Eleven years. "Dear Googler." 6:15am. A link to a severance calculator.
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Anonymous
Eleven years. I joined when the culture felt genuinely different. I turned down other offers. I believed in the company in a way I'm now embarrassed about.
The email came at 6:15am. It was addressed "Dear Googler." Past tense. It said I was "impacted" by "workforce reductions" and included a link to a severance calculator.
My manager found out when I called them at 7am. They hadn't been told. They cried on the phone. That made it worse somehow.
I don't regret the eleven years. I regret letting the company become my identity. The way they ended it — automated, impersonal, at 6:15am — that's on them.
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