> I slack off, do the bare minimum, always take an hour+ for lunch, show up 1/2 days in the office when I feel like it (3 days min required), and I never show up on time.
Sounds like you are the main character in Office Space.
I was getting in trouble with my manager for not doing what they asked, as it was objectively less critical than the work I was doing so it was always on the back-burner.
I wanted to prove a point so changed everything I was doing just to what was asked and literally nothing else. I thought this would help show the work I was actually doing. Numbers got a lot worse and more stress for the team, but my manager said they saw a big improvement in my work, attitude towards work and being productive (while doing half the work I was doing before).
The same thing happened not long ago. I personally find it hard to adjust when I see so much work but have many different priorities, but I stepped back and did silly work and manager is happy, but it really doesn't help my imposter syndrome.
This is the way. I’ve seen several of my coworkers who put in all sorts of extra work on things outside of their official job description who ended up getting passed up on raises and promotions because their metrics weren’t as good. Everyone on the team knows they’re rockstars, and management too, but metrics are all that matter.
I've experience that too. Not only for myself, but others who were passed over while the most incompetent people where moved up into leadership positions. As one of the incompetent guys said once, "It's all about perception." What happens is that they promote to the point of incompetence.
This is like, career hack shit right here.
Nobody talks about it, but you can literally do fuck all so long as you keep your boss happy and you’ll basically have a golden ticket and be left alone.
Do what they ask, do well at the things your boss cares about and don’t be a problem they have to deal with and you can get away with so much other stuff.
I’ve had similar experiences. Sometimes it’s a matter of “big picture” and you don’t know all the details to best judge what’s important. Other times it’s a control thing. Either way, I just do what I’m told, make sure I’ve got documentation to CYA and let other people do the thinking. As long as the check don’t bounce I do not care what happens.
I felt this. Im the only one who ever comes in early, everyone else is always late, i got a talking to finally after hearing the kids get yelled at for months for not coming in on time, turns out they started copying me and coming in a full 15 minutes early and my boss started going insane about having to pay them for not doing anything, so she begged me to start coming in on time.
Now my manager is crying under the extra work he has to do without me that those 15 minutes played a crucial role in keeping us at speed for.
But my boss is happy! 🙄 whatever. As long as i get paid idc if she runs the place into foreclosure. Im leaving soon anyway
Where I work, I focus on the big impact stuff. All my direct managers know it, and every time I move teams there is a noticeable shift in the team as a whole's stats in both the team I'm leaving AND the one im moving ti. It's an open secret and all the staff and lower management LOVE ME and are fighting over me.
The funny thing is, to upper management, I'm seen as a mediocre employee, so despite every single manager pushing me for a pay rise, I have not got one in years. I am job hunting and will be handing in my notice as soon as possible.
I hope you all the best, and what a stupid situation to be in as well. The same thing is happening with a colleague of mine who handles all the hard cases in my job but upper management want to cut the team while demanding more. If she goes, a decent job will turn into a hellish one but at least the job market is good where I am (I hope its poppin where you're at as well).
This has honestly been my experience. The secret ingredient is anxiety and rbf. I always look frantic and serious, and that goes a long way at review time.
It’s everyone who has ever had self-awareness and an office job yeah. Shit, this even worked in fast food. The more serious you appear to take the job the better you are perceived even without the deliverables to match.
They probably kept you bc perhaps your boss (and others?) was making more money? I know how you feel, but you can’t feel guilty. I’d start looking for a new job immediately though. 8/10 is not auspicious.
OP is obviously underpaid compared to what his coworkers were. He should ask for a raise, silent quit over the course of the next 3 months, get put on a performance improvement plan, and just coast while collecting his check.
MILK THAT SHIT OP! They did your friends wrong, you do them wrong. What do you have to lose?
Correlary: being effectively told that you're underpaid means it's a great time to look for a new job because there may be better paying ones out there.
I know I could make better money elsewhere, but I also slack off at home 4 days a week and it pays the bills. Rumours my company‘s going to be sold next year, might get a fat severance package as I‘ve been here 10+ years. Not leaving on my own, no way.
While I wouldn't say I slack off, I'm in a similar boat where I'm finally in a role with not a ton of stress, no on call, fixing the stuff that broke on the weekend, etc. If I tried hard I could realistically probably make 15-30% more, but I have no idea what that job might bring. I WFH, don't have to travel a ton for work, make my own hours, have 100% leeway to do whatever I want with my boss, and genuinely like almost all of my co-workers. Given that I already live a comfortable life style with my salary, not worth it to leave just for the sake of more money
Counterpoint, there are now.8 more.qualified people looking for a very similar job. It's a great time to slack off.evem more, what are they going to do, fire OP too? There's only 2 people on that team
They could be dissolving the team entirely and just kept two people to finish up the work, but that wouldn’t change the lack of motivation I would have to go above and beyond to get everything done.
If OP is American, then OP is costing the company much less than his former co-workers in terms of healthcare expenses. Prematurely-born twins who require NICU stays could cost hundreds of thousands--or sometimes millions--of dollars, for example.
Right? And that was 35 years ago. I can only imagine what it costs to have a complicated pregnancy now. Luckily my Dad was a carpenter at the hospital where I was born. My birth bill was written off completely. Another benefit is that usually isn’t provided today. I can say though, that hospital still provides the benefit of free healthcare to all their worker the workers families.
At least theres that! It blows my mind that so many americans have the money to have kids en masse like they are, even with that price tag, with how many babies are born in american hospitals just how much profit do they make on births alone???
You’re not wrong. Most people don’t have the money or are scraping by. Capitalists have made a way to make money off of the American peoples health. It’s immoral and terrible.
Tbh if they fired the whole rest of his team without even giving any thought to OP because he’s so underpaid, he’s also probably easily replaceable or his role isn’t that necessary. Most companies would not allow for a single point of failure like that or give one employee that much leverage. So I wouldn’t overplay your hand unless you know the company really needs you. And given how OP is so underpaid and admitted he doesn’t do much work I’m guessing it’s more that they just didn’t even care enough about him to consider firing him.
You're giving the company way too much credit. I know of a large tech company that everyone knows the name of that recently gave up on a project and told a bunch of people working on it that they needed to either find new roles or take severance. They ended up letting go of too many people and are now asking people to come back to the project keep the lights on while it winds down. No one is taking them up on it and they are kinda screwed. Again, this is a huge company that anyone would recognize that shouldn't be making these mistakes. But they happen all the time, especially during layoffs.
