Earlier this month, at an 8:15 AM Monday one-on-one video call with my new boss, he said, “Hold on. Someone else is joining us.” My heart sank a little, and at the same time, a lightness filled me. A young woman from “People Services” joined, and after some other blah blah blah I wasn’t processing, I heard, “Your position has been eliminated.” After some other scripted details were recited, the call ended after about five minutes. I scrambled to send a Microsoft Teams message to my team and a larger team I worked with daily. It read:

Goodbye

I was just laid off.

A minute later, I stared at this:

Even though I had hoped for this outcome, hearing the words still stung. If they could cut me loose, what did that say about my performance? I thought about my team and what would happen to them. I wondered if they or others were impacted. I later learned that while my team was safe, others were not. One of the things I’m thankful for is that I don’t have to work. I was planning to retire at year’s end. Others don’t share my good fortune, and the tech job market is brutal right now. Tech layoff estimates in 2025 range from 100,000 to 180,000. It looks like the trend will continue. Just this week, “MIT released a study that found that artificial intelligence (AI) can already replace 11.7% of the U.S. labor market, or as much as $1.2 trillion in wages across finance, health care, and professional services.”

For the last year and a half, I’ve worked with AI. I don’t believe all the hype. AI is incredible technology, but it does “hallucinate” and is highly dependent on the quality of the data it uses. I believe most companies are lacking in that area. It’s the decades-old “garbage in, garbage out” rule of computing.

A couple of weeks in, and I’m not sure this “retirement” thing is for me. Not yet, anyway. I’ll think about what I want to do over the holidays and go from there. I’m thankful I have the option to take that time. Some of my former peers and many others younger than me are probably scrambling for the few available jobs, terrified for their future and how they’ll take care of their families and pay the bills.

Be thankful if that’s not you.