With tech layoffs skyrocketing at big companies like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta in 2023, many people are posting warning signs that lead to the fact that they’re being laid off.
Signs include surprise meeting requests, revoked access to laptops and internet, and unannounced gifts and rewards to ease the pain of layoffs.
TikTok user Jaymo (@jaymofiasco) experienced all three of these things on the same day and thought he was fired from his new job. Jaymo posted a video about the sign he posted on March 14th. In his first five hours on the app, the video went viral and received nearly 34,000 views.
The video seems to epitomize the panic many people feel when they fear losing their jobs, and how they often read things when they think their jobs are at stake.
@jaymofiasco Hmm… what happened? I just got this job so let’s hope this is nothing serious. #worktok #Corporate life ♬ Original Sound – Stephen Johnson
Jaymo used a series of text overlays to walk viewers through her thought process. “Will I be fired?” she wrote to begin the video.
The clip then cuts to zooming in on the no-network icon on her computer. “Is the internet just down?” she asked. She followed this up by recording half-eaten vanilla frosted her donuts with furikake.
In the final clip of the video, Jaymo shows a Microsoft Teams notification from his email inbox that he has a meeting in 29 minutes. “Or is it because they put this random last-minute team meeting on our calendars?” She asked again why she received the donuts.
Viewers who watched her clip expressed their unease about receiving “signals” like the one Jaymo listed on TikTok.
“Why is this me too!?!?” wrote one commenter.
“This was me two weeks ago when I couldn’t sign in to Teams or found an outage in Outlook, and I immediately thought I was fired.
Jaymo provides an update in the comments section, indicating that all is well with her job, and that the firing-harbinger triad wasn’t the doom she thought.
“Update: The meeting prob could have been an email to keep us from fussing,” she wrote.
One commenter said their manager must have expected employees to freak out at the random call for a meeting. I was.
“I once had a meeting like that and my boss put GOOD NEWS in the title and subject and body lmaoo,” they wrote.
This approach is one that Jaymo appreciates.
The Daily Dot reached out to Jaymo via a TikTok comment for more information.
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*First published: March 14, 2023 at 4:02 PM CDT
Jack Alban
Jack Alban is a freelance journalist for the Daily Dot covering trending human interest/social media stories and how real people react to them. He’s always trying to incorporate evidence-based research, current events, and facts related to these stories to create not-so-average viral posts.
