In a viral Reddit post, a tech worker shared how they’re handling the news of being laid off from their job at a large tech company.
In the post, Redditor u/rommateisadumbass, explains that they were laid off from their job but are expected to stay with the company for a maximum of two months. They said their “entire side of things” was laid off in a Teams meeting with no notice. The Redditor and his team members were laid off without severance and are expected to “remain professional and train our (extremely unqualified) replacements until then.”
“I’ve been doing less than the bare minimum at work including laying in bed most of the day today. Shit is piling up, clients are losing their minds, millions of revenue is being lost, etc.” they wrote.
The worker added that they know they shouldn’t care about the amount of work they do for a company that is replacing him, but he still feels “an extreme amount of guilt and anxiety when I am away from the computer.”
However, when the worker sits at their computer and is faced with an inbox with more than 200 messages their brain shuts down and the anxiety comes up, making them want to retreat back to bed.
“Does anyone have any recommendations on dealing with the anxiety/guilt?” u/rommateisadumbass asked.
The post was shared on the r/antiwork subreddit.
Under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN), most employers with 100 or more employees must provide at least 60 days’ notice in advance of plant closings and mass layoffs, according to the United States Department of Labor.
The post has more than 10,000 upvotes and over 2,400 comments as of Wednesday morning.
Commenters were up in arms about the way the poster’s employer laid off the worker and advised the person not to feel guilty and to focus on the job search.
“YOU DON’T NEED TO TRAIN YOUR REPLACEMENTS. What the actual fuck? Start looking for the next job. Why even bother pretending? They told you to remain professional when not giving severance and telling you to train your replacements?” the top comment, with more than 5,200 upvotes, read.
“Loyalty is a 2 way street. they have cast you aside and your loyalty is cast aside with you. Find a new job and dont give them diddly,” another person said.
“No advice. I can’t imagine feeling guilt in this situation, and I would half ass the training of the replacement. I would also be using what company time I had left to redo my resume, job search, and delete all files I ‘owned,'” a further Redditor wrote.
The Daily Dot reached out to the worker via Reddit comment.
