i got laid off from my job. now what?

I don't even know how to start this video hi friends we have a little chatty video today so please grab a cup of something cozy I just got this mug I'll put the ceramist name here on the screen but this mug is the most me mug I've ever seen in my life I've fully been using it every day and I thought I didn't need another mug but I was proved wrong so so cute I really wanted to just sit down and chat because it's officially been one week since I was laid off from my job if you're new here first of all welcome if you're not new here and this news is coming as a shock please do follow me on Instagram and Tik Tok I did break this news in real time and the tea the tea was juicy I posted a get ready with me Tik Tok about getting laid off so I highly suggest that if you're if you're looking for more getting laid off content maybe maybe you also were laid off recently I filmed that Tik Tok the day after everything happened so the emotions were very raw very fresh today I feel a little bit more calm but I'm so excited to catch up with you guys regardless because I feel like there's so much to talk about I obviously really want to get into my story on getting laid off I want to get into thoughts and feelings about my old job now that I've left or was forced to leave um and I also want to talk about like what's coming next where where my heart is right now I honestly feel like this first week of being laid off I've lived a lifetime but if you are new hi my name is Michelle I'm a 20 something and I live in New York City with my sister who's also my roommate we run this channel together our channel is essentially a visual scrapbook of our lives in our 20s in New York City living together basically exploring our own like creative Ventures and sharing bits and pieces about our careers and it's a good time and we'd love to have you here specifically now that I have been laid off I'm thinking a lot about content and how I want to put a lot of my energy and channel a lot of my energy into making content for myself because when you make content for other people you do get burnt out on um content creation as a whole and I'm sure my fellow social media girles can relate up until last Monday I worked at Vice and refiner 29 as a social media manager copywriter um in branded Partnerships I worked there for a year and a half which honestly I feel like I really did soak up everything I was going to get out of that role in the year and a half that I did get to work there I graduated college in 2018 moved directly to New York and got a job in social media marketing and I've worked in social media marketing ever since at had a brief Hiatus from corporate where I was doing freelance for different social media clients but I've worked in social media marketing since I was 23 years old a dream of mine as a girly who was in college during the girl boss era like the peak girl boss era like I read girl boss when it came out in college I don't think I've talked about this before but I was fairly lost when I got to college because throughout my high school years I was in a really serious relationship with a guy who was old who was much older than me and um if you've been in a similar situation you know that it can cause you to like want to grow up very fast and you do kind of miss out on those very formative teenage years which is honestly something that like breaks my heart to this day because I got to college and we had broken up and I really didn't know who I was so I kind of grasped on to YouTube That's when alen and I started our YouTube channel and I really like fell in love with creating something for myself and a lot of the content revolved around you know like favorites things that I'm loving my outfits my makeup and like kind of like carving on a new identity for myself and that's really how I came back to myself but at the same time I think I was so lost and scrambling so hard to kind of like carve out a new identity that I completely left my old like childhood self to the Wayside and just kind of like Dove right into girl boss culture I really wanted to take control of my life and my career and I wanted to make a lot of money I wanted to like not rely on another person for anything I wanted to just like live my life on my own terms and I wanted to quote unquote hustle I really glamorized the grind and being a workaholic and I did way too much in college I did so many extracurriculars clubs internships I worked luckily lived at home so didn't have to pay like rent or bills or anything but like I really stretched myself very thin I really Dove deep into work as a distraction and work as a means to like claw my way back to an identity that had nothing to do with like my previous relationship and that Journey led me to thirsting after working for a company like Refinery 29 man repeller bustle very of the time symbols of girl boss culture I absolutely idolize people like Alysa costarelli and Lucy fank and kind of saw them as a guide to the life that I wanted and I even tour the refinery 29 the old Refinery 29 office when I was 23 and I first came to New York and it was a completely different refiner 29 than the refiner 29 that I worked for in the end don't get me wrong as much as I romanticized it there was a lot under the hood that we now know but as a 23-year-old who toured the offices who had this informational interview with someone who worked there this was the vision this was the snapshot of a brief moment in time that I had pictured for myself like years after of what it would be like to work at a company like Refinery and by the time that I ended up getting a job there it was so much more different and the landscape has completely changed the company's completely changed obviously they have different owners a different office it was was post-pandemic so a lot of people work remotely and the role that I ended up getting as social media manager I wasn't a social media manager for organic content I was a social media manager on the Branded team so essentially guys I'm going to be honest a lot of my job was writing like one or two sentences of copy for like Instagram ads obviously like I tried to make the