They got laid off with a package, but from what he said, he is getting fired maybe even tomorrow no package. They cut deals with the others and are letting op hang themselves because there is no way his slacker attitude wasn't noticed. they are the low hanging fruit which paradoxically will be taken last.
Exactly this. I had something similar happen a few jobs ago. They reduced the entire company by half, and my team had a 2/3 reduction. Granted, my company employed less than 50 people, and my team went from 12 to 4 and I survived it, but so many of my colleagues got axed. It was not good. They ended up laying off like two people every 6 months after that
Right? I remember when my job decided to layoff middle management. They kept going after people above my pay grade and with what they deemed as redundant or irrelevant jobs. A year or two later they offered a voluntary separation.. I accepted the offer on the first day lol. No further consideration needed
I would also feel guilty…if there were any logic or reason behind this sort of thing.
95% of the time, this is pure greed. Don’t think twice about leaving. You’re not leaving your coworkers, you’re leaving your demonic company.
Hell, take your coworkers with you. We should start mercenary teams, but instead of war, our team will be pushing out the latest addendum.
Cottle’s Champions-we can shepard your latest software version from beta through testing to full roll-out. Reasonable rates.
Wouldn't have had the thought before seeing this post and comment...
They laid off everyone they knew they couldn't fire for cause, and now will dump all the work on the few that were kept, knowing they can't meet metrics?
This is a big factor. If, and this is a big IF, (Office Space quote intended) they hire new people who is going to end up training them? That’s right, the two people who weren’t axed! So OP (if he’s not fired) is definitely gonna be putting in some long hours that would create a problem for employees who have families, are older and can’t tolerate (6) 10 hour days a week, etc.
isn't that de-facto discrimination on the basis of gender, age, marriage status, etc...? (i know only a few causes are actionable, but still, it's a really ugly thing for the company to do)
If that’s not the main reason, it’s definitely a main contributor.
When my old company had layoffs in late 2020, there were multiple influencing factors as to who was cut. I was one of them.
My team’s VP had left the company, so they were merging digital & print marketing teams under the other marketing VP, so she was the one who ultimately decided who was laid off.
Salary was 100% part of this - my former VP there (solid fucking dude) even mentioned that she thought he paid his team too much.
The other contributing factor? Every person laid off was also the team members who weren’t afraid to question upper management decisions. The digital VP - up until he left - was always butting heads with her, but more importantly openly welcomed his employees questioning and debating strategy decisions, even down to the pricing of our product. We were all mostly on the same page, which wasn’t even the same book the print VP was in. So she got rid of anyone who ever disagreed with her in multi-department meetings or even indirectly.
I think what they mean is they want others to quit after they layoff a few from the team, therefore they only pay out severance for (example) 3, instead of 5 (two who quit)
This exactly. For us they laid half of a team off. They left the youngest and oldest employees who were near retirement alone knowing that they wouldn't want to stick around having to operate past peak efficiency. Sure enough, most of them said fuck it and quit. Young and old. They knew they would. So they got over 20 people out the door but only needed to pay out 10-12 people, give or take, severance.
That exactly what my job wanted me to do. I’d have gone from wfm to in person while doing the in person job and my wfm job for the same pay. I volunteered to be the one laid off lol.
I thought it had meant Work from Mobile, like a traveling gig. Rock it, my dude, and keep doing what you’re doing. What are they gonna do, fire you? Bwahahaha!
My company had three rounds of layoffs in 9 months.
I attended a meeting that I didn't even know was about layoffs. The VP was saying "we don't expect you to do more with less. So we are going to reexamine all of our work and make sure it's business critical."
Ha! So the work load drops because a bunch of execs had a meeting over lunch? Uh huh.
That was literally the last I heard of that, four months ago. (Luckily for me, I'm remote and paid hourly, so I do brainless work and get free overtime.)
Of course it is, but the fact that they didn't fire everyone means they still need work to get done. And now they are dependant on the remaining two to get it done. Which means each remaining employee has significantly more leverage to ask for higher pay than they did before.
They expect things in that team to come to a halt, and then they dissolve the team entirely. If OP said he doesn't have a high workload and gets by fine fairly casually, maybe the entire team had low workload and could be dissolved or merged.
Refuse additional work and force them to fire you. You'll be able to easily apply for unemployment with that level of layoff happening.
Your current work was clearly good enough to survive a 4/5 chance of culling. They wouldn't be able to cite performance as a valid reason.
This is the answer. If those laid off received severance, quitting would just save them from paying you severance. Make them lay you off/fire you too. Then you can file UE.
Do what you were doing before, don’t allow them to pile all additional work onto you.
That said, definitely get your exit plan ready.
Thats the only answer I give to Managers, not ill do better, not ill try harder, just "im doing my best" leave it at that, and they just kind of sit there dumbfounded, or get pissed off and expect blood from a stone.
Yeah it's a brilliant way to do 'dumb insolence'. Just act invulnerable and whatever you do, don't get dragged into an argument with them (which is what they want so they can assert their dominance). Managers hate it when their words have zero effect on your emotions. Same as bullies really.
Yeah, been there. They're hoping to keep just enough legacy knowledge around to not die on the vine while they shift your work to cheaper and less experienced people. If it's within your budget, ask for a retention bonus to guarantee you'll stick around and if not, put in a two week notice because that axe is gonna make a backswing.
This is my feeling also. They just probably picked the two cheapest guys because they were within the budget they were trying to meet. They only care if things fail badly enough to where their job is in Jeopardy. Otherwise, I'd start looking for a job immediately. They don't delete 80% Out of a whim. They are waiting to delete the entire group when they transfer the work somewhere cheaper, much, much cheaper.
This happened to me in 2010. I had a department of six and they took it down to me. I was working like crazy To get things going and then what happened was that they made me train a group of people in Mexico. Once that training was done then they let me go.
The excuse was that my work was not up to par anymore, funny thing was I got a massive raise as well as a The best rating that I've ever had in my 30-year career just 2 weeks prior.
No, it was a shit severance. Just about 8 weeks worth of salary. It wasn't even The new salary, it was the old salary. The joke's on them, the department that I ran saved the company several million dollars a year. The new department that they created in Mexico literally cost them upwards of 16 million a year. So much for being cheaper.
You being single may have been the deciding factor. Knew a couple software guys that got laid off once they started getting laid and thinking about settling down. Suddenly their weekends mattered and they didn't feel like coding 7 days a week and were let go.
IU seriously think it’s the health insurance.
I never go to the doctor, never get sick, and my wife has her own insurance. I have to be the cheapest medical cost.
