My household has gone through 4 layoffs since 2022. Here's what I've learned.

And what I'm still learning, despite the fact that this keeps happening!

I started this Substack in March of 2023, when I was 20-something weeks pregnant and had just been laid off for a second time in a 13 month period.

I felt lost, scared, stressed, but also ultimately had this sense of comfort buried deep down knowing that somehow, everything would work out and hindsight would be the best gift. Since then, my husband has been laid off 2x. Once last December, a few weeks before his paternity leave ended and again 2 days ago. So as a family, our current score sits at 2-2 (and as I said in my last LinkedIn post, I am really okay with a tie here).

I’m not going to sit here and say I am an expert in layoffs, because that’s not something I really want to claim. But I’ve been here before¹ and I guess I’ve learned a thing or two about how I like to navigate these moments. To be clear, I’m not writing this as an advice thing or things you should do if you’ve been laid off. As I said I’m not an expert. The Finance People™ will probably disagree with some of what I say, the Job Search People™ will probably disagree with some of what I say, the Mental Health People™ will probably disagree with some of what I say, and other people who have been laid off will also probably disagree with some of what I say. And that’s cool — we all go through life things differently. So I am sharing what I have learned, and if you learn something too that’s cool.²

Without further ado or preamble, here are the things I’ve learned having gone through 4 household layoffs in under 3 years.

This fucking sucks

It always sucks, and that initial shock doesn’t ever get easier. If you saw it coming (which is often, but not always, the case) it still sucks. If you didn’t see it coming it really sucks. If you didn’t like the job you were in and were interviewing elsewhere already, it still fucking sucks.

A layoff to me feels like this major upheaval that you’re not given the space to prepare for. It’s this massive change that strikes like a bolt of lightning, immediately impacting everything it touches and we’re left scrambling to figure it all out. The tarot card ‘The Tower’³ is such an apt analogy for a layoff. There’s ‘stillness’ (aka life moving as it does), and then with a crashing force comes destruction.

So yes, this fucking sucks.

It’s okay to feel that and wallow (for a bit)

For me, when anything happens out of my control I want to immediately jump into solution mode. Make the list. Set the plan. Get moving. It’s how I cope, but I’ve learned that the moments I don’t let myself feel the hard stuff first are the ones that come back to bite me later. I’ve also learned that feeling the suck doesn’t mean wallowing forever — it means giving myself permission to sit in that discomfort, process it, and then move forward.

The first time I was laid off (in February of 2022) I had a lot going for me. I was coming from a publicly traded company that had been in the news a lot over the past few months. The market was also vastly different, and there were just more jobs out there. When I shared on LinkedIn that I was laid off, I was inundated with DMs and emails (like hundreds!). I also had the cushion of decent severance.

I took a week to not look at DMs, to not worry about jumping into a search, and to do whatever I needed to recover. The second time I was laid off, I had no severance and had a ticking clock of a due date looming over my head. I still took a moment to breathe, to go to a friend’s house for dinner and take a long walk, before I jumped in to my first interview 24 hours later.

So even if this feels immediate, you have some time. Give it to yourself.

BUT don’t wait too long before applying for unemployment

Unemployment varies by state, and I can only speak to the process in New York, but the website is clunky and there are all these weird rules and waiting periods you have to abide by. I’ve heard stories from folks of waiting months before their first payments in other states, and it’s overall an incredibly confusing process (so much so that every time I go through it I completely block it out and have to learn all over again! So this is the one thing I let myself do pretty much right away because it’s a garbage process and I’m not losing out on even one week of that precious unemployment money.

Also, if you don’t know if you should apply for unemployment because of whatever is circling in your head—you absolutely should. You have been paying into it for as long as you’ve been working. It’s insurance that you’re entitled to for exactly these moments.

Lean into community (even if you really don’t want to)

It’s tempting to hunker down and try to figure everything out alone, but layoffs have taught me how valuable community really is. Whether it’s reaching out to friends, family, former coworkers, or LinkedIn connections, people genuinely want to help. It feels awkward at first — like you’re asking for too much — but those moments of connection can bring unexpected opportunities, whether it’s advice, an introduction, or just someone validating how much this sucks.

So go ahead, share that awkward LinkedIn post, reach out to connections that might be able to help with introductions, and get dinner with a friend.

I am more than my job!

The first time I got laid off, I felt like I lost a huge part of who I was. It took me a while to realize that the job was just one part of my life, not the whole thing. A layoff forces you to redefine what matters to you outside of work — your relationships, your hobbies (or discovering new ones), the ways you spend your time when the hustle isn’t in the picture. It’s a weird gift, but it’s a gift nonetheless.

Maybe you’ll get to spend more time in nature if that’s your thing, maybe you’ll pick up the dusty guitar/knitting project/painting/app you’ve been developing for years/whatever hobby you don’t usually have time for. Maybe you’ll start a Substack that you only come back to in times of crises!

