Think of the layoffs in terms of the German V2 rockets in Gravity's Rainbow: Everyone knows they are launched and aimed at London, but nobody knows for certain where they will fall or what buildings they will hit.
It's the same with layoffs at T. While one would like to think there is some sort of strategy or logic to the cuts, the only thing people know for certain is which groups will be targeted, but which employees are hit is almost random.
Case in point: I was part of the group hit in the Oct 2020 layoffs. We all know that T took aim at our department (we did a lot of DirecTV support), but the four of us (out of 16) who were hit were random in all aspects:
- Two men and two women, one was young (late 20's), two of us were middle (35 - 45) and one was over 50.
- All of us had great performance reviews
- Among the four of us we had collectively: earned five nanodegrees, one Service Excellence Award winner, two with significant T-Space bade accomplishments
- Tenure ranging from under two years to over 20 years
Nobody who was let go was underperforming, and those that survived weren't exceptional compared to the rest of us.
I asked our supervisor, associate director, director, and VP to explain how the decision was made regarding who was released but never got any answer.
So, plan whatever strategy you like to try and keep yourself safe, but in the end, it's all simply a matter of odds and random selection.
@uae+1lh9BKY4 said it the best, everybody should read this.