Chole Shih / Mickella Simone Milller
- A video of a woman filming herself getting laid off from Cloudflare went viral on Tiktok.
- Over the last year, we've seen similar TikToks of people filming themselves getting laid off.
- The videos might cause blowback for the women posting them, but it's good for younger people to see how layoffs work
When Mickella Simone Miller of Salt Lake City had her first meeting of the day canceled, and a message from someone outside her team asking for information about their project-tracking system, she suspected what was coming.
She had worked at this tech company for less than a year on the marketing team but had been through layoffs. "It wasn't my first rodeo," she told Business Insider.
Miller grabbed her phone and started recording herself as she waited anxiously for the inevitable Zoom call later that day, documenting her emotions. "There's things you can't control, and there's things you can control," she explained. "It was definitely an anxiety-filled day, but I could control my emotions around it."
By the end of the video, she was indeed laid off over video chat.
A trend on TikTok that's been simmering for a while but really went mainstream this week has been people (mostly young women) filming themselves getting laid off from their corporate tech jobs.
Last week, one in particular made headlines as the young woman getting laid off from CloudFlare pushed back at the HR rep leading the call.
While painful to watch and sometimes even cringey, these videos are good for workers.
They show what it actually looks like to get laid off: the mysterious meeting appearing on your calendar; what kind of jargon the HR uses, like "offboarding;" who is present or even aware it's happening (in some cases, the direct manager doesn't even know, like a woman who posted last week during her layoff); and how fast things happen (email accounts shut off immediately!).
If you're a young person or new to the workforce, especially at a big company, it's good to know how this all works. It won't necessarily stop you from getting laid off if the ax falls on your department, but demystifying the process is good for workers.
There's a whole world of tips for how to dress for a job interview or write a cover letter, but not much information on what to expect in a layoff — something that seems increasingly likely to happen throughout a worker's career.
These TikToks also destigmatize layoffs — it can't be so horrible or embarrassing if people are willing to post it, right? These videos serve a similar job to a PSA about STIs, showing that, hey, it can happen to anyone; it's more common than you think; you're not alone.
Chloe Shih filmed her shocked reaction to getting an email telling her she was laid off from Discord last week.
"When I posted my video, I was pretty terrified since it's not positive news," Shih told Business Insider. "I shared it with a few colleagues first for a gut check that this'll be a net positive online."
Ultimately, Shih thought it was the right thing to do to share the experience. "My phone was blowing up and flooded with DMs from people who told me that my video made them feel far less alone this layoff season. "
@chloeshih Fs in chat to support pls and ty 🥲 pour one out for the homies who got laid off at @Discord @Google @Twitch @Audible in the last 2 days🍷 #techlayoffs #layoffs #discordlayoff #layoffseason #reaction #techtok #productmanager
♬ original sound - Chloe Shih
Of course, these videos come at some risk of blowback to the people posting them.
Future employers may be concerned about employees who post sensitive workplace meetings on social media. It's even possible that it could risk their severance packages if a video violates a non-disparagement clause in a separation agreement. (It is also probably somewhat unadvisable, although very funny, to film yourself grabbing a handful of the free office snacks on the way out, as one laid-off TikTok employee did on her last day.)
There's a reason that the genre of "day-in-the-life" videos of corporate girlies (for some reason, almost all of these lay-off videos on TikTok are of young women) are so popular. They're interesting and compelling windows for young people into what life in a full-time workforce is like.
Unfortunately, layoffs are a part of that life — and showing how layoffs work and what they look and feel like ultimately empowers workers.