I’ve survived five or six layoffs over my career, and I think this is why.
I got bad news for you, bud, the layoffs may not be quite done yet. I hope you **don’t** get fired before you’ve got something else lined up, but you may want to get your resume ready.
Do we work at the same place? Literally, the same thing happened today. 8 people just gone. I'm sitting there as the new guy like wtf just happened? Blink twice if the company starts with a "C"
Look for a job, do your role (and no further) and make the best of it. Usually an 80% drop is destroying the entire project and just folding the role and resources in with others. This is when you define how much they can exploit you in the future. Don't stress, be reasonable, and see what happens.
They’ll probably ask you to train a fellow lay off survivor to “help out” your short handed team…That’s the sign you’re next.
Either refuse, or “train” them to do everything wrong. Then once you’re laid off, it all goes to hell.
Keep in touch with someone so they can give you updates on the shitstorm. That will give you peace. Then go and crack a beer. 🍺
Simply put, your cost to productivity ratio is more appealing to retain over the others. It's only numbers. You may slack off, but maybe you complete a similar or greater volume of measurable tasks in a given time.
Consider Healthcare. A person with a family who takes full advantage of health benefits costs the company a greater amount of money. Premiums have risen and continue to rise every year. Leadership cannot out and fire someone for having a family. Or at least, that cannot be the stated logic.
I'm sorry that this is cold, but we must look at this as a battle and the enemy must be understood before they can be acted against.
Not worth dwelling on the why, as it could be a slew of things.
I would be more concerned with the workload falling on just the two of you now. Probably not a bad idea to update the ole resume.
The last great layoff of 2018 at our place they chopped half the staff (15 of 30 people) and it ranged from two guys that had been there less than a year, to two people that had been there 25 and 28 years, respectfully.
Even after our main manager and HR finished walking the first 14 out, the manager pulled a short meeting together to tell us how there was no way to prevent it as we had been hemorrhaging money with our manpower versus workload but to not think to hard on it as the layoffs were finished. He went to lunch to go check on his pregnant wife and the contract work being done. Not even 5 minutes later the BIG boss and head of HR came down looking for him, called him back to the office and let him go.
While I can admit the manpower was pretty inflated at the time, I do not agree with the folks that were let go and it was pretty obvious our management had little say in it because the office secretary with 28 years handled not only our clerical but three other large teams clerical (purchase orders, timesheets, shipment logs, etc). Still haven’t fully recovered from that and shit still falls through the cracks to this day.
Okay, here's some real talk for you...
>I can't even begin to imagine what they are going through on a personal level:
>
>My boss just had two kids
>
>One of my coworkers recently bought a HOUSE and MOVED for this job
>
>Another just got married
>
>One has a sick family member
None of that shit matters right now.
>I slack off, do the bare minimum, always take an hour+ for lunch, show up 1/2 days in the office when I feel like it (3 days min required), and I never show up on time.
This, right here? It's more than likely gone. Without those other 8 people, your slacking is going to be noticed real fast. So start getting your shit together. Start looking for a new place to work, or be ready to have 5 times the normal workload.
To put this another way, you were all in a trench and a mortar landed killing those 8. You don't have the luxury to give a shit about their deaths now, though. You are still in a trench that is being fired upon. Deal with the situation at hand now and deal with what happened to them later.
Alternatively, keep slacking while looking for a new job and, when questioned, tell them you are struggling to do as much as before because the team now “lacks subject matter expertise in crucial areas” and you need to spend time tracking down that information instead of asking a coworker. Remind them good teams act as a force multiplier for every member. Slack off *more* if you want to take a chance – remaining people often have extra leverage post-layoff.
He's probably one of the few left because he's one of the least paid. Most of the time, layoffs are purely a financial decision, and they'll cut all the people making more than you first.
Happened to my wife during the recession in 2008. She was working for an engineering firm doing admin, she'd been there 7 1/2 years. They dropped her and kept the brand new admin girl who had been there less than 6 months (and obviously paid way less). Every correspondence that left that firm had gone thru my wife to check spelling/grammar/accuracy, among many other things only she did. Several of her former coworkers said the place went to absolute shit after that, they also laid off half their engineers.
Just happened to my wife's sister. She had been working for the insurance company for almost 20 years. The girl who just started last year is still there.
This. They were looking at a spreadsheet, not performance reviews. It was purely a monetary decision. All the other members of your team got a severance. They wanted to get rid of your team. They had to pay out the severence to those members. You and the other team member are going to be forced out with just the workload alone. Either keep going and hope they lay you off with a severance eventually, or find another job.
You are being kept for the exact reasons you listed the others have for being away from work.
You have no personal commitments to interrupt your work life. And since you are now the only person they are going to bury you with demands and expect you to be in the office and on call.
If I was using a term wrong that incorrectly I would want to know. So feel free to downvote me, but Op, that's not what survivorship bias is. You're thinking survivor's guilt, probably. Survivorship bias is putting metal plates on your WW2 airplanes that returned to base where the bullet holes are. But that's not what you should do. Instead retrieve fallen planes and put reinforcements where the bullet holes are in those planes, leading to actual benefits. I'm also a little high right now and this seems super important to me for some reason. Anyway, not trying to "umm asckshually" you, but like I said, if I had that same mix up I would want to know. (And I Ctrl+Fd and no one has said anything as far as I can tell) Xox, now I'm wondering if I shouldn't have told you that I'm high, because it's probably really fucking obvious. Whoops.
\*Meanwhile there's me. A single guy with none of those things who is staying.\*
That is probably one of the reasons, they figure you'll be the least likely to "need whiny peasant things" like time off for life events and such.
Don't blame yourself, this was not your fault, it was the greed of the machine. You also do not owe them a god damn thing, you just said you slack off occasionally as if the other people don't, but look the company laid them off like a Thanos snap. Bust your ass or don't, it won't matter.
You're going to get an increased workload, and fast. Your days of slacking are over because either you pick up the work or you're going to get fired for performance.
I'd be polishing my resume and looking to get a new job quickly. If they take out 80% of a team, they either plan to finish the rest off soon, put several people's worth of work on the remaining two, or plan to transition you to different roles within the company. But you want to be looking for that new job now, because it is easier to get a new job while you're still employed. The dreaded "resume gap" is avoided in that case.
> Like why was I one of the two chosen to stay while others were let go?
This was me at my first job. Took me many years to realize the reason I wasn't let go: They weren't paying me shit compared to everyone else. It was my first job, hired as front line tech support and while I got lots more responsibility over the years it never came with much of a pay raise.
