Why would there be any grief from a layoff? It’s just a job.
Anyone in mourning because they have to job hunt probably has some bigger issues that aren’t going to be helped in any way by what friends do or do not say.
While the juxtaposition seemed off to me as well, layoffs can have serious consequences. Not everyone (in all situations) can send a few emails and have another well-paying job in a few weeks. I've known especially somewhat later career people in the dot-bomb era who basically never really recovered from a layoff in terms of either career or finances. So, yes, it's just a job with the caveat that you probably want/need to get another comparable one and probably would prefer not to move across the country or even move countries (depending on visas) to do so.
As somebody who's been laid off and fired before, I think the hardest part is not always the money (though it can be), but loss of control.
People say the same thing about having their house broken into, they don't care about material loss, it's the sense of violation and not being safe in their homes that may persist for years that far outweighs money.
So the hard part can be, especially the first time when you don't expect it at all, suddenly having the routine of your daily life ripped away. All the projects, the mentoring, the presentations you were planning, all the coworkers you talked to daily, all gone in a snap.
If you're taken by surprise (which can happen a lot actually, since a lot of people in tech are incredibly awful at giving negative feedback directly and clearly) then you may for years get uncomfortable about any Friday meeting on your calendar from a manager. Or you may have trouble making yourself work at all when a pending layoff is announced.
But in a way it makes you stronger, more able to separate your identity and self-worth from your work.
And, to be honest, some people can be pretty oblivious. I've known people whose work always went through multiple rounds of rework to the point where they were a complete time suck and even had projects just given to someone else to finish. And they were still in complete shock when they were eventually let go.
In addition, even in companies that don't routinely lay people off, there can still be organizational changes and sometimes someone can just be left without a metaphorical desk--especially if the company isn't doing a lot of hiring.
So it would be a completely novel experience for me.
When I was reading through the article however, I got it. Because while I haven't lost a parent yet or lost my job, I have lost a wife. One day I got a call around 5pm Friday that she was a state away and leaving me. Like out of the blue. No idea.
And people kept trying to tell me how I felt. And none of them were right. They offered vague promises of help, but there was nothing concrete. But I knew what I needed to do and just went about the business. The worst thing, the most annoying thing, was people trying to treat you differently and tell you how you feel and ascribe your every thought, word, and action to the event. If you had a rough morning because you spilled coffee on yourself, well it's the event. If you decide to go out to a bar and see people you haven't in a while, well it's the event. Feeling bored at work, the event. Happy, the event. Sad, the event. Upset because everyone is saying everything is about the event, well it's really because of the event.
I can say in my case, I did just want to get on with things. But it's almost like I wasn't allowed to.
And I think that's what the article is trying to convey. Let people handle their internal state the way they want to.
"It's just a job" is a nice idea, but since it's something I do 8 hours a day 5 days a week I try to make it something I enjoy. I enjoy meeting with my coworkers each day, and like the projects I'm doing. I also probably care the least about my job of most of the people I know. For some of my FAANG friends working at a FAANG has been a life long dream. Sure it's easy to say "work shouldn't be important!" but for some people it is.
Most obvious financial insecurity: The tech market is shrinking (I personally think it is collapsing, but that is not a necessary belief to feel grief). Many of the people being laid off right now (and in the future) will have much stiffer competition than before. I have a recently laid off friend who just had a baby. His partner doesn't have a high income job. That's a lot of added stress. To add to this most FAANG employees might not see nearly as high comp as they're used to.
Then there is the serious loss we're going to see with any of our friends that are foreign nationals. I have a few friends on H1B visas. They're a big part of my life, own a home and plan on staying in the US indefinitely. They assumed they were on the path to a green card, which is reasonable given the market when the arrived at the US. It's very possible they will be forced to go back to their home country, never to come to the US again. Not only do these people have a justified reason to grieve, but any of their friends do as well.
And big picture: we're potentially seeing a change in the entire industry, on par with the dotcom bust (maybe worse, maybe better). I'm guessing you're too young to remember but for many people getting laid off in 1999-2000 was the end of their tech career. To get a sense of how big of an impact this has, consider how many of your coworkers are from the dotcom era? I'm guessing not many. The tech industry was huge and exciting then, just like it has been recently. A lot of people got wiped out and never returned to the high times of the late dotcom period.
There's honestly a lot of grief to be felt right now, not just for those being laid off but for those impacted by it indirectly (plus I think we're all waiting for that meeting if we haven't already had it).
I don't think (and hope) things will get to dotcom levels which--you're right--led to a lot of people exiting the industry, especially if they had skills that were fairly transferrable to other types of jobs. Personally, I was extremely lucky when I got laid off to quickly land a lower-paying but otherwise better role and the company (barely) made it through post-2001. Certainly, it was otherwise pretty much crickets otherwise looking for another position and that was the norm.
For many on HN you might be right, but for people living paycheck to paycheck it causes an enormous amount of stress. My dad was a factory worker and got laid off when I was young. It was hard. I was old enough to understand the real stress my parents were under while they tried to pay the bills each month (it's fun having your water turned off which can take 48h to turn back on after you pay smh). Luckily my grandparents helped financially while my dad worked 3 jobs to make ends meet. I was working and gave them the little money I had.
Often though, the decision on who to lay off also considers who might be close to retirement, who might cost more to make redundant (redundancy pay in many places is based on years of service and there might also be long service leave owed), and the mixture of skills and knowledge the company thinks it will need going forward.
Also some people will have built up strong relationships with colleagues, teams and clients through their work. Their potential to continue these relationships typically drops dramatically without it being a regular part of work. That can make some people quite sad personally and frustrated that all of the work developing those relationships will suddenly not be very useful anymore.
If you have a family that relies on your income it can be very stressful. Especially if you don’t have a fund. Uncertainty breeds anxiety.