Journey In Unemployment Land | 8
Post 8: 8/9/2024
2024-08-09 17:06:23
🗓 Week 9/? in Unemployment Land ended with the announcement of another round of layoffs at Terakeet. Here are my thoughts.
📰 To my colleagues: You are more than the bullet points on your resume. I may not know all of you personally but I trust that you are powerful, savvy, and talented people. The past two years at TK were rough. Take a moment to reflect and do not take your firing personally.
➕ ➖ Let's do some math. When I joined the company in 2022, there were roughly 400 employees. Today, they have less than 200. I do not have the exact numbers but my memory is like an elephant. The workforce at the company has shrunk by almost half.
📊 My stating this fact is not a dig at my former employer. This is simply an exercise in being a market-savvy professional. Covid-19 caused a shift in marketing that required many businesses to hire a largely remote workforce. And many companies are thriving from this shift in hiring practices. Many more fumbled the bag. We, the former TK employees, are witnessing a fierce market correction. The services TK supplied are being brought in-house by clients. This is happening across every industry: fintech, finance, retail, and more. Just take a moment to read the news and it will become clear: TK is not the only one being hit. They just so happened to be a smaller fish in the pond.
🤐 This isn't really the platform to play the blame game. I could do so but I will refrain because you know...professionalism. However, I am open to private conversations with the leadership at TK because I've worked with them during my tenure as the Lead for the BIPOC-ERG. I spent many hours working to create avenues for transparency and those efforts were thwarted. So what I will say is this: you let a lot of people down this year. You smiled and sang about wins that weren't real. And now over a hundred families have to figure out how to survive in the face of rising inflation, rent prices, child care cost, and pet care.
🕊 As I started my journey as an unemployed professional two months ago, I knew this was a hard reset for me. I'm being forced to reinvent myself. I am grateful for my time at TK because I learned so much and I am better for it. I am confident in my abilities. I pray my colleagues (after we've licked our wounds and had a stiff drink) will feel the same.
#journeyinunemploymentland
#layoffs