Funny thing, I consider this layoff the second most important event in my life, right after leaving Novosibirsk for Berlin in 2009.
This experience helped me build my first strong offering of my own, helping internationals negotiate higher severance and not get screwed over by the immigration and unemployment systems in Germany.
Now my community, Laid off & fabulous, is growing and changing, and so am I.
I’ve been running a business full time for half a year now, and I can feel myself moving away from the “companies bad” narrative. My focus has shifted from “the employee is always right” to something closer to “if you don’t embrace ownership over your own professional life expect no job to do that for you”. I think most of us forgot that we are the execs over our own act and let companies define it too much.
At the same time, I also see the other reality, where companies proactively create laid off talent out of awesome people. Wrong time, wrong teams. Life happens.
When I’m freelancing in UX Research half of my time to keep the cash flow and my sanity intact, I can 100% say the layoff changed me. No more gossip. No more negativity. More agency. Less time wasted. Maybe it’s easier because I’m always an external, but the shift is damn refreshing.
Seeing different realities crush some people and make other people shine is fascinating.
So yeah, a year later, I’m still processing what happened, but I wouldn’t undo it.
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