For my colleagues at Microsoft, and for everyone else standing in the same line, at every other tech company that hasn't made the headlines yet.
There's a very specific kind of silence that follows a meeting invite with no agenda, sent by someone from HR you've never spoken to. If you've had that meeting, you know the silence I mean. If you haven't yet, I hope you never do, but statistically, across this industry right now, that's wishful thinking.
I spent 23+ years at Microsoft. Long enough to watch reorgs come and go like weather systems. Long enough to believe, somewhere in the back of my mind, that tenure meant something, that 18 years, or 25 years, or even a "mere" 10 years of showing up, solving problems, mentoring the next hire, and defending the roadmap in front of a skeptical VP would all accumulate into something resembling security.
It doesn't. Not anymore. Maybe it never fully did, but the illusion held longer than the reality did.
"This Isn't Personal. This Is Business."
You will hear some version of this sentence. It will be said gently, by someone who is probably also uncomfortable, in a room or on a Teams call designed to be as brief as possible. You will be thanked for your contributions. You will be told the decision reflects "organizational efficiency," "a shift in strategic priorities," or my personal favorite, "the need to invest in future growth areas," which is corporate-speak for we've decided the future doesn't include you, specifically.
And here's the part that will distress you most: the logic often isn't there. I wrote about this before in "Are You on THE List?" and I'll say it again plainly, because it deserves to be said without euphemism: sometimes there is no defensible reason. Not one that survives contact with your actual performance reviews, your actual impact, and your actual years of doing exactly what was asked of you. Stop looking for the logic. You may search for years and never find it, because it may simply not exist. What exists is a spreadsheet, a target number, and a deadline to hit it by.
This is happening at scale. Not just at Microsoft, but across Google, Amazon, Meta, Salesforce, Intel, SAP, and dozens of companies whose layoffs never trend because they were clever enough to call it a "voluntary program" or spread it out in smaller waves, so no single headline captures the total. Don't let the absence of a viral news story fool you into thinking you're somehow unusual or that you did something wrong that others didn't. You didn't. This is an industry-wide event wearing thousands of individuals' quiet, undramatic disguises. And this may be wave 5 or 6. Does it end there? Nope! Unfortunately, not. These waves are coming more often and with shorter intervals.
The Drug Nobody Warns You About
I'll say something that might sound strange coming from someone who has never battled real addiction, and I say it with full respect for people who have lived that fight and know a depth of it I can't claim to understand. But there is a real, measurable withdrawal when a company has been your identity for decades.
The badge. The email signature. The recruiter's eyes light up when you say your name. The status that told you and everyone else who you were before you'd said a single word. That's not vanity. That's structure. That's the scaffolding you built your sense of self on, one product launch, one all-nighter, one performance cycle at a time. And when the ticket is handed to you, that framework isn't gently disassembled. It gets pulled out from under you, mid-step.
So yes, call it a detox, because that's honestly the most accurate word I have for it. And like any real detox, it is not supposed to be quick or comfortable.
Grieve. Actually Grieve.
I'm not going to hand you five bullet points on "resilience" and tell you to update your LinkedIn banner by Friday. That's not help; it's bypassing.
What you're feeling, including the anger, the numbness, the 2 a.m. spiral of wondering what you did wrong, and the strange grief for a place that, if you're honest, also frustrated you plenty over the years, is all real, and none of it is a character flaw. Losing a job after a decade or two isn't a scheduling inconvenience. It's a loss. It takes the shape of other losses: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and eventually, if you let the process run its course, acceptance. You don't get to skip steps just because the org chart moved on without you the same day.
Be angry if you're angry. Cry if you need to. Tell your partner, your friends, your dog, this article, or anyone who will listen, exactly how unfair it feels. That is not a weakness. That is the only honest way through it. People who suppress this phase and "power through" straight into a frantic job search usually pay for it later, in a role they took out of panic rather than choice.
And Then, Not Before You're Ready, the Pivot
Here's the part I actually believe, not as a platitude but as someone on the other side of it: this ticket, as brutal as it feels right now, is also an opening. Not a consolation prize. An actual opening.
You spent years, maybe decades, inside one company's definition of what your skills were for. That definition was never the whole truth about who you are. It was one very good, very demanding chapter. There is a version of your next chapter that not only replaces the paycheck but also corrects the parts of the old one that quietly wore you down. More acknowledgment. More fit. Less politics. Something you choose on purpose, instead of something you fell into twenty years ago and never left.
That version doesn't show up on day two. It shows up after the detox, after the grieving, after you've stopped flinching every time your phone buzzes with a calendar invite.
You Are Not Alone in This
If you're reading this because you just received your ticket, I truly am sorry. Not a corporate apology, but the kind that comes from understanding your situation. I've been in your place and know how silent a house can become on a Tuesday when your usual schedule was packed with back-to-back meetings, all while you're trying your best to make a difference.
Take the time you need. The roller coaster will still be there when you're ready to get off. What comes after it doesn't have to be smaller than what you're leaving behind.
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