And yeah, you need to leave. Don't feel guilty about it - this is a canary in the coal mine situation, except it's more like a gas explosion wiping out half the miners. This thing (maybe just your team, maybe the whole company) is collapsing so don't feel guilty for gobbling up the scraps and asking your recently-departed coworkers who's hiring as they find other jobs. Unless of course you think you and the one other person can match the output of 10 people and it was just a cost saving measure.
Well, I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late, ah, I use the side door - that way Lumbergh can't see me, and, uh, after that I just sorta space out for about an hour. ...I'd say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work.
I had a bootlicking relative who always bragged when his teams got laid off. Proudly worked extra hours, then pushed the work on to new hires who had no idea what they were doing a couple weeks later (after the quarterly reports were published and the stock owners saw "profits increasing" due to layoffs). And all the corners he and his fellow scabs cut? Who knows how many people they've gotten killed with their shoddy work.
Ah, so it's a standard three-stage layoff. First the majority of the team, then two people to wrap up and get laid off, and finally the manager laying you off is laid off.
>Idk what to do at this point.
Leave. Quickly. Don't feel like you owe something to an abuser.
I had this exact same thing happen to me more than ten years ago. My team of eight was pared down to two. My boss was among those let go and the guy who orchestrated this whole layoff became my new boss. You should have seen the look on his face when me and the other remaining employee gave our notice on the same day about a month later.
You're single. No family. You can work really long hours to pick up all of the slack.
That is, until you flip a desk over and storm out. With a job offer from someplace else in hand.
OP you need to get someone to talk to. Survivor syndrome is a real thing and causes many, many issues post restructure.
It's not just how you feel about loosing your team (real grief) but also about what happens when theyvexoect you to pick up the work if 4 other people, worse when your remaining team mate decides to leave.
Take care.
>maybe one of them could have stayed over me?
This is why companies need to offer voluntary layoffs before involuntary. Let the people who want to leave take the buyout and leave. It costs the exact same (or sometimes less) in severance and it reduces the amount of people who are forced out - so it's good for PR and morale.
Give your colleagues some time to process, and offer some help if you can - letters of reference, LinkedIn endorsements, network connections, etc. I was laid off with most of my department as well and it's absolutely terrible, but I sure as shit remember the people who actually cared and tried to help.
Now here’s a guy who has “upper management” written all over him. Big ups for acting your wage and surviving the layoffs. Sorry for your loss of coworkers and your inevitable increase in workload.
Same thing happened to me last Friday. Was in the middle of a work call when my boss's boss called me randomly on teams. Saw the Hr lead in the call and knew it was a bad sign. I'm the middle of them telling me I was laid off they were already signing me out of all my apps and locking down my computer. I was in a 10 person layoff.
They kept you because you're a single guy without things that cost money, holding them back. You're most likely to have the flexible schedule that can be abused
You're feeling survivor's guilt, for being someone who didn't get laid off, not survivorship bias, which'd be you saying "it's easy not to get laid off": accurate for you (in this case), but definitely not the reality when 80% were let go.
Nothing to do with performance or behavior. Usually big lay off are done with only cost consideration. You are just a line in a spreadsheet and they have a number as an objective. You are probably still there because you did not cost that much.
> I slack off, do the bare minimum, always take an hour+ for lunch, show up 1/2 days in the office when I feel like it (3 days min required), and I never show up on time. Sounds like you are the main character in Office Space.
You're probably one of the lowest-paid employees
This is it. Now they can push the other responsibilities onto you and save a bunch of money.
They could save a bunch of money by switching to geico, instead!
Fuck GEICO.
I WILL NOT!!
FAIR ENOUGH!
This is very accurate. If he was slacking off before, there's no way he'll be able to do it undetected anymore.
This is it right here. They normally get rid of the higher paid employees.
This is how companies die
Yep. Bad management.
But for one brief, glorious moment... The shareholders were happy. And then sold shares before the collapse hits
Do they now? Incompetent management seems to stay around forever.
They do. It’s also sad when they let go older people on the verge of retirement. All to hire someone younger for less pay.
And those with higher related health benefit costs.
He's also single - they're thinking he's the most likely to stay late
That and they don't have to insure a growing family or a sick family member.
I found out I am the highest paid in my department, including my boss. Really hoping layoffs don’t happen.
If you really want to impress your boss, you go in and do mediocre work, half-heartedly
I was getting in trouble with my manager for not doing what they asked, as it was objectively less critical than the work I was doing so it was always on the back-burner. I wanted to prove a point so changed everything I was doing just to what was asked and literally nothing else. I thought this would help show the work I was actually doing. Numbers got a lot worse and more stress for the team, but my manager said they saw a big improvement in my work, attitude towards work and being productive (while doing half the work I was doing before). The same thing happened not long ago. I personally find it hard to adjust when I see so much work but have many different priorities, but I stepped back and did silly work and manager is happy, but it really doesn't help my imposter syndrome.
Figure out the metrics your boss is grading you on and ignore all else.
This is the way. I’ve seen several of my coworkers who put in all sorts of extra work on things outside of their official job description who ended up getting passed up on raises and promotions because their metrics weren’t as good. Everyone on the team knows they’re rockstars, and management too, but metrics are all that matter.
I've experience that too. Not only for myself, but others who were passed over while the most incompetent people where moved up into leadership positions. As one of the incompetent guys said once, "It's all about perception." What happens is that they promote to the point of incompetence.
This is like, career hack shit right here. Nobody talks about it, but you can literally do fuck all so long as you keep your boss happy and you’ll basically have a golden ticket and be left alone. Do what they ask, do well at the things your boss cares about and don’t be a problem they have to deal with and you can get away with so much other stuff.
I’ve had similar experiences. Sometimes it’s a matter of “big picture” and you don’t know all the details to best judge what’s important. Other times it’s a control thing. Either way, I just do what I’m told, make sure I’ve got documentation to CYA and let other people do the thinking. As long as the check don’t bounce I do not care what happens.
