This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Kori X, who is based in Phoenix. They were originally laid off from Uber in 2023, returned this year as an evaluations specialist on the GenAI team, and were laid off again. Their words have been edited for length and clarity.
I was first laid off by Uber in 2023 after working my way up through multiple roles. When I woke up yesterday morning and saw the email that four months after I had rejoined the company, I was being laid off again, I wanted to throw my phone at the wall.
I was extremely nervous to rejoin Uber this year after already being laid off once. I used to love this company, but I was so afraid it would happen again. I needed a new job, so I talked to some of my friends who were still at Uber, and then in May, they helped me to rejoin as an evaluations specialist on the GenAI team.
Unfortunately, my fears became reality this week.
I didn’t see the layoff coming
After my 2023 layoff, I ventured out and was a manager at a store for a minute, but unfortunately, that shop closed. So I thought, “Okay, maybe it’s time, give Uber another shot. I’ll go back.”
Within weeks, I was rehired and working on a team of 12 to 15 people. I was constantly working in the office, too. I was also on an employee experience team. I was planning events for upcoming holidays, everything like that.
I was shocked when I received an email from my manager saying that they and other people on my team were also let go. To me, nothing alluded to this.
Last I heard, the company had just laid off a couple of people, maybe a month or so ago, and it seemed like we had a minute to not worry before they were going to do more.
My access got cut off pretty quickly
My internal system access was cut off at 5 p.m. local time yesterday, but I wasn’t able to get into Slack before then.
I got 21 weeks of severance pay based on tenure and two months of “garden leave,” where I’ll get my salary until November. Until then, I’ll remain on payroll, with equity vesting and health benefits uninterrupted.
I’m not waiting until then to apply for jobs. I started looking as soon as I got the email. Unfortunately, the job market is really hard out there. I was just in it earlier this year.
I have to live somehow. If corporate is what it takes, then I’ll unfortunately go back to corporate life. But if I can find a smaller shop or somewhere I can go that is not in a corporate environment, that’s probably where I would prefer to be.
I don’t think it was a management layer problem
I don’t agree with the CEO’s assessment that there were too many management layers. And if there were, it’s his fault. That’s all done by upper leadership. That has nothing to do with frontline workers.
I think these are excuses for why Uber wanted to cut people, but I don’t think it has anything to do with management or too much overlap. I think they’re seeing that AI products can replace a lot of that, and they can make more money with fewer people.
If they’re going to lay off people, maybe be a little bit more discerning as to who you’re laying off, because there were really good people that were there for a really long time who were affected. I was there for years before my first layoff. I knew that place like the back of my hand, and they didn’t care.
Uber did not respond to a request for comment.
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