Photo: TikTok
Hours after meeting the new hires, disaster struck.
By Hawthorn Martin — Written on Apr 28, 2023
For many of us, an unsuspected layoff is a nightmare, even more so without a guaranteed severance package, and for one unfortunate employee, that nightmare became a reality.
The worst part? She had met two new hires for the company just that morning.
On Monday morning, Jaylene received a call from her boss that dropped the terrible news: she had been fired due to company budget cuts.
The now-unemployed woman went to TikTok to explain her situation and vent her frustrations.
“It was so out of nowhere,” she said.
Jaylene recounted attending her usual Monday morning meeting, with everything seeming to be proceeding as usual. “They even introduced two new joiners to the business,” she pointed out, further highlighting that she had no reason to be concerned.
After all, if her company was bringing on new people, that had to mean everything was fine, right? Unfortunately, that was not the case.
After the meeting had ended, Jaylene explained that she got started on her usual tasks for the workday, and then received a message from her manager asking how she was, and if she had the time to jump on a call.
According to her, this was a regular occurrence. He would give her a call to discuss weekly tasks “all the time,” so it didn’t seem that anything was wrong.
It wasn’t until the two actually got on a call, and Jaylene asked her manager how he was that she realized something was very wrong.
“We’re letting you go,” he said, dropping those nightmarish words out of the blue.
Stunned, Jaylene could only listen as he explained his reasoning, citing budget cuts and recession for the decision, and told her that the company was going to operate in a “last one in, first one out kind of situation.” He then scheduled her for a meeting with HR to discuss the process of letting her go, where she quickly realized that she wouldn’t be getting any sort of help.
Because she had only been with the company for 5 months, she was still in her “probation” period, and thus would not be entitled to any form of severance.
Heartbroken, she was forced to walk away with only an apology.
“I moved countries for this job,” Jaylene explained, feeling understandably betrayed. “Like, I left Denmark for this.”
Many people in the comments began to share their support, offering her condolences and well wishes for finding better and brighter opportunities soon. Some are even sharing in her struggle, sharing similar stories to help her feel less alone.
Despite everything, Jaylene seems to be handling the situation well and made a follow-up video explaining her attitude. In it, she explained that although the situation was obviously upsetting, she had a lot of hope for the future.
“It feels like the end of something, but also the start of something else,” she said, as she showed TikTok a rainbow that had just appeared outside of her window.
She also emphasized that she had only been with the company for five months, so as frustrating as the loss was, it didn’t feel like she had wasted years of her life.
In her former job, there wasn’t as much opportunity to grow as she had hoped for, and she expressed an interest in finding better places to apply her skills and future. She was determined to make a plan, and figure things out, regardless of how much life tried to knock her down.
“It's not a great time to be unemployed,” she stated. “But, yeah, it won't last forever. Nothing ever really does.”
Jaylene has made several other videos documenting her “unemployed” life as she has tried to find the joy around her while looking for new jobs and not letting her setback get the most of her.
Hawthorn Martin is a news and entertainment writer living in Texas. They focus on social justice, pop culture, and human interest stories.