On being laid off
I got laid off.
Like so many other companies this year, Pleo has been forced to restructure, and, as a result, laid off 15% of its workforce from one day to the next – including me.
Last Thursday, I woke up, got my son ready for school, had five minutes to spare so checked my mail, and boom; “Your role is impacted by a company-wide restructure.”
I got halfway to work that morning before turning around and going home.
Slack exploded. No one knew who was staying and who was leaving. Jeppe, the CEO, was visibly emotional during the company announcement on Zoom. People silently wiped their eyes. People had their cameras turned off. People had their cameras turned on. Not a single smile. It was tough.
Eventually, I closed my computer and stared into space.
It took me a while to realise that what I felt was grief. Pure and simple. I am so very sad that I can’t continue my journey at Pleo. I thought I’d be there for years. I should have been there for years. It just got better and better. After tripling headcount within a year, the dust had finally begun to settle and the teams, structures and processes were forming which would help us drive our teams and areas forward. The content team was just on the cusp of going from great, to really great. It is so incredibly frustrating that I can’t be a part of that.
And the people. What a fantastic bunch of humans.
One of the very last tasks I did before closing my computer on Wednesday was a small do-me-a-favour task; a sense and grammar check of a presentation before it went to the designers. It was all about culture and how important it is to make your values part of the hiring process, and Pleo does exactly that.
The last step of the five-step interview process at Pleo is a values interview. The job is basically in the bag, so the interviewee relaxes. They’re a little more themselves, unguarded in a way they’ve not been during the other steps.
How are you? Where do you live? How do you feel about Pleo? Plans for the weekend? Plans for your role at Pleo? That kind of thing.
The interviews are always fun to do (my favourite, incidentally, was Jack Mackie. An extremely affable social media manager who turned Pleo’s social media accounts around in the all-to-brief time he was there (another victim of the restructure). If you need a social media manager, snap him up; he won’t be free for long).
It helps make sure we all get along. And we do (we did). Which makes it so heartbreaking to have it taken away.
So, I spent the weekend focusing on my son. We went to the countryside.
We played Rotten Sprouts. Labyrinth. We built LEGO sets. We watched a couple of films. We went for a walk under the blue sky and warmed our faces in the warm autumnal sunshine. We sat in front of a fire and talked about Christmas. It was healing.
And now, Monday morning, I’m here. Looking at LinkedIn.
I know it’ll be OK. I know it was all beyond my control. I know I’ll find something that’ll make me look back and be grateful for everything that happened. Because life, as a wise man once said, is a rollercoaster. Just gotta ride it.
Anyway. Hire me. I’m available.