you slice it.

    I love how David was able to notice and remember his concerns at that moment: his files, his phone, his photos, his team, which bathroom to use on the way out. Maybe it’d be a good idea for everyone to post an “Evacuation Plan” on the cubicle wall in case of a similar event.

  5. CMP

    Great post, David. I felt like I was right there in the room with you, felt your angst, felt your mind caroming off the impossibly awkward present, slamming headlong into your worries about the logistics of getting out of the building.

    Nice to have your story. I think there are so many people out there who can benefit from it, and from your humor.

    FIles, files, files: I don’t even keep personal files on my personal computer. Everything goes on an external hard drive. That way I won’t miss any work when the next PC implodes, as they all seem to do, but can just plug the drive into whatever computer I end up working on next.

  6. Pat

    David, thanks for telling your story. I related to it from an experience in my own life — right down to feeling that “mob” connection. It does feel as though you’ve been the victim of an act of violence. And, yeah, the world does seem to really compress in on you, so that you’re focused on all those thoughts that are racing through your head.

    The only thing that I also remember is the way that a kind of numbness sets in. I remember just wanting to go to sleep and forget about everything for awhile.

    When it happens, it’s hard to believe that you’ll get past it, even though eventually, you DO get past it. But this piece reminds me of the way that I felt, which was as though I’d been changed permanently by the experience.

  7. Hope

    David…you have great storytelling ability and I’m glad you traded up to something better.

    While driving to see a client today, I listened to “Talk of the Nation” on NPR. They were discussing survivor guilt felt by those left behind in the layoffs, which causes all kinds of problems in the workplace from lower productivity to lack of creativity to a revolving door. When you’re one of the “lucky ones” that stays on, you feel guilty about your fears and relief, because your problems are so much less than those who have been laid off. Or sometimes you feel envy if you hate your job but feel trapped. Very interesting.

    One of the callers had survived 14 rounds of layoffs! Another had his entire department and his boss laid off and was the only survivor. He left for another job as soon as he could.

    Lots of anxiety to go around….

  8. amy

    “Call us naive, but The Whiner wonders whether it’s just possible that there might be fewer layoffs, even during difficult economic times like these, if corporate leaders understood what job loss is like from a family’s perspective.”

    No, I don’t think so.

    I don’t think the problem is that”corporate leaders” are cruel disciples of Sauron who enjoy laughing evilly while stroking white Persian cats, and the tears of a family will melt the chunk of ice in their hearts. The problem is called “greater good”, and it’s the same game every Western leader’s played since the Enlightenment won.

    I would expect that most corporate leaders who order mass firings would like very much for them to be kind, gentle, slow, maybe even stayed firings. However, I’m sure that they’ve learned what every other sucker in business learns: No good deed goes unpunished. The firings proceed the way they do because they cover a corporate ass and several VP asses. Were they to get kinder, gentler, etc., I bet they’d also get more vulnerable to lawsuits. So the guiding principle is “Pick up the layoff hanky with your fingertips and dispose of it as quickly as possible.”

    You really should go read some HR admin boards sometime. If you want to see people in a defensive crouch against lawsuits of all kinds, spurious or not, that’s the place to go.

    Bottom line, they’re protecting themselves, and were you in their position, odds are you’d behave the same way. They may be sympathetic, but they’re not going to put their livelihoods and their family’s security on the line out of sympathy. The kind of people who would put themselves on the line don’t generally climb ladders in gigantic hierarchies.

  9. Bruce Coulson

    I would that you are one of the luckiest people in our modern era. Not only did you survive your layoff and actually improved your personal position, you avoided the ‘perp walk’ that so many have to take when laid off. Companies are becoming more paranoid about employee retaliation, and calling security to escort a terminated employee out is very common.

  10. Adrienne

    Inspiring true tale. I have to tell you with all that personal stuff in your office …something tells me the old company was getting a lot of your time. I’m sure it’s a regretful loss though it might have been necessary. Thank you for sharing it. Why could I see the people you described in this without ever laying eyes on them? Hhhhhmmmm

    I especially appreciate, “In our thing, friends don’t kill each other. They remain friends.”

    Bravo!
    Adrienne