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Comment by superfrank | Hacker News Reader

> be kind to people facing layoffs. Losing your job is awful in the best of circumstances; going through it in such a public and charged situation must be emotionally grueling. Be kind.

At the beginning of covid, I got laid off from a company the day after I accepted a new job at a different company. I had a meeting with my boss to put in my two weeks in the afternoon, but I woke up to an 9am meeting with our CTO where our entire team was let go. Since I got let go instead of quitting I got severance and health care for a few months and was able to file for unemployment, which allowed me to take 6 weeks in between jobs instead of the 2 I was planning.

It was literally the best possible scenario I can think of for getting laid off and it still fucking hurt to be let go.

Seriously, please remember be kind to the people going through this.

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I was once laid off from a company on a Friday but they really wanted to keep me so they told me to call back Monday to see if anything changed (very small company a long time ago). On Sunday I broke my ankle playing touch football and the doctor said I was probably eligible for disability. Called the company back on Monday, they cancelled the layoff and I went on disability for eight weeks then right back to work with them.

Curious, what do you do? I would think that you could only go on disability if you had a job that required you to walk around, which I think would be a small minority of HN commenters.

Not the parent commenter, but I was on disability as a SWE following abdominal surgery since I couldn't drive to work and working remotely wasn't allowed by my employer at the time (2006).

So despite my job having me in a chair all day, my inability to get _to_ my job required a couple of weeks on short-term disability until I got cleared to drive.

I've known people (programmers) who were on extended periods of disability due to lower body injuries because sitting for long periods of time caused them a lot of pain / exacerbated their disability / hindered their recovery.

Understood, but I've broken my ankle before, and I can't imagine any scenario where that would apply. Heck, tons of days I program from my bed.

< Heck, tons of days I program from my bed.

I spent a couple of years often working from bed and now deeply regret it. Us programmers are sedentary enough already. Please take care of your health and stay as active as possible so you don’t end up with chronically elevated weight, BP, cholesterol, and all the other signs of metabolic malfunction as you get older.

This was before the internet was widespread.

Well, I didn't own a car at the time - commuted by bus. Good enough for the doctor to sign the letter.

I had a miserable job that I absolutely hated before my career in tech. I was saving up money to last me through going to a coding bootcamp and had just sat down and calculated that I needed $X more. I got called into a meeting and laid off and given a severance check for almost exactly $X. I still cried on the way home, even though looking back objectively it was one of the best things that ever happened to me

Glad you were able to get through this. The severance is especially nice.

> and was able to file for unemployment

Reminder to people that H-1b holders are not eligible for unemployment claims. They pay INTO the system but are not allowed to take out of the system

Also true for small business owners.

"It was literally the best possible scenario I can think of for getting laid off and it still fucking hurt to be let go"

Why was it hurting? You already committed to leaving.

A layoff is a form of social rejection.

Feelings are rarely rational.

There is nothing irrational about it being difficult having to accept your evaluation of your worth in the situation did not match theirs, even if it has no material effect on your income, etc.

The same reason that getting dumped by someone who you were about to break up with can hurt.

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