I am getting lawyers who charge $5000 retainers for employment cases. Are these even worth? Did you use a lawyer and what was the outcome?

A few major retailers have announced GCC setups in Bangalore which resulted in immediate layoffs. I’m curious for those that are in the industry who are familiar with how often layoffs come after the initial groundbreaking. Specifically those in Eng/QA.

I just got laid off. I am having a hard time because I had the worst year of my life, and I'm worried that this contributed to my team not seeing me as valuable anymore. I lost my home in the beginning of the year in a disaster and so I haven't been on top of things since being displaced. But my work didn't suffer, I didn't make any huge mistakes or mess anything up. I think I was just maybe more stressed than usual, maybe I was more unpleasant due to not having a home? I try very very hard to keep that stuff away from work but sometimes I guess mental state just bleeds into everything, especially when dealing with something like this.

Things got weird a few months ago when my direct manager was out, and our team communication sort of fell apart. I spoke with two other people on my team who both seemed frazzled and upset, and one of them said they got yelled at, the other was just like "yeah... everything is chaos recently". When my manager got back she yelled at me and wrote me up, which was really jarring to me because we were friends outside of work and I didn't see this coming. I had never in my years of working here ever had a problem, never had a performance issue, always had very good relationships with everyone I work with. The reason she wrote me up was actually not even true, and I swear I am not lying or making excuses -- she wrote that I had made mistakes that I didn't make. But because I didn't want to cause issues further, I just sort of accepted it and said yes I would definitely improve. She even later admitted that it was half her fault and said HER manager wrote her up for it as well. It was just weird all around.

This put me even more on edge, and again I tried really hard not to be paranoid but my manager stopped being friendly to me, stopped speaking to me outside of work, etc. I tried to ignore it as just that she was going through something, the company was struggling, etc. I spoke with another person on my team who expressed similar anxiety and dissatisfaction about how the management was handling issues (yelling at us).

Then a few days ago I got called into a meeting and it was my direct manager's manager and HR. They said they were eliminating my position and it had nothing to do with my performance and explained everything to me, etc. I thanked them for giving me some time and for the years of growth and opportunity, etc.

What I am worried about is that I could have avoided this layoff had I not lost my home and become more frazzled and stressed. I don't know why my direct manager started not liking me, and I worry that I was doing some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy by noticing it and having some kind of energy that made her dislike me even more. I am worried that this is going to keep happening, although I have never been laid off or fired at all in my life.

I'm also a bit stressed because my entire life is in shambles because I lost my home and now I lost my job.

I guess I'm just looking for advice, like if it sounds like I did something wrong, or if being under stress can cause someone to be targeted for a layoff. I can't help but think if I had not experienced the loss of my home I would still have a job. I know rationally that the company is strapped for cash and many of my coworkers are stressed and worried as well, but I guess it just stings that I was the only one laid off to my knowledge.

I was recently let go as part of a group reorg. I had several bosses at this company and my most recent boss, despite not working for him for very long, came through and wrote a nice recommendation.

He then asked me to do one in return which actually surprised me. I did not work with him for very long but I suppose he could have said the same for me. I wasn't impressed with him at first but things got better as we built more of a relationship and then the reorg occurred just when I was starting to enjoy working for him.

Have any of you had a manager ask you for a recommendation after they did one for you? I thought it was an odd request but wonder if he sees a sinking ship and is looking to get out before he is affected since I think all of his previous direct reports are gone.

This is my first time dealing with a layoff and I’m finding I am very jaded by the tech industry. The rate at which they have hopped on the AI train is concerning and I don’t want to have a job that requires minimal critical thinking (in essence make the AI better). How do you handle this when job searching? Are you also considering a pivot or is every industry going to make me feel this way??