Redundancy: When the Rug is Pulled from Under You
How redundancy broke my trust and altered my perspective on job security
Today I have been doing some reflecting on the world of work, primarily around the fact that at any moment our seemingly perfect (or should I say adequate?) situation can be turned on its head in an instant. Not only is this a worrying thought, it is also one which isn’t too farfetched an idea.
I have personally found myself in the midst of a redundancy, something I’d never even considered until it happened to me. Before this I firmly believed it was only the type of thing to see in Big Tech at the likes of Meta, Uber, Google or X (Twitter) where mass layoffs often seem to the norm.
Realize that most corporations are a soulless artifice. No matter if they treated you ‘like family’ or gave you amazing perks and benefits like free lunch and awesome healthcare — at the end of the day you were always replaceable and the corporation does not care.
-The quote above is from the
newsletter (recommended) by , a publication I stumbled across after someone had re-stacked it. In one of his posts, Jim openly discusses his personal experiences with being laid off in 2008 during the Great Recession; speaking in detail of his confusion, anger, sadness and other countless emotions as he was walked off site by a security guard.What Jim describes is the stereotypical scene you often see in movies, with individuals being marched off the premises with nothing but their coat and bag, being told to collect their belongings in a cardboard box at a later date. Despite being painfully harsh, it also highlights the corporate monster that dehumanises the relationships between a business and their employees. As Jim describes in the quote, “you were [are] always replaceable”.
I’m not here to instil fear, but instead make you think about the potential for things to change in a heartbeat. How would you cope in that situation? Do you have a backup plan? I never, and it hit me at the best/worst time possible - during paternity leave with my newborn daughter.
In February 2024 my wife gave birth to a little girl. I found myself suddenly on paternity leave, opting to take an additional 2 weeks on top of the statutory 2 weeks afforded by the UK government to have an entire month at home to find a level of stability. Having the space to pour my focus into supporting my wife and newborn child, the thought of work was way off in the distance.
At the time I was a Head of Engineering at a scale-up SaaS provider and I’d recently helped the business secure an initial round of investment. I was sold the prospect of being able to join the company during its growth, with an opportunity to progress into a Tech Director/CTO position once the investment landed. I was, to some degree, excited to get stuck into making some improvements and building out a bigger team with the additional budget. Naturally over the course of my time away from the desk, I did find myself thinking about some of the things I’d like to tackle when I got back to work. I had some big ideas on how to stabilise the platform, improve developer efficiency (and consequently happiness) and even deliver some solid customer value.
Soon enough, the four weeks was over and I was due to go back to my job with all of these mega plans planted firmly at the forefront of my mind. However, a day before I was due to return (and consequently pass probation) I noticed a tonne of messages from the Managing Director asking for a call. I was tempted to ignore the messages until my first day back, but the tone was different to usual - a more sincere sense of urgency than his norm, a bit of panic if you will. Sure enough I reached out and agreed a time to jump on a call, having a rough inclination as to what might be coming…
Taking a step back, I had been in the role for 6 months by this point. I had already seen the Operations Director laid off (and never replaced), a customer success manager was also laid off, the Head of Product was laid off and replaced with the person who came second in the original interview process, and one of my engineers was laid off a couple of days after I went on paternity leave. As you can rightly imagine, things weren’t exactly rosey and there were definite thoughts of “when will it be my turn for the axe?”.
As it transpired, I had hit the nail on the head. One day before I was due to return the Managing Director got me on a call to tell me that my role was no longer a thing. Due to the investment hitting the company, there would be a need for a CTO position in the business which would replace my Head of Engineering role. As such, I was offered a redundancy option and/or the option to re-apply for the CTO position which was apparently already being interviewed for?! In the same breath I was also told that he didn’t think I had the credentials to fill the CTO role (in other words don’t bother). In the moment I just thanked the Managing Director and said I would consider my options and left the call in a bit of a haze. Despite always having a feeling that this would happen after seeing a worrying trend with other colleagues, it still did come as a bit of a shock.