most of it and romanticize it and like I'm not going to go around like shouting from the rooftops that I don't really love my job because I was I was really trying to like make the most of it and there were definitely cool projects that I got to work on where I was responsible for like the creative concept and the brainstorming and like working with the designers to create like really cool assets and storytelling like there were like oneof opportunities that I got to do cool things and I did get to work on some cool video projects where I got to edit and have a little bit more creativity and and a little bit more involvement with the creative process but for the most part my day day was like really boring and really dry of course if I worked there longer probably would have figured out a way to kind of like dive into a different area in the company maybe that would have been with the video team or maybe that would have been with more of the like editorial organic content but um that is no longer a possibility and I more than okay with that like as I said this job was not what I pictured it would be my role was very siloed and my entire team worked remotely I felt like I felt more like a freelancer working at this job than than I did when I was working freelance just because I really didn't have many meetings every week like I was going to say every day but I really didn't have I think I had like one standing weekly meeting and that was pretty much it and um yeah I just like felt very like isolated basically so this job as much as it afforded me like a really great lifestyle a lot of security I I do feel proud of myself for getting this far in my career too like just because this job didn't end up being what I wanted it to be I still accomplished a huge goal like even though I was laid off in the end I still accomplished the goal of you know like working for this company that I've been wanting to work for since I was 23 I tried it didn't love it like it was fine and I had some cool opportunities and worked with some really cool Brands like household names and made some great connections where I'm sitting I still see it as an accomplishment I still got to try it I still achieved it it's still something that will be on my resume forever basically maybe not but like for the next like 5 to 10 years I definitely will have that on my resume and it will probably lead to some really cool opportunities in my future like I don't see it as like oh my God what like what a big failure even if it wasn't what I thought it would be even if it looked very different and in a way it's like kind of freeing like you have this picture in your head of like this life that you want and this life that you think that you're missing out on and then you experience it and you're like oh okay like this doesn't feel like I thought it would feel and it really does make you think a lot about life and a lot about like goals and things that you say you want but like do you really even want them so to go into the layoff story I feel like I told it very clearly on Tik Tok but like I'll I'll tell it from the perspective of someone who's been sitting in the aftermath um for the last week hopefully I can bring a little different flavor for those of you who've already seen that video but basically Vice declared bankruptcy last year so kind of since then I've known that like this probably isn't going to last forever and it's been a little bit of a waiting for the other shoe to drop situation like I already have Trauma from my past work experiences like waking up every day and being like am I going to get fired but that's like my own anxiety but this really like really uh put the nail in the coffin in that area where I was like you know what I just kind of have to take it day by day because I don't know what the future for this company is going to look like when I say that like this was a huge shock and I didn't see it coming like I guess there there always has been an inkling just with the state of the media landscape and like how I knew the company was doing financially and I knew it was struggling I like didn't get a raise the entire time I worked there for like a year and a half I knew that the company wasn't doing great but that my job was safe because I was on the Branded side so I was on a team that was making money and that made me feel a lot more safe we've had several rounds of layoffs throughout the time that I've worked there and um each time I've come out safe and I felt like you know pretty steady not only am I working in branded which is bringing in the revenue but being the only social media girly on my team at least like I was the only one doing like social copyrighting everyone else was doing editorial features on my team I felt extra safe because I knew that like I know that social's not going anywhere at least right now so I do think that I was a little bit blindsided when Monday came around so basically the week before I was laid off on Thursday at 5:00 p.m. an email was sent to the entire company basically announcing that vice.com would no longer be in existence and that they would be laying off hundreds of people and that was so scary such a an ominous email to receive at 5:00 P p.m on a Thursday my team's group chat is immediately just like popping off Friday Saturday Sunday I was kind of just like bubbling with anticipation about like which way was going to go and I had so many mixed feelings about both just because I had been struggling with feeling fulfilled in my role for such a long time and I was trying to make the most of it honestly with like my really low workload I was trying to really like focus on my own personal projects and work on my hobbies and explore more of the city and co-work with friends and really try to like make the most of my like pretty chill work schedule but like regardless the job itself was fairly unfulfilling so I had like mixed feelings about it and I'm not going to lie I did start thinking what would it look like if I basically was given a permission slip to leave having it not been my fault and nothing personal and I did feel like like a tiny tingle of possibility obviously I'm not saying that I like wished