The money stuff sucks

Talking about finances after a layoff is uncomfortable, but it’s unavoidable. It’s emotional and it’s something that needs to be planned. Severance helps but isn’t always there. I very much understand why the financial advice is ‘keep 3-6 months of expenses in an emergency fund’ is so prevalent, but there is insane privilege in having that much money just squirreled away. If that’s not your situation, that’s okay. Most Americans are in the same boat. People lose their homes and go into serious debt during these times. It’s awful and it’s hard — I want to hold space for all of the potential outcomes here.

Money is incredibly personal. I really don’t want to give too much advice here especially, knowing all of our realities and situations are different, and there is a lot of privilege that I still have even as it gets hard, and privilege you may or may not have reading this.

What I do is take an honest accounting of what I have, what I need, and what I can live without. It’s okay to feel scared — the uncertainty here is probably the scariest part of a layoff. But if you have the privilege to do so, try not to let it consume you.

Layoffs aren’t personal

Every time I’ve been laid off, I’ve had this voice in the back of my head saying, You weren’t good enough. That’s why. Even when I know it’s not personal, it can feel deeply personal. What’s helped me is reframing: Layoffs aren’t about your worth or your talent — they’re about business decisions that often have nothing to do with you (which is frustrating in its own way — what do you mean this massive event that impacts my life in a really serious way has nothing to do with me????) The challenge is to separate what happened from who you are. It’s not a fault thing, it’s just the result of some external force that moved too quickly to prepare for.

Grieve the old plan, dream a new one

This is a big one for me. A layoff doesn’t just disrupt your finances but it also messes with your whole vision of the future. The plan you had for your career, your family, the baby you may be carrying due in a few months, your next big move, etc. And that deserves to be grieved! Once I’ve let myself feel that loss, though, I’ve found there’s space to imagine a new plan — one I didn’t even know I wanted until the old one fell apart.

And this can be really really hard, especially when you don’t know what the future holds. How can I change my plans if I don’t know when I’ll be able to reach them? I deal with this in a few ways. First, I acknowledge that hindsight will make everything clearer. So easy to say, but it’s something that I personally have to cling to. There are plans that I didn’t envision that, for whatever reason, are going to be better for me.

Take some time to reflect on your career

Layoffs suck, but I’ve seen them to be good times to really get clear about what I want out of my career and next steps. When I was laid off in 2022, I decided I wanted to get back to my roots in startups and work at a smaller company. I also decided I wanted to get exposure to a new industry, but build on my interests in mobile product. I ended up doing that! I worked at a ~30 person pre-launch startup (about 12 by the time I was laid off) and got great experience in a more regulated industry. When I was laid off from that job, I wanted to stay firmly in the consumer product space, working on a product that already has decent reach. Again, I found a role that aligns with that goal.

I still took all types of interviews — I interviewed at e-commerce companies, larger mobile apps, B2B/SaaS, non-profits, media/news publications, and more backend/technical driven places. I personally will take almost any interview (which I know a lot of people disagree with) but it works for me. I can give 30 minutes of my time to have a conversation. Often, it narrows down what I either like or don’t like. Having the time to explore, have chats with people in different industries, etc is something that is hard to come by. I know people who’ve switched industries all together, who’ve gone into consulting, and who’ve gone back to school after a layoff because they had the time to reflect on what they actually wanted. So many of us have careers that happened to us, rather than have sought them out.

Phew!

And so, here we are. Four layoffs deep as a household, with lessons learned, plans made and unmade, and a lot of feelings processed along the way. It’s not linear. It’s not tidy. It’s messy, uncomfortable, and sometimes even funny in the darkest, most absurd way.

I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t think I ever will. But I’m learning to be okay with that. Life is unpredictable, and layoffs are just one (terrible) way that unpredictability shows up. What I do know is this: we’re resilient in ways we don’t always give ourselves credit for. And even in the messiest moments, there’s a chance to rebuild — sometimes into something we didn’t know we wanted.

So here’s to hindsight, resilience, and the weird, winding paths we find ourselves on. And here’s to anyone navigating their own layoff or upheaval right now. It sucks. It really does. But you’re not alone, and you’re more than capable of figuring out what comes next.

See you for the next crisis (or hopefully something way less dramatic).

1. and each time it happens I hope it won’t happen again (and always believe it to be true, despite history repeating itself).

2. sometimes I learn a lot from other people by disagreeing with them too. If I see an opinion I don’t agree with, it sometimes makes what I do believe to be extra clear. So if that’s how you learn from me, I think that’s great too.

3. Here’s my favorite interpretation of this card, using the deck I use most often. I pulled this card the DAY before my husband was laid off this time around — woof.