After a bit of a “wow, is this really happening?” moment, I took some time to process the news and began to thinking about my future. I had a newborn daughter who was merely days old, a wife who was suffering from bad sepsis and now had the news of my job was no longer a thing. However, it didn’t take much mental strain to know I would just accept the redundancy and run for the hills. This didn’t detract from the fact that I would now have to face the job market once again, something I had endured back in June-September 2023 after I left my previous job.
Having experienced redundancy for myself, I now feel different about the world of work. Previously I felt validated by my employers and consequently felt very secure in all the roles I’ve held - but this is no longer the case. I now find myself working with a constant undertone that I can’t quite describe - almost a lack of trust with employers and an ongoing expectation that the rug will someday be pulled from under my feet at a moment’s notice.
Has this impacted my ability to do my job? Kinda…
I just don’t feel as fully connected with companies as I previously did.
Maybe things are still just to raw for me as this was only 8 months ago, maybe they will get better. The only thing I know is that it has stripped a little bit of joy for the job away from me which I really hope I get back. This isn’t to say I can’t function in my role, it’s just that the extra oomph I once got has faded.
Having read into my emotions, it appears that I may be experiencing something known as betrayal trauma1. Although this is something often experienced through abuse/neglect from primary caregivers, it can also be attributed to the workplace as it [the company] is deemed important to sustain one’s wellbeing (e.g. provide funds to buy food, keep shelter etc.). It would certainly explain some of the symptoms:
Dissociation (i.e. from the company, to a degree)
Trust and relationship issues (i.e. not feeling 100% safe in my role, an expectation that something could happen any moment)
The other thing for me to reflect on here is that my experience was very isolated. I know lots of people get made redundant, but in my case it was a very specific redundancy, in a single small company during a set of very specific circumstances under a certain managing director.
I finish today’s newsletter with how I managed to lean into my second round of job hunting in 6 months without much worry.
I’ve been very careful to surround myself with the right network of people over the last few years, on a purpose-driven mission to maintain a healthy mindset. This isn’t about surrounding myself with people who conform to everything I believe in, but instead focussing on cutting out the gossip-makers, gaslighters, back-stabbers and other negative soul-sucking characters in my life. This has meant losing old (so-called) friends, becoming distant with certain family members and even making new friends along the way.
So why am I telling you all this? Because truth be told, had I not gone on this transformative journey when I did, then I know that finding myself redundant would have been a lot harder. There were always the naysayers, the extreme pessimists and those that would simply leverage my situation to spark some gossip amongst “friend” circles. In a way, clearing out my network helped me maintain a level focus on my own mental wellbeing so that I was only left with a supportive (albeit small) network of people who I knew I could lean on when it mattered. To a large degree this support network allowed me to maintain a level of optimism that would have undoubtedly have gone sour. It allowed me to be a glass half full, one door closes means another door opens kind of guy.
I appreciate that simply remaining positive doesn’t mean that you’ll find a job, but it certainly helps when you have to go from application to application and interview to interview. Getting rejection emails weekly (and sometimes daily) is mentally hard at the best of times, so maintaining some level of “there’ll be another opportunity for me” keeps you going. Also, seek the silver linings amongst the otherwise painful situation you find yourself in. As in my case, I saw it as an opportunity to have a lengthy paternity leave with my daughter that otherwise would have been limited to four weeks - this turned into four solid months, allowing me to really bond with her during some of the key moments of her development.
If you are experiencing a redundancy as you read this, I feel for you. There is light at the end of the tunnel and I’m always happy to talk.
Have you experienced a redundancy? Share your experience and tips for getting through what is inevitably a challenging time in the comments.
Thanks for sharing. I've not written much about my personal redundancy experience because I was contractually forbidden to talk about it - but Betrayal Trauma sums it up.
The loss of trust you speak of is part of a wider loss of trust in many institutions that were once relied upon. Politics, the media, the justice system, corporations, charities - and perhaps worst of all, the divisive societal narratives we've become accustomed to are leading us to mistrust each other - the cracks are opening up in every area of life and perhaps underlines the importance of not letting that mistrust pollute our communities any further.
Sorry that you had to go through that, Michael! But glad you got to spend that precious time with your daughter. Even years later I feel the scar of my first layoff trauma and the second one is too recent and painful to talk about much. It really does seem like a bad idea to have any real attachment to one's career now that corporations treat us like interchangeable machine parts.