What I Learned From Getting Laid Off

“Business Update.” The two words flashed across my screen sardonically as I opened the meeting invite my manager had just sent most of our team. No context or advance notice was given, and our standing weekly team meeting had been canceled an hour before. The pit in my stomach opened into a wide chasm and I felt adrenaline flood my system: I was about to lose my job.?

In February 2023, Microsoft was one month into laying off 10,000 employees , so when I received a last-minute invitation to a meeting titled “Business Update” I knew exactly what it meant. These two generic, soulless, corporate buzzwords signaled the end of a seven-year career at the tech company, and the beginning of well, a lot of stress, fear, and instability.

I dialed into the meeting late and made a quip about how unreliable Microsoft Teams was and how I wouldn’t miss that. Nobody laughed. The only people with cameras on were my manager and the HR rep who drove the call. My manager's eyes were wet and red as they began to read their assigned script through tears. The HR rep was a lifeless robot, a mouthpiece of a system that literally thought of human beings as “resources.” As they started spewing legalese, the reality - and finality - of what was happening began to sink in. My ears started ringing, my brain fogged over like the inside of a car windshield on a humid winter night, and I felt dizzy and lightheaded. What the hell was I going to do?

In 2018, I co-founded Microsoft’s first global employee sustainability community and helped grow it to 10,000 members over the next 5 years. I spent my final hours at Microsoft helping ensure the community would run and thrive without me. I hosted Ask Me Anything sessions and documented everything I could, but as the hours counted down I realized I was losing more than just my job: I was losing my community, my people. The community was a light in the dark, the place I turned for hope and inspiration to combat climate anxiety and feelings of powerlessness. It took a long time to process the grief of losing it.

But this story is not about that terrible week where I lost my job and my community, it’s about what I’ve learned and done in the year since. It’s about discovering how each of us, laid off or not, is best positioned to confront the climate crisis with our unique backgrounds, talents, and passions as we adapt to a rapidly warming world and cooling job market.?

In the year since I got laid off, I found my path. Perhaps sharing how I found it, and what I learned along the way will save you time or inspire you to think creatively about how to find your own. As I write this in March 2024, 310,000 workers across 1,373 different tech companies have been laid off in the last year, according to Layoffs.fyi . Many are using the opportunity to change careers, move into sustainability work, and find their purpose instead of just their next job.

Rest is Resistance

I had a couple of panic attacks and fainted in public in the immediate aftermath of the layoff. My nervous system was sending me a clear message: we are scared and stressed out. I heard the message loud and clear and acted accordingly.

The first lesson presented itself immediately: rest is resistance . We are bound by our physiological and emotional limits. If we want to remain healthy - and effective in our work to address the climate crisis - we must take care of ourselves. I made time to decompress, get off a computer, and reconnect with the parts of the world, and myself I had been neglecting by working so much. I acknowledge the inherent privilege in being able to do that when so many people cannot. I thought about them often in this period - how could I best serve them? What were the unique levers I could pull on to make systemic change happen? I spent this time learning about environmental racism and climate justice and contemplated how to use my privilege to dismantle oppressive systems.?

I slowed down, made more meals from scratch, picked up my guitar, and focused on being present in my own life. I took a road trip with my dog and my bike, disappeared into the canyonlands of southern Utah, spent time with loved ones, and then sequestered myself in a 10-day Vipassana silent meditation program (these courses are free to all with 200+ locations around the world, please consider going). That experience was so profound and enormous, it’s impossible to explain here, but suffice to say, it gave me the time and space to connect with myself deeply and do some serious healing. I used this time to explore the depths of internalizing work and busy culture as near religions. I studied natural systems and contemplated balance, reciprocity, and holistic wellness, knowing from experience that climate advocacy work is a marathon, not a sprint.

You Are Not Your Job

The religion of Capitalism teaches us that our jobs and labor are much more than the things we do to take care of ourselves and loved ones - they are part of our very identity. Have you ever wondered why one of the first things we ask new people we meet is “what do you do?” with the implication that your job is the primary defining feature of your existence? Many of us have so deeply internalized our careers, we feel we are our jobs. Companies not only know this, they have largely architected it, and actively exploit it to increase their productivity and profits at our expense. They use sophisticated propaganda and manipulation to tie our identity to theirs, attempting to create an emotional bond (in some cases, a not-so-subtle family comparison) so we will put the company’s interests ahead of our own.?

The relationship between employer and employee has historically been one of coercion and exploitation. For millions of people around the world, this is still a daily reality. In places where labor movements succeeded, conditions have improved. Those who came before us had to fight tooth and nail for things we take for granted every day, from the 40-hour work week to the end of child labor.?

If you think those days are behind us, or that those hard-fought victories are irreversible, think again. As I write this, SpaceX and Amazon are fighting in court to have the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) declared unconstitutional . The two richest men on Earth want to dismantle the sole US government agency that holds them accountable for union busting. This is but one example of how companies and industries will exploit their workers and rig the system to maximize profits.?

The bosses know that in this era, making people feel good about their job and company is the key to keeping the wheels turning. That’s why they work so hard to convince you that by working for them “we make the world a better place!” You know the maxims: “our people are our greatest asset” “culture eats strategy for breakfast” ad nauseum. But if you’ve been laid off, you know the reality is something very different.

To be clear, there is nothing wrong with defining your identity through their career or work: but it should be a conscious choice - not the cultural default setting - of how we assess our life’s purpose and self-worth. That is the byproduct of a capitalist system that seeks to reduce the value of everything into numbers and profit. Our relationships with our employers have gone beyond transactional. Now is as good a time as any to pull them back to what they’ve always been: two parties consenting to use each other for mutual benefit and a fair deal.

