You can always feel it before it’s announced.
The air changes. The casual laughter in the office quiets down. Meetings start getting “rescheduled.” Your CEO suddenly talks more about “runway” and “operational efficiency” than about product vision. People stop making long-term plans.
Layoffs don’t happen overnight. They’re a slow-moving train you can see on the horizon while everyone pretends it’s not coming. Behind closed doors, there’s a spreadsheet. It doesn’t have a title like “Who We’re Letting Go.” It’s called something harmless, like “Resource Alignment” or “Budget Review.” But everyone in that room knows what it really is.
I’ve been in those rooms. The conversations are clinical at first—names, roles, salary costs. Then someone mentions performance, team dynamics, redundancy. It’s the corporate version of death by a thousand cuts. There’s always debate about who should stay, but eventually, the spreadsheet shrinks.
Then comes the hardest part: planning the how.
Do we call them into HR one by one? Do we do a group Zoom? Do we send emails first or after? Do we cut system access immediately? Everything is designed to be “respectful,” but in truth, it’s about minimizing risk.
When the day arrives, it’s surreal. The people who know what’s coming act like everything is normal, answering emails, sipping coffee, forcing smiles. At 9:00 a.m., the calendar invites go out. At 9:05, the first people start disappearing from Slack. By lunch, the office feels different. By evening, it’s a ghost town.
The worst part? The survivors. The ones who didn’t get cut but suddenly feel guilty for still having a badge that works. They keep their heads down, work longer hours, laugh less. The culture shifts overnight—from collaborative to cautious.
People outside the company will read about it in a neatly worded press release: “We’re reducing headcount to focus on our core mission.” Inside, it’s messier. It’s broken friendships, unfinished projects, and a hollow space where there used to be a team.
Layoffs are never just numbers on a spreadsheet. They’re people who had lunch plans next week, vacations booked, kids to pick up from school. And no matter how “necessary” they are, they leave a mark—on the people who go, and on the ones who stay.