for this to happen because it was like it sucked and it was really sad and unfortunate with how everything panned out but like I did think about it I did think about like do I want to stay with kind of like this company that's just like going downhill in this role that I don't really like love or do I want to be like set free in a way and I don't know I'm such an existential person my brain won't shut off it's just the way that I'm wired but I did think about it and like I really really highly doubted that I would be laid off I did feel a sense of security about like where I lay within the company and all my team and everything like that but then basically Monday came around we were told that we should find out like who is going to be laid off the beginning of the next week so Monday came around we were like is it going to be Monday Tuesday Wednesday like what does beginning of next week mean is that like by today we should know like what's the deal I woke up kind of early and checked my email immediately and there was nothing complete ghost town in my inbox I kind of honestly just like wrote it off for like a few hours and was like you know if I haven't heard anything like it's fine like no one's talking about it like maybe it's just like a few people blah blah blah um I started like getting to work which is so funny I wish I didn't work on anything that day because I started working on some video editing that I was doing it ended up being pointless it's not something that's going to ever see the light of day I pop out this call the energy is just like immediately Sinister like everyone just like seems so down so upset and one of my co-workers pops on and she immediately bursts into tears and it was so like hearts sank witnessing her live reaction to getting the email and she was like the only one at this point that got the email was so devastating especially considering like at that point she was the only one out of all of us that got the email so we thought it was like just her I'm sure that feeling like you're the only one getting laid off on your entire team also felt so shitty I know that if it were me I would be thinking a lot of like spiraling why me did I do something wrong type feelings but like basically we wrapped up the call like really quickly my manager was like yeah I don't think we need to have this meeting let's just keep in touch um she basically had no idea that this person from her team that she manages was going to be laid off and had no warning was not consulted like nothing it was completely like completely random we all then rushed to our text group chat because this coworker that had been laid off was instantly logged out of her email and all accounts so we could no longer contact her it was so depressing so we all rushed to start texting in our group chat and we're basically like asking like do we know like is that it like is she the only one like if the email went out like should we know by now or are we should we still be expecting an email like telling us that we got laid off and then slowly throughout the day people started like one by one getting the email so the group chat started announcing like oh this person got the email oh this person got the email and then like one of my other co-workers was like I just got the email like I was laid off I started panicking I was like fully like putting the pieces together especially when I found out about people who like worked in similar veins as I did like people who weren't just producing content for vice.com people who were producing content for social people who were account managers people who were like really really good at their jobs and like pretty high level when I started finding out about these people getting laid off I like started coming to the conclusion like I would not be surprised at this point if I got the email too yeah I basically started started coming to the conclusion that like I'm like there's no chance that I'm going to stay like they're like slashing like gutting the company that's what it felt like I just kept hearing more and more people um didn't have their jobs anymore and that was so scary once I found out that my manager's manager got laid off I called my mom and told her and I was like I can't believe this is happening like she's such an icon such a legend like it's just is so sad and I ended up getting the email like I was refreshing my email all day obviously and I ended up getting the email when I was talking to my mom and I think I was honestly like kind of in shock the first day like I honestly felt a little bit like well that's it school's out for the summer it was a beautiful day outside I went on a little walk got a smoothie felt kind of giddy with the affirmation that like no this isn't the right place for me because I had been agonizing over it for like the past year um like wondering like is this really my path in life like really like a lot of like existential dread basically and so it was quite freeing to have like if you want to get like super woo woo with it to have the universe like affirm that this is not the right path for me like was quite freeing and like did feel like a big did feel like a big relief in a way initially it was more shock and I wasn't as stressed out I am getting PID paid Severance um so my same paycheck until the end of May which is a good like Yeah March April May like it's a good full 3 months of still getting paid the first 24 hours were definitely a lot more feelings of shock and I did feel like a little bit of a sense of Freedom like being um opened up to you know my future once the shock wore off I got kind of pissed off like just the way that it was handled was so dehumanizing like the email that I got I keep telling people this the email that I got was like an automated email it didn't come from like a human it didn't have like a note from the from the CEO or a note from my manager like as I said my manager had no idea that her entire team was going to be laid off like she lost her entire team and there was no like cluing her into to the fact that like that was going to happen like I honestly would have preferred if they told my manager and she was able to then have a