Trust Your Intuition

As the hazy roller coaster of emotions post-layoff slowly faded (and after an overdose of introspection from the 10-day silent meditation retreat) I obtained new clarity and perspective. I saw glimmers of the opportunities that getting laid off presented, and why the comfort and security I felt working at Microsoft may have been holding me back from doing work that was more impactful and better aligned to my strengths and values.

First, the “golden handcuffs ” are real. It is difficult to leave a comfortable job that provides for your needs and is mostly worth it - especially a tech job with its myriad of perks and benefits. Many of us hesitate to voluntarily leave something that could disrupt our entire lives and introduce instability, especially if we need health insurance or provide for dependents like children and parents. Getting pushed out of a job forces you to adapt. The world looks different outside the mouse wheel of vesting stocks, bonuses, and promotions.?

During my last few years at Microsoft, I had been hearing from customers and others working in sustainability that engaging employees was important, but very challenging to do well. I tried working with its consulting organization to create offerings to address the need, but was never able to make it happen in the bureaucracy of a giant corporation. My intuition said “this is something people will pay you to help with, and it’s a good use of your skills, passions, and experience.” Hearing your intuition is difficult - following it is even harder.

In the white space of unemployment, I learned how to listen to the parts of myself I was too noisy to hear before. I gave myself the space to be curious and prioritized my well-being before throwing myself into another job. I asked myself 6 questions continuously in this period:

1.????? What does the world need from me?

2.????? What can I uniquely provide?

3.????? What do I love?

4.????? What am I good at?

5.????? What can I be paid for?

6.????? How can I do it at a scale big enough to matter for climate change?

As I began to answer them, a path unfolded before me. I couldn’t see the destination or direction, just the next step ahead of me. So, I started walking.

Do It Yourself

Slowly, I got back onto a computer. I activated my network, reconnected with old friends, and warmly invited new ones in, as I asked what they were seeing out there, and how they felt I could be of service to the environmental movement. I did my own research, reading reports, watching lectures, and plugging into communities like Work on Climate and MCJ Collective to see where all the thousands of other laid off workers were going and what they were doing. I was astounded by what I found: tens of thousands of people lined up around the block trying to pivot into sustainability jobs, and a thriving community of climate tech startups backed by venture capital firms servicing an explosion of interest and resourcing into climate solutions.?

When I finally announced I was no longer at Microsoft on LinkedIn , I was floored by the responses. Former colleagues and total strangers piled on, offering support, validation, and even job offers. One really intrigued me: the head of sustainability at an internet service provider company asked if I would attend an upcoming summit at their headquarters and share best practices from the Microsoft employee sustainability community . They were interested in communities of practice and engaging their entire workforce in their sustainability efforts. I was uniquely qualified to help them, so I battled my imposter syndrome and accepted the opportunity: it became the catalyst for me starting my own company.

I launched my consulting business, the Climate Leadership Collective , shortly thereafter. If one company was willing to pay for help engaging their employees in their sustainability efforts, others might be too. I doubled my output of original content: blogs , podcasts , newsletters , interviews , and started designing webinars and workshops to make my content accessible to as many people as possible. I got curious, experimental, and opened myself to the possibility that I could make a living doing what I wanted on my own terms. I had always felt an uncomfortable tension as an employee of a large corporation. I had zero say in who I worked with, directly or indirectly, and inevitably had to do things I did not agree with. One of the most appealing parts of running my own business is that I get to choose who I will or won't work with based on my own criteria, including my values and morals and their demonstrated behavior towards sustainability.

A few months into the journey, I’m loving the freedom, autonomy, and focus that comes from being an entrepreneur instead of an employee. It feels more natural to me and is in line with what my intuition was saying I should do. It was also a logical conclusion that came from reflecting on the nature of work and the relationships between employers and employees. Arriving at this point took a lot of deep inner work and a hefty dose of courage.

Full Circle (Pit)

The final lesson was in order to know where you want to go, you must first know where you came from. In a funny way, starting my own business was a return to my roots in punk rock: the DIY (do it yourself) ethos is a foundational part of punk subculture. From printing merch to booking tours, the only way things got done was if you did them yourself, a lesson that was reinforced during my time working for small environmental nonprofits early in my career. At first, it was terrifying to stake my future and material well-being on running my own company, but then I asked myself “Do I trust myself to figure this out?” The answer was clear. In hindsight, I think I surrendered myself to my intuition.?

In an era of mass layoffs and a rapidly accelerating climate crisis, tens of thousands of people are trying to pivot their careers to align their values with the needs of the living biosphere. “Every job is a climate job ” has become a rallying cry for an entire generation of employees who understand that personal sustainability efforts are the floor - not the ceiling - of what is possible when you align every part of your life, including your working hours, into fighting for a more sustainable future. For some, that means pushing their employers to put more resources into sustainability while creating meaningful opportunities for all employees to contribute. For others, it means starting new businesses, and taking bigger risks to build things no one else has yet. Either way, the climate solutions needed will require people - healthy, whole, and energetically aligned people - to bring them to life and sustain them.

The lessons I learned from getting laid off - rest is resistance, you are not your job, trust your intuition, when in doubt do it yourself, and if you want to know where you’re going, look at where you came from - provided me with what I needed to start a new chapter of my life and career, one that has allowed me to bring all parts of my life into harmony and alignment.

Finding your purpose in work, as in life, requires a deep understanding of yourself, from what motivates you, to what you are uniquely able to provide others. Looking at the intersection of these things is a sustainable way to align your energy with the work so desperately needed to address the climate crisis.?

For those struggling with layoffs: I hear you, I see you, and I am here to support you. Please reach out if you need anything.