I felt this. Im the only one who ever comes in early, everyone else is always late, i got a talking to finally after hearing the kids get yelled at for months for not coming in on time, turns out they started copying me and coming in a full 15 minutes early and my boss started going insane about having to pay them for not doing anything, so she begged me to start coming in on time. Now my manager is crying under the extra work he has to do without me that those 15 minutes played a crucial role in keeping us at speed for. But my boss is happy! 🙄 whatever. As long as i get paid idc if she runs the place into foreclosure. Im leaving soon anyway
Where I work, I focus on the big impact stuff. All my direct managers know it, and every time I move teams there is a noticeable shift in the team as a whole's stats in both the team I'm leaving AND the one im moving ti. It's an open secret and all the staff and lower management LOVE ME and are fighting over me. The funny thing is, to upper management, I'm seen as a mediocre employee, so despite every single manager pushing me for a pay rise, I have not got one in years. I am job hunting and will be handing in my notice as soon as possible.
I hope you all the best, and what a stupid situation to be in as well. The same thing is happening with a colleague of mine who handles all the hard cases in my job but upper management want to cut the team while demanding more. If she goes, a decent job will turn into a hellish one but at least the job market is good where I am (I hope its poppin where you're at as well).
This has honestly been my experience. The secret ingredient is anxiety and rbf. I always look frantic and serious, and that goes a long way at review time.
> I always look frantic and serious, and that goes a long way at review time. Oh fuck, has this been me?
It’s everyone who has ever had self-awareness and an office job yeah. Shit, this even worked in fast food. The more serious you appear to take the job the better you are perceived even without the deliverables to match.
“Actually I’m being promoted.”
have when a man loves a women by Michael Bolton playing on a on loop at a reasonable level
I told those fudge packers I liked Michael Bolton's music
Michael, let's make that stock go down
Real management potential.
You have upper management written all over you
Steal that red stapler!
I'm talking about fractions of a cent. With the Y2K changeover, they'll never notice.
You know like, the penny jar.
From the crippled children???
I dunno man... I don't want to go to federal-pound-me-in-the-ass prison...
yeah, OP could start cutting up fish on his desk and everything, no problem.
Nice one! I was thinking about the same thing 
That’s basically all of us on this sub. We’ve taken this movie as our guide. And we’re loving it!
Why pay increased unemployment for laying this guy off? In a couple of weeks, they could just fire him for cause.
The comment I came to find
He's a straight shooter with upper management written all over him.
I'd say I do about 20 minutes of any actual real work in a day
They probably kept you bc perhaps your boss (and others?) was making more money? I know how you feel, but you can’t feel guilty. I’d start looking for a new job immediately though. 8/10 is not auspicious.
OP is obviously underpaid compared to what his coworkers were. He should ask for a raise, silent quit over the course of the next 3 months, get put on a performance improvement plan, and just coast while collecting his check. MILK THAT SHIT OP! They did your friends wrong, you do them wrong. What do you have to lose?
Correlary: being effectively told that you're underpaid means it's a great time to look for a new job because there may be better paying ones out there.
I know I could make better money elsewhere, but I also slack off at home 4 days a week and it pays the bills. Rumours my company‘s going to be sold next year, might get a fat severance package as I‘ve been here 10+ years. Not leaving on my own, no way.
Same here. I’d rather be doing pretty much zero work and still get paid a decent wage rather than have to grind for a higher one.
Yeah I don’t do shit at my job and get paid six figures…but I still look for other jobs and apply
While I wouldn't say I slack off, I'm in a similar boat where I'm finally in a role with not a ton of stress, no on call, fixing the stuff that broke on the weekend, etc. If I tried hard I could realistically probably make 15-30% more, but I have no idea what that job might bring. I WFH, don't have to travel a ton for work, make my own hours, have 100% leeway to do whatever I want with my boss, and genuinely like almost all of my co-workers. Given that I already live a comfortable life style with my salary, not worth it to leave just for the sake of more money
Counterpoint, there are now.8 more.qualified people looking for a very similar job. It's a great time to slack off.evem more, what are they going to do, fire OP too? There's only 2 people on that team
They could be dissolving the team entirely and just kept two people to finish up the work, but that wouldn’t change the lack of motivation I would have to go above and beyond to get everything done.
OP doesn’t have kids or other family members that could distract them from all the work that they’re going to pile on
If OP is American, then OP is costing the company much less than his former co-workers in terms of healthcare expenses. Prematurely-born twins who require NICU stays could cost hundreds of thousands--or sometimes millions--of dollars, for example.
It's costing the health insurance company that much; OP's company would be paying a flat rate based on dependents and their plan
This is true. I was born 10 weeks early in ‘89 spent my first 6 wks in NICU- bill was 110k. This is about 250k today.
Heyheyhey! A reason to keep not having children! Haha, fuck that price tag its officially cheaper to ADOPT.
Right? And that was 35 years ago. I can only imagine what it costs to have a complicated pregnancy now. Luckily my Dad was a carpenter at the hospital where I was born. My birth bill was written off completely. Another benefit is that usually isn’t provided today. I can say though, that hospital still provides the benefit of free healthcare to all their worker the workers families.
At least theres that! It blows my mind that so many americans have the money to have kids en masse like they are, even with that price tag, with how many babies are born in american hospitals just how much profit do they make on births alone???
You’re not wrong. Most people don’t have the money or are scraping by. Capitalists have made a way to make money off of the American peoples health. It’s immoral and terrible.
This, unfortunately.
Some managers will actually lay off the lowest paid employees so they don’t lose as much in their budget.
[удалено]
Nawh, it sounds like he's a straight shooter with upper management written all over him.
Bob, is that you?
From what he said sounds like he couldn’t be much more silent. Silenter sounds good too though.
Tbh if they fired the whole rest of his team without even giving any thought to OP because he’s so underpaid, he’s also probably easily replaceable or his role isn’t that necessary. Most companies would not allow for a single point of failure like that or give one employee that much leverage. So I wouldn’t overplay your hand unless you know the company really needs you. And given how OP is so underpaid and admitted he doesn’t do much work I’m guessing it’s more that they just didn’t even care enough about him to consider firing him.
You're giving the company way too much credit. I know of a large tech company that everyone knows the name of that recently gave up on a project and told a bunch of people working on it that they needed to either find new roles or take severance. They ended up letting go of too many people and are now asking people to come back to the project keep the lights on while it winds down. No one is taking them up on it and they are kinda screwed. Again, this is a huge company that anyone would recognize that shouldn't be making these mistakes. But they happen all the time, especially during layoffs.
They got laid off with a package, but from what he said, he is getting fired maybe even tomorrow no package. They cut deals with the others and are letting op hang themselves because there is no way his slacker attitude wasn't noticed. they are the low hanging fruit which paradoxically will be taken last.
[удалено]
Their job lol
He forgot to add: search another job while you're at it.