meeting with all of us and give us the news have us ask for questions commiserate with each other and be there for each other but that wasn't the case at all like the fact that like this email came from just kind of like a robot and I was immediately logged out of all of the accounts and I had no opportunity to like join in on like an all hands meeting or have a chat with HR or anything like it just like felt so much like you're a number you're not a person it was handled very very very poorly and I feel like a lot of the feelings of anger and sadness that crept up a little bit towards um the second half of last week A lot of it was mainly surrounding the way that it was handled all of these emails were sent throughout the day like I know people who got their email like at 5:00 p.m. that day I got it around like 1 I think 1 or 1:30 but like some people had to wait the whole day with this like fear and anticipation and like I can't even imagine the anxiety of like refreshing your email all day long so like that made me sad like just like the way that it was handled and like especially for people that like maybe had a different experience than me maybe they loved their jobs maybe they felt purpose and passion towards what they do and have contributed like years and years and years of their lives to this career and like for me I was just like you know I'm not that sad about like losing this role because I liked it but I didn't feel fulfilled I didn't feel connected to it like I had a lot of like grievances with my job but like some people like they really did feel a connection to what they did and they were completely disrespected and completely like blindsided and it's just like I don't know it's really like quite heartbreaking and like really gross and it just like sucks to see media and journalism like this shift within the industry yeah it kind of just like breaks my heart to see like the direction in which um our society is headed in that industry because I do think that like now more than ever like journalism is so critical to um the foundation of our world and like the fact that it is no longer being valued and as a social media girl like I get it like YouTube videos are great reals are great Tik Tok fantastic I'm a video girl but like I do think that there should be a world where there are there is space made for both like written journalism and video like content I don't know maybe it's naive but I don't think that like a Tik Tok is the same thing as an article I do think that writers and journalists and researchers like I do think that those people are so valuable in our society and it's just like yeah I think that that's been like what I've been upset with the most the way that layoffs were handled and then the direction that this um that the landscape of this industry is going just like makes me very upset and yeah I think that after the first week I I really let myself grieve which I think was important I feel like I was giving straight up toxic frat bro energy when they get rejected and retaliate with well you're not that hot anyway I was having a similar reaction when I was telling people about like getting laid off I was like well I didn't really like that job anyway and like that is fair and that is true but at the same time like I did need to grieve and I still am the end of this chapter of my life the end of like working towards this goal that I've been working towards for like five six years the end of the lifestyle that I had with this particular job the end of like the potential opportunities that I had imagined myself like sinking into within the company like it is the end of a lot of things and not all of those things were bad like a lot of those things were good and like both things can be true so I have been trying to be better about letting myself really feel my feelings instead of being defensive and trying to like let it be known that like hey this job actually was not my dream um mik drop I definitely tend to numb myself with productivity instead of like really allowing myself to like sink into unpleasant and negative feelings so I'm trying to be better about that and now that we're entering like post one full week uh you might be thinking what's next now that's a great question hi honey you want to come with my mama Go Mama come here hi baby where are you bir's come to say hello hello angel for the first real time in my life I'm kind of glad that I don't have I'm really trying to allow myself to bask in the unknown and to be open to a different way forward because as I kind of like explained the person who chose this career path for me she's She'll always be with me like I'll always carry her within me and like I'm so grateful to so much of what she did to set me up for like the success I have achieved and where I am today like I don't think I would have moved to New York if I didn't have this like girl boss era if I didn't want to hustle and work in fashion and media and all this stuff like I don't I don't know if I would have ended up in New York and now New York is like my favorite place in the world um and I love my life here so I'm so grateful to like my past self in so many ways but whether she's still entitled to take the wheel of my life and have control over where we go next is up for a debate I'm trying to allow myself time to explore and rest and not like jump into apply to jobs because I've done the responsible sensible practical thing like pretty much my whole life I'm an eldest daughter with generalized anxiety disorder of course that's what I usually do and I'm just at this point going to allow myself to like rest and explore and try different things and again like I've talked about it like I have a good good amount of savings and I have Severance until the end of May I want to allow myself time to just like recharge reset and rethink the structures of my life because I don't know I'm I just turned 29 and I'm in my Saturn return I feel like 26 27 28 all felt like the same to me they all felt like the same chapter and now like 1 month into 29 I'm like who the hell am I and what am I doing but I have not felt this like desire to like scrap everything and start fresh for like ages of