So I got laid off today. Started the morning with sleeping a bunch the night before, also spent some time in the night literally writing up a bunch of avenues for leading improvement to address to jonathan. I went to yoga with andy and that’s when the chaos all began. There was an all-hands at 10:30. Everyone was to attend. Layoffs, an acquisition, another round, some combination of the above. The urgency seemed to indicate some bad news. A meeting scheduled for an hour, surely to provide a cover for what it would cover that ended up lasting less than 20 minutes. Another loan round from Reid to tide the company over and a 20% layoff across the org. I watched with andy and andrew and they heard the news with me. We waited for an email. I joked with alicia and others about whether we’d be ok. I didn’t seriously think I would be affected. A lot of foreshadowing as you will see foretold this, almost as if a bad writer (with far too much foreshadowing wrote it). I get an email saying I’m laid off. I get it at the same time as hemanth, which is some nice solidarity. But at this point I’m in shock. I think I feel a mix of something like woah I had been joking about this for so long + betrayal + straight up numbness. There’s chaos as I realize all the things I had been meaning to do, but had put off for when I left the company. I scramble to spend all my benefits, get all my things reimbursed. I scramble to say goodbyes in a way that doesn’t feel shitty. I understand now, ah, this is what it’s like to be ripped from something that has been a huge part of your life so quickly, so drastically. Does it always happen like this? Where the announcement is immediately followed up by account revoking and a “you have until the end of the day to say your goodbyes and get your things in order.” We had a promise by leadership, of course that was broken for the sake of money and growing the company. I don’t know how they chose to pick people nor do I know how they thought this process would leave any sort of good legacy with people. Perhaps they did not care. Perhaps they thought I was enough of a pushover to keep harboring good will towards Coda, that I was a big enough shareholder to wish success for the company. Perhaps they thought I would see the bright side of things, by listing off the ways my legacy was cemented at the company or rattling off a pithy list of ways I am differentiated in the value I bring (of course, all under the context of it not being enough under their supreme judgement). I’m tired of people telling me no. Rejecting me for their perceptions of what is good, what is right, what is desirable. They think that the society is run by them. They reject with good intention. They do it for the best of us, because they know best. Well, fuck them. I’ll show them the world that they could’ve never imagined. to top it all off, shishir sent me a parting message. I think i’m the person with the longest tenure to get laid off. That stings. It was nice to receive the various notes from people I’ve worked with who told me that they couldn’t imagine a coda without me or that they were absolutely shocked to hear. I mean of course, when you get laid off, people should send you nice messages, but it was a bit heartening to hear that people were genuinely flabbergasted, left without words. The hardest part is the shame. The manufactured shame that comes from some deep leftover nugget of wanting to please people that I don’t care for, wanting to be legible in a society that is built on the backs of laborers and cutting corners and bullying your way to the top. I feel enraged. I feel betrayed. I gave my life, and I wasn’t even given the respect to have space to say goodbye. I’m reminded of the poem “half lovers.” I knew in my heart something was wrong. It was not the whole I was looking for. I was giving parts of myself to an idea and a world that was already out of my control, that was already seeking to root me out and other insurgents. There are few at the company left who will push the ideas I championed. They have achieved hivemind control.
So in an act of either divine retribution or comic relief or a bit of both, I was laid off today. If you are