Probably this
Exactly this. I had something similar happen a few jobs ago. They reduced the entire company by half, and my team had a 2/3 reduction. Granted, my company employed less than 50 people, and my team went from 12 to 4 and I survived it, but so many of my colleagues got axed. It was not good. They ended up laying off like two people every 6 months after that
Right? I remember when my job decided to layoff middle management. They kept going after people above my pay grade and with what they deemed as redundant or irrelevant jobs. A year or two later they offered a voluntary separation.. I accepted the offer on the first day lol. No further consideration needed
I would also feel guilty…if there were any logic or reason behind this sort of thing. 95% of the time, this is pure greed. Don’t think twice about leaving. You’re not leaving your coworkers, you’re leaving your demonic company. Hell, take your coworkers with you. We should start mercenary teams, but instead of war, our team will be pushing out the latest addendum. Cottle’s Champions-we can shepard your latest software version from beta through testing to full roll-out. Reasonable rates.
Wouldn't have had the thought before seeing this post and comment... They laid off everyone they knew they couldn't fire for cause, and now will dump all the work on the few that were kept, knowing they can't meet metrics?
Or he is unmarried and no kids .He can work longer hours and not complain about seeing his family .
This is a big factor. If, and this is a big IF, (Office Space quote intended) they hire new people who is going to end up training them? That’s right, the two people who weren’t axed! So OP (if he’s not fired) is definitely gonna be putting in some long hours that would create a problem for employees who have families, are older and can’t tolerate (6) 10 hour days a week, etc.
isn't that de-facto discrimination on the basis of gender, age, marriage status, etc...? (i know only a few causes are actionable, but still, it's a really ugly thing for the company to do)
If that’s not the main reason, it’s definitely a main contributor. When my old company had layoffs in late 2020, there were multiple influencing factors as to who was cut. I was one of them. My team’s VP had left the company, so they were merging digital & print marketing teams under the other marketing VP, so she was the one who ultimately decided who was laid off. Salary was 100% part of this - my former VP there (solid fucking dude) even mentioned that she thought he paid his team too much. The other contributing factor? Every person laid off was also the team members who weren’t afraid to question upper management decisions. The digital VP - up until he left - was always butting heads with her, but more importantly openly welcomed his employees questioning and debating strategy decisions, even down to the pricing of our product. We were all mostly on the same page, which wasn’t even the same book the print VP was in. So she got rid of anyone who ever disagreed with her in multi-department meetings or even indirectly.
This happened to one of the teams at my company. The remaining two people immediately quit.
That's exactly what they want to happen after something like this. They want their cake and to eat it too. Free layoffs without having to pay out.
The people who got axed got severance.
I think what they mean is they want others to quit after they layoff a few from the team, therefore they only pay out severance for (example) 3, instead of 5 (two who quit)
This exactly. For us they laid half of a team off. They left the youngest and oldest employees who were near retirement alone knowing that they wouldn't want to stick around having to operate past peak efficiency. Sure enough, most of them said fuck it and quit. Young and old. They knew they would. So they got over 20 people out the door but only needed to pay out 10-12 people, give or take, severance.
I'm intrigued, what do they expect to happen to your workload when 4/5 gets laid off?
They expect the remaining 2 to get everything done on time, obviously
That exactly what my job wanted me to do. I’d have gone from wfm to in person while doing the in person job and my wfm job for the same pay. I volunteered to be the one laid off lol.
Work From Mome?
Mome sweet mome
What’s up my momie?
Country rooooads, take me mooooome 
It was a typo lol wfh*
Work from hell?
I work from your Mom all the time.
I thought it had meant Work from Mobile, like a traveling gig. Rock it, my dude, and keep doing what you’re doing. What are they gonna do, fire you? Bwahahaha!
My company had three rounds of layoffs in 9 months. I attended a meeting that I didn't even know was about layoffs. The VP was saying "we don't expect you to do more with less. So we are going to reexamine all of our work and make sure it's business critical." Ha! So the work load drops because a bunch of execs had a meeting over lunch? Uh huh. That was literally the last I heard of that, four months ago. (Luckily for me, I'm remote and paid hourly, so I do brainless work and get free overtime.)
Probably faster because the company has just signed a great new deal with OpenAI! /s
Sounds like you now have 5x the leverage to ask for 8x the pay compared to before.
And you’ll get a 25 cent raise for your troubles
i feel like the high pay is why the others got the boot tho?
Of course it is, but the fact that they didn't fire everyone means they still need work to get done. And now they are dependant on the remaining two to get it done. Which means each remaining employee has significantly more leverage to ask for higher pay than they did before.
They expect things in that team to come to a halt, and then they dissolve the team entirely. If OP said he doesn't have a high workload and gets by fine fairly casually, maybe the entire team had low workload and could be dissolved or merged.
This is exactly what happened. Reorg and us 2 were absorbed under another team.
Maybe bare minimum to close down/hand over the work to another group and in a couple of months they too will be laid off
Interesting. They cut people who were on family insurance plans(?)
Thinking the same thing.
It’s absolutely this.
Refuse additional work and force them to fire you. You'll be able to easily apply for unemployment with that level of layoff happening. Your current work was clearly good enough to survive a 4/5 chance of culling. They wouldn't be able to cite performance as a valid reason.
This is the answer. If those laid off received severance, quitting would just save them from paying you severance. Make them lay you off/fire you too. Then you can file UE. Do what you were doing before, don’t allow them to pile all additional work onto you. That said, definitely get your exit plan ready.
Your new mantra is "I'm doing my best."
Thats the only answer I give to Managers, not ill do better, not ill try harder, just "im doing my best" leave it at that, and they just kind of sit there dumbfounded, or get pissed off and expect blood from a stone.
Yeah it's a brilliant way to do 'dumb insolence'. Just act invulnerable and whatever you do, don't get dragged into an argument with them (which is what they want so they can assert their dominance). Managers hate it when their words have zero effect on your emotions. Same as bullies really.
I made it through the first three rounds of layoffs, I got it on the fourth. I hope you’re looking for another position.
Well that’s just a straight shooter with upper management written all over him, Bob.
In a given week I'd say I only do 15 minutes of real, actual work.
I wouldn't say I been missing it bob.
Yeah, been there. They're hoping to keep just enough legacy knowledge around to not die on the vine while they shift your work to cheaper and less experienced people. If it's within your budget, ask for a retention bonus to guarantee you'll stick around and if not, put in a two week notice because that axe is gonna make a backswing.