course I've thought about other corporate jobs I'd love to apply for and other potential companies that I'd love to work for and industries I think would be cool to explore but I've also thought about like what it would be like to not do that and I've thought about like what it would be like to just travel the world or to just like focus on creating things for myself whether that's content or art or like a substack I just think that I owe it to myself to take some time and that's kind of like all the answers I have at the moment which I think is enough for now yeah I do feel a little bit like a lost lamb and that I have no idea what I'm doing and the uncertainty can be kind of heavy sometimes I do think back on periods of my life where I feel like I had lost everything and lost complete like touch with who I am and what I'm doing and it's all like it sounds so cliche but like it's always like the lowest points that then kind of propel us towards like the shiniest next like step forward like I really do believe that I think sometimes like things really have to be like wiped clean in order to rebuild and when you experience that pattern enough in your life I feel like it is really reassuring to know like okay I may feel like the biggest flop right now like I feel kind of like I'm in a flop era I just got laid off I'm having like severe acne for the first time in my life which is a treat um never had a pimple in high school but 29 is is the year that my skin decided it was going to enter its rebellious teen phase yeah I'm like having like all these difficulties with my medication and my doctor agreed that like maybe it's just not the right fit for me um because I think the acne might be part of the medication thing I've been taking a break from dating but I kind of want to get back into dating but this is like the worst possible time to like in my life to like focus on romantic interactions because I feel like such a big loser and not even just that I feel like a big loser I actually feel like I'm I'm like head somewhere great but like should I even be entertaining romance right now when I want to like rebuild my whole life like I don't know but I'm hopeful that by the time spring finally rolls around I'll be like R transforming as a person I'm really excited because I signed up for my birthday actually my parents um got me a 6 week art course and I'm so excited to like do this class for 6 weeks that's a long time and I feel like I could do some really consistent great work and it does really feel like I'm coming back home to myself I'm really scared but like at the same time like I know I'll be okay and like I trust myself so much I've like held my own hand and dragged myself towards a better like place every single time that I have like been struggling so that is like such an empowering feeling yeah I feel like I've been talking for way too long now but um thank you so much if you watched till the end of this video I know it was rambling one but like this was something that I just like had to make for me and I think that like I shared the initial story on Tik Tok very like clean well spoken succinct and I needed to make something for YouTube that felt a little bit more raw and that felt a little bit more like multi-dimensional with the experiences of being like La off nearing your 30s and not knowing what the absolute you're doing and like what it's like to start over at any age um because I don't think that that is talked about enough and I'm really tired of like 22y olds giving advice no offense to 22y olds because so many of them has such great things to say but as someone who's like nearing towards her 30s like I need more representation of people around my age people way older than me talking about this stuff too because the 22-year-olds are often the people who get the microphone because let's face it it it typically feels a little bit more appropriate for like a 22-year-old to feel lost versus someone who's almost 30 who is in their 30s 40s 50s whatever thank you so much for watching and I do want to say like a true like genuine thank you to everyone who messaged me about like getting laid off I could not respond to everyone I think I got the most responses on this announcement than I ever have on anything like even when I got this job and it just like feels really cool to know that I built a community that has my back and like even if they don't engage with every single little thing that I have to share like in these moments I'm not alone and that's really cool and I really appreciate it so thank you and birdie really appreciates it too I'm just so grateful for the sweet words the encouragement the like job leads I am going to take a pause on applying for jobs just while I figure out what the hell I even want to be doing with my life um but I do appreciate it regardless and please let me know down below like I want to do kind of like an unemployment or like fun employment Diaries series on here where like we just explore things together and I want to know what you want to see um I have a lot more time obviously for creating content so I just want to like dive into making my own stuff and would love to hear what you want to see another Shameless plug to follow me on Instagram and Tik Tok where I'll no doubt be trying to funnel more energy into as well during this era and yeah just a huge huge huge thank you to all of you for supporting me in all these highs and lows that I've had throughout my entire Life on YouTube that has been like 10 years of us together and yeah we're going to make it to the next chapter and it's going to be even better than this thanks again so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one [Music] bye

Channel: Michelle and Aline

Views: 10,295

Keywords: i got laid off, i lost my job, i got fired, i quit my job, vice layoffs, i got laid off by vice, refinery29 layoffs, i quit my 9-5 job, i got laid off now what, i got laid off whats next, i got laid off vice, i quit my full time job, i left my job, why i left my job, why i got laid off, why i lost my job, why i'm starting over

Id: jCYW-ApFGHI

Length: 32min 55sec (1975 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 15 2024