“If you never sat in the exec meetings, you don’t know what you are talking about. Your post is misleading AT BEST.”

….was one of the comments on my post where I praised the guy who took Bolt to court for unlawful dismissal, won the case, and went public with it. 

Ouch. And yet, worth taking seriously, is this how it reads?

Because I am not praising fighting the company for the sake of fighting. 

I am however praising that someone took agency in their hands. And agency can mean different things for different people. 

Most of us see a layoff as something crawling, always close where we would just… need to accept and deal with that. 

I see a layoff as a chance, from day 1. 

When I ask people in my consultations about WHAT THEY WANT in this layoff, some of them freeze. 

Like, does it even matter?

Yes, it does. 

You might want higher severance, find a similar job, change careers, secure longer tenure, take a break, start your own venture, go freelance, hike for a year… 

And all of this – all this agency, leverage in the negotiation, understanding your own wishes and plans, sets you up for success before the layoff, during the negotiations, and the time after it, too. 

You know what you are not getting in the layoff though? Piece of mind, time and information. And you need those three to make the right call and get out of this stronger than before, not weaker and with a damaged self-worth. 

And this is what I’m building. 

An infrastructure for laid off people, that makes them stronger rather then conscious about the fact that they’ve been laid off.