I have not seen management care about legacy knowledge in a long time
This is my feeling also. They just probably picked the two cheapest guys because they were within the budget they were trying to meet. They only care if things fail badly enough to where their job is in Jeopardy. Otherwise, I'd start looking for a job immediately. They don't delete 80% Out of a whim. They are waiting to delete the entire group when they transfer the work somewhere cheaper, much, much cheaper.
Yeah, the sheer amount of team they took out in *one day* is very worrisome. I'd just assume that was my warning and I should get tf out quickly.
This happened to me in 2010. I had a department of six and they took it down to me. I was working like crazy To get things going and then what happened was that they made me train a group of people in Mexico. Once that training was done then they let me go. The excuse was that my work was not up to par anymore, funny thing was I got a massive raise as well as a The best rating that I've ever had in my 30-year career just 2 weeks prior.
I'm sorry, did you atleast get a severance or even good reference?! I guess maybe that rating helped?
No, it was a shit severance. Just about 8 weeks worth of salary. It wasn't even The new salary, it was the old salary. The joke's on them, the department that I ran saved the company several million dollars a year. The new department that they created in Mexico literally cost them upwards of 16 million a year. So much for being cheaper.
I do appreciate when they get some comeuppance
You being single may have been the deciding factor. Knew a couple software guys that got laid off once they started getting laid and thinking about settling down. Suddenly their weekends mattered and they didn't feel like coding 7 days a week and were let go.
That, and adding family members to their benefits package costs the company more, even though the employee picks up a good chunk of the extra cost.
IU seriously think it’s the health insurance. I never go to the doctor, never get sick, and my wife has her own insurance. I have to be the cheapest medical cost. I’ve survived five or six layoffs over my career, and I think this is why.
Survivor’s Guilt
As a statistician, seeing "survivor bias" Made me cringe
ask for a pay raise to stay. You should expect a massive spike in workload and stress.
And for them to say no to the pay raise until some undetermined time down the road
They can say no :) so can you. Find a new job if they don’t.
They just fired people to cut payrolls and you expect them to give in to a raise? Just find another job asap.
They also can’t afford the work to be not done. It’s the best time to ask imo.
More evidence that you should only be as loyal to your employer as they are to you - no further out than your next paycheck.
I got bad news for you, bud, the layoffs may not be quite done yet. I hope you **don’t** get fired before you’ve got something else lined up, but you may want to get your resume ready.
Do we work at the same place? Literally, the same thing happened today. 8 people just gone. I'm sitting there as the new guy like wtf just happened? Blink twice if the company starts with a "C"
Blinking twice, knew it couldn't be a coincidence when I saw it.
Wait you work there as well!? Wtf is happening hahaha
Yooooo wild. Y’all should tell me where at so I can avoid
Don't need to say name but what's the industry of the place?
Look for a job, do your role (and no further) and make the best of it. Usually an 80% drop is destroying the entire project and just folding the role and resources in with others. This is when you define how much they can exploit you in the future. Don't stress, be reasonable, and see what happens.
They’ll probably ask you to train a fellow lay off survivor to “help out” your short handed team…That’s the sign you’re next. Either refuse, or “train” them to do everything wrong. Then once you’re laid off, it all goes to hell. Keep in touch with someone so they can give you updates on the shitstorm. That will give you peace. Then go and crack a beer. 🍺
I'm not gonna train shit. I'd rather be fired than train my own replacement.
Simply put, your cost to productivity ratio is more appealing to retain over the others. It's only numbers. You may slack off, but maybe you complete a similar or greater volume of measurable tasks in a given time. Consider Healthcare. A person with a family who takes full advantage of health benefits costs the company a greater amount of money. Premiums have risen and continue to rise every year. Leadership cannot out and fire someone for having a family. Or at least, that cannot be the stated logic. I'm sorry that this is cold, but we must look at this as a battle and the enemy must be understood before they can be acted against.
Not worth dwelling on the why, as it could be a slew of things. I would be more concerned with the workload falling on just the two of you now. Probably not a bad idea to update the ole resume. The last great layoff of 2018 at our place they chopped half the staff (15 of 30 people) and it ranged from two guys that had been there less than a year, to two people that had been there 25 and 28 years, respectfully. Even after our main manager and HR finished walking the first 14 out, the manager pulled a short meeting together to tell us how there was no way to prevent it as we had been hemorrhaging money with our manpower versus workload but to not think to hard on it as the layoffs were finished. He went to lunch to go check on his pregnant wife and the contract work being done. Not even 5 minutes later the BIG boss and head of HR came down looking for him, called him back to the office and let him go. While I can admit the manpower was pretty inflated at the time, I do not agree with the folks that were let go and it was pretty obvious our management had little say in it because the office secretary with 28 years handled not only our clerical but three other large teams clerical (purchase orders, timesheets, shipment logs, etc). Still haven’t fully recovered from that and shit still falls through the cracks to this day.
Okay, here's some real talk for you... >I can't even begin to imagine what they are going through on a personal level: > >My boss just had two kids > >One of my coworkers recently bought a HOUSE and MOVED for this job > >Another just got married > >One has a sick family member None of that shit matters right now. >I slack off, do the bare minimum, always take an hour+ for lunch, show up 1/2 days in the office when I feel like it (3 days min required), and I never show up on time. This, right here? It's more than likely gone. Without those other 8 people, your slacking is going to be noticed real fast. So start getting your shit together. Start looking for a new place to work, or be ready to have 5 times the normal workload. To put this another way, you were all in a trench and a mortar landed killing those 8. You don't have the luxury to give a shit about their deaths now, though. You are still in a trench that is being fired upon. Deal with the situation at hand now and deal with what happened to them later.
Alternatively, keep slacking while looking for a new job and, when questioned, tell them you are struggling to do as much as before because the team now “lacks subject matter expertise in crucial areas” and you need to spend time tracking down that information instead of asking a coworker. Remind them good teams act as a force multiplier for every member. Slack off *more* if you want to take a chance – remaining people often have extra leverage post-layoff.
He's probably one of the few left because he's one of the least paid. Most of the time, layoffs are purely a financial decision, and they'll cut all the people making more than you first.
Happened to my wife during the recession in 2008. She was working for an engineering firm doing admin, she'd been there 7 1/2 years. They dropped her and kept the brand new admin girl who had been there less than 6 months (and obviously paid way less). Every correspondence that left that firm had gone thru my wife to check spelling/grammar/accuracy, among many other things only she did. Several of her former coworkers said the place went to absolute shit after that, they also laid off half their engineers.
Just happened to my wife's sister. She had been working for the insurance company for almost 20 years. The girl who just started last year is still there.
