Dear Team,
With Valentine's Day approaching, consider this my gift to you: clarity on what's really coming.
My first marriage ended the way most corporate reorganizations do: not with a conversation, but with a quiet change to the access list. On paper, everything looked perfect. Joint accounts, mortgage, vacation home, vacations booked a year out. A family calendar so packed it needed its own project manager. Six kids between us. I was coaching youth hockey on weekends, running drills in cold rinks, trying to teach kids about teamwork while my own home life was quietly skating in the opposite direction.
I hadn't slept in the house for two months. Kelley changed. More makeup. New clothes. A sudden, intense dedication to the gym that only started after 10 p.m. Three-hour workouts that ended well after midnight. Her phone was stuck to her more than the crumbs on Lofty's face after lunch. But the second I walked into a room, it flipped face-down like it was under Project Pine NDA. New password on the phone too, and not because we require her to change it every 12 weeks. Notifications cleared faster than a fat-fingered payment to a Revlon creditor.
One Tuesday I swung by the house to grab a few things. My key slid into the lock, turned halfway, and then stopped. Tried again. Nothing. That tiny metal click when the deadbolt rejected me was the most honest feedback I'd gotten in years. No conversation. No big family meeting. No carefully worded "it's not you, it's the environment" speech. Just: access revoked. No 143, but a 403. Decision made weeks earlier. Legally married, practically exited.
Which brings me to WARN.
There's a comforting myth drifting around that if you don't see a WARN notice online, nothing bad can happen next week. That's not how WARN works. WARN doesn't require them to keep inviting you to meetings or letting your badge tap you into the office. WARN requires notice. And notice can be quietly prepaid instead of openly delivered.
That prepayment is called severance. First, a 15-minute "quick connect" or "touch base" with a mysterious HR attendee appears on your calendar. Then you join, listen to the talking points script HR sends out (pw: JaneNeedsANewYacht2026), nod through phrases like "difficult decision," "not a reflection of your performance," and the always-classic "we're rooting for your future success," and somewhere near the end you hear the line: "Today is your last working day." Your email address suddenly gets an @iuo in it (if we haven't already had no trust in you like thousands in B&TE), your name disappears from the Global Directory, your SOE ID suddenly returning "No results found," like you were a typo instead of a person. You were merely an SOE ID and now you're less to us. Well perhaps, a tad more because your firing helps me and Jane get bigger bonuses. For a while, you are still technically employed, because they are satisfying the WARN obligation with money instead of honesty. Your end date as an employee is not necessarily the same day as your last day in the office.
For a few weeks, my name was still on the mailbox. In a strictly legal sense, I was still part of the household. In the practical sense, Kelley had already completed her reorganization and filled my position with an external consultant who happens to be her personal trainer.
Yes, additional layoffs are coming VERY soon, and they're going to be huger than Lofty's giant head. Yes, those who remain may be asked to spend more time in the office "to support continuity," which is Latin for "please absorb the work of the recently disappeared."
Thank you for all that you do,
Happy Valentine's Day, lovers,
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