A 15-minute meeting with HR turned up on my calendar. I knew what it meant

A 15-minute meeting with HR is a death knell for tech workers. And last week, one popped into my calendar. But I’m not alone.

An estimated 90,000 people around the world have lost their jobs at US-owned tech companies this year, spurred by the AI cliff, US recession fears and the boom/bust cycles of tech. For many of us unlucky workers, the news is being broken via a meeting invitation.

Getting fired face to face is one thing, but US big tech has a way of making the process dehumanising.

There had been whispers of a restructure at the tech giant firm which employed me until a week ago, so I’d fallen into the habit of waking up and reaching for my phone to see if today was the day.

Then the day arrived. I woke up to find one of my kids had hopped into bed some time in the last half hour and was laying on me, talking excitedly about Minecraft. Groggily, I reached for my phone and opened my work emails to see a slew of emails had popped in at about 2am. A jolt of adrenaline hit me. It’s happening.

The first said that a restructure was underway, and that affected workers would receive a meeting invitation within the next hour. Then there was another email saying that if you hadn’t received a meeting invite yet, you were safe. I quickly switched from email to my calendar and sure enough, there it was. A mandatory 15-minute meeting at 9.30am. I was not safe this time.

A small moment of panic hit me. Suffocated by the small, talkative child, a new kitten, the blankets, the impending death of my career, hysteria took hold and I wrestled my way out of the room to shut myself in the bathroom. I needed a second to process this news.

I’m losing my job. I’m going to be unemployed. You were ready for a change, I reminded myself. You could be a consultant, or a sea urchin harvester! This is good.

I found my husband in the kitchen and went in for a hug. Usually at this point in the day, we draft a battle plan of drop-offs, pick-ups, evening meetings and after school commitments.

“OK, so I guess I’m doing drop off and pick up today?” I offered with a weak smile. “Plenty of time to go spearfishing in between.”

Some people would book a massage or meet a friend after receiving bad news but time in the ocean is how I calm my mind. So I packed my beach bag and dropped the kids off at school, who excitedly told anyone they encountered, “Mum is getting fired today!”

The meeting was short, confirming that yes, my job was “affected”. It turns out almost half the team had a similar meeting, and I was in reassuringly good company.

I headed for the beach and dove in, snorkelling around. I would feel a surge of elation – a new start! Time for something different! Then the hurt would settle in – why me? How did they choose who went? I stayed in the water for two hours and by the time I was drying off in the sun, the highs and lows had settled to a general sense of acceptance. But one thing stuck in my craw: Call me old-fashioned, but I like to be told face to face or at least over the phone that I’ve lost my job.

I’m somewhat of a connoisseur at redundancies, having been laid off three times now after making the fateful decision to pursue journalism as a career.

My first was with a major media company. All staff in my division were called into a meeting on a quiet floor above the newsroom. Our feet sunk into the plush carpet as we filed in and sat around a grand table waiting for the top brass to arrive.

“Maybe this is like an episode of Oprah and we’ll all be given a new car,” the sports reporter joked.

We soon got the gut punch – the business was changing strategy. We all lost our jobs. To the boss’s credit, he looked us in the eye, answered our questions and said he was truly sorry. I felt like I’d lost my identity. I was “Cayla the journalist”. Without the role, who am I?

In that moment, it was clear to me I’d never get a job in media again. After all, there were 20 of us all job seeking in a shrinking industry.

But I wasn’t alone with my thoughts. We filed into a dingy pub and took turns consoling each other, drinking beers and swapping contacts. But by that afternoon, I had lined up an interview with the editor of the soon-to-be launched digital title.

My second redundancy came while I was on maternity leave. The editor called me a week before to say it “wasn’t looking good”. When I saw she called again the following week, I balanced my eight-month-old on my lap and braced for the news. She told me with compassion and honestly. There was a sense that we were all in it together and a week later she invited the whole team to her apartment for an epic farewell.

Big tech does layoffs differently. There’s a misplaced focus on announcing all global redundancies at the same time – US time. Instead of empowering local managers to tell their teams face to face, we have this disenfranchising experience of being made redundant by a meeting invitation. Alone, in our homes. One of my colleagues was up at 2am and caught the email live. I’ll bet the hours from 2.30am to 9.30am waiting for confirmation she had lost her job was hell.

So here’s my ask to global tech companies – empower local managers to handle redundancies. Let us laid-off workers be told by someone who knows us, in our time zone.

Anyway, it’s time to move on. I’ve had redundancies that felt like an attack on my identity, but this one actually feels pretty good. I know who I am, I know what I want and if this whole career thing doesn’t work out, I’ll change my LinkedIn title to “sea urchin harvester”.

Cayla Dengate is a journalist.

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