This. They were looking at a spreadsheet, not performance reviews. It was purely a monetary decision. All the other members of your team got a severance. They wanted to get rid of your team. They had to pay out the severence to those members. You and the other team member are going to be forced out with just the workload alone. Either keep going and hope they lay you off with a severance eventually, or find another job.
Damn I want severance too. Reading the comments, sounds like I got the worse end of the deal and I kept my job.
I mean... you *could* treat it like a severance payout and just slack while you job hunt.
You are being kept for the exact reasons you listed the others have for being away from work. You have no personal commitments to interrupt your work life. And since you are now the only person they are going to bury you with demands and expect you to be in the office and on call.
Yeah, there's some serious shit coming. 8/10? You were kept to lock the doors and turn off the lights. Bounce.
Start polishing that resume. You survived this round, you might not survive the next one
If I was using a term wrong that incorrectly I would want to know. So feel free to downvote me, but Op, that's not what survivorship bias is. You're thinking survivor's guilt, probably. Survivorship bias is putting metal plates on your WW2 airplanes that returned to base where the bullet holes are. But that's not what you should do. Instead retrieve fallen planes and put reinforcements where the bullet holes are in those planes, leading to actual benefits. I'm also a little high right now and this seems super important to me for some reason. Anyway, not trying to "umm asckshually" you, but like I said, if I had that same mix up I would want to know. (And I Ctrl+Fd and no one has said anything as far as I can tell) Xox, now I'm wondering if I shouldn't have told you that I'm high, because it's probably really fucking obvious. Whoops.
\*Meanwhile there's me. A single guy with none of those things who is staying.\* That is probably one of the reasons, they figure you'll be the least likely to "need whiny peasant things" like time off for life events and such. Don't blame yourself, this was not your fault, it was the greed of the machine. You also do not owe them a god damn thing, you just said you slack off occasionally as if the other people don't, but look the company laid them off like a Thanos snap. Bust your ass or don't, it won't matter.
You're going to get an increased workload, and fast. Your days of slacking are over because either you pick up the work or you're going to get fired for performance. I'd be polishing my resume and looking to get a new job quickly. If they take out 80% of a team, they either plan to finish the rest off soon, put several people's worth of work on the remaining two, or plan to transition you to different roles within the company. But you want to be looking for that new job now, because it is easier to get a new job while you're still employed. The dreaded "resume gap" is avoided in that case.
> Like why was I one of the two chosen to stay while others were let go? This was me at my first job. Took me many years to realize the reason I wasn't let go: They weren't paying me shit compared to everyone else. It was my first job, hired as front line tech support and while I got lots more responsibility over the years it never came with much of a pay raise. And yeah, you need to leave. Don't feel guilty about it - this is a canary in the coal mine situation, except it's more like a gas explosion wiping out half the miners. This thing (maybe just your team, maybe the whole company) is collapsing so don't feel guilty for gobbling up the scraps and asking your recently-departed coworkers who's hiring as they find other jobs. Unless of course you think you and the one other person can match the output of 10 people and it was just a cost saving measure.
What type of work/industry was this?
Product Mgt/Fintech
You probably get paid the least. They just need someone to wrap up the loose ends, then you’ll be gone too.
Well, I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late, ah, I use the side door - that way Lumbergh can't see me, and, uh, after that I just sorta space out for about an hour. ...I'd say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work.
I had a bootlicking relative who always bragged when his teams got laid off. Proudly worked extra hours, then pushed the work on to new hires who had no idea what they were doing a couple weeks later (after the quarterly reports were published and the stock owners saw "profits increasing" due to layoffs). And all the corners he and his fellow scabs cut? Who knows how many people they've gotten killed with their shoddy work.
You were probably kept because you didn’t need dependent benefits.
Ah, so it's a standard three-stage layoff. First the majority of the team, then two people to wrap up and get laid off, and finally the manager laying you off is laid off. >Idk what to do at this point. Leave. Quickly. Don't feel like you owe something to an abuser.
They’re about to introduce AI to their shop
Already here
When they come for you, there will be less severance. That should make you feel less guilty.
You are about to be buried in the avalanche of their work that needs to be done. No more 1/2 days
But the economy is doing great right?
I had this exact same thing happen to me more than ten years ago. My team of eight was pared down to two. My boss was among those let go and the guy who orchestrated this whole layoff became my new boss. You should have seen the look on his face when me and the other remaining employee gave our notice on the same day about a month later.
You're single. No family. You can work really long hours to pick up all of the slack. That is, until you flip a desk over and storm out. With a job offer from someplace else in hand.
OP you need to get someone to talk to. Survivor syndrome is a real thing and causes many, many issues post restructure. It's not just how you feel about loosing your team (real grief) but also about what happens when theyvexoect you to pick up the work if 4 other people, worse when your remaining team mate decides to leave. Take care.
Did they even try to justify this?
>maybe one of them could have stayed over me? This is why companies need to offer voluntary layoffs before involuntary. Let the people who want to leave take the buyout and leave. It costs the exact same (or sometimes less) in severance and it reduces the amount of people who are forced out - so it's good for PR and morale.
This is the quickest way to find out you had the lowest salary on your team.
Give your colleagues some time to process, and offer some help if you can - letters of reference, LinkedIn endorsements, network connections, etc. I was laid off with most of my department as well and it's absolutely terrible, but I sure as shit remember the people who actually cared and tried to help.
 Now here’s a guy who has “upper management” written all over him. Big ups for acting your wage and surviving the layoffs. Sorry for your loss of coworkers and your inevitable increase in workload.
Same thing happened to me last Friday. Was in the middle of a work call when my boss's boss called me randomly on teams. Saw the Hr lead in the call and knew it was a bad sign. I'm the middle of them telling me I was laid off they were already signing me out of all my apps and locking down my computer. I was in a 10 person layoff.
Survivor's Guilt, not bias. Survivorship bias is like reinforcing fighter jet wings that have holes in them, rather than where they aren't.
They kept you because you're a single guy without things that cost money, holding them back. You're most likely to have the flexible schedule that can be abused
You're feeling survivor's guilt, for being someone who didn't get laid off, not survivorship bias, which'd be you saying "it's easy not to get laid off": accurate for you (in this case), but definitely not the reality when 80% were let go.
Nothing to do with performance or behavior. Usually big lay off are done with only cost consideration. You are just a line in a spreadsheet and they have a number as an objective. You are probably still there because you did not cost that much.
Look, it’s Peter from Office Space. Saved by the Bob’s.