It all started June of 2023. Me and 100 of my colleagues log on to Zoom. The CEO takes the stage. He tells us, today's going to be a hard day.

And then he says that red flag phrase,

there's going to be some restructuring.

Whenever a company uses the word restructuring,

that means they're going to lay people off.

Naturally, I call my mom up the next day and give her a play-by-play.

And at first it was like, oh my God, this is so bizarre, you know, right?

The CEO tells us 21 jobs will be eliminated and in the next 30 minutes people losing those jobs will receive an email.

The meeting doesn't last for more than 10 minutes. We all log off. I've never experienced a round of

virtual layoffs before and I'm a little shock that it feels like a high-stakes

reality TV show, one where you're being mysteriously boated off the island. I sit back in my chair, hoping

my email doesn't.

First, my friend Taylor gets an email and immediately messages me. I'm like, whoa.

Taylor's been at the company for almost 15 years. She just had a baby, almost died in the delivery room.

The whole company rallied to send her money and food.

The fact that they're laying her off is surprising.

My fiance Eric gets an email.

Shit, that's like half of our income.

Then. like half of our income. Then I get an email. That day my fiance and I both got

laid off from the same company 10 months after we bought our first home, 15 months after we moved

my father in to live with us, two emails and two Zoom calls later, two salaries of income,

gone. You're listening to Dear millennial, navigating adulthood one question at a time.

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