Finance

When You’re Laid Off But Still Have to Go to Work

Published

2 years ago

April 25, 2024

When You’re Laid Off But Still Have to Go to Work

Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photo: Getty Images

When layoffs happen, they’re often immediate — former employees are shown the door and locked out of their company email within hours. Others are given a few days to tie up loose ends. But in a few cases, the good-byes drag on … and on and on. Sometimes laid-off workers have to stay on for weeks if they want severance and even train their replacements themselves. It’s awkward! Still, you’re getting paid just to keep showing up. Here, three laid-off women share what they did — and didn’t do — with the extra weeks they had to hang around their old jobs.

At the beginning of December, we all woke up to an email that was like, “The company’s closing in three weeks.” I think it went out at 7 a.m. on a Monday. Everyone came into the office and met with their bosses. And then it was basically several weeks of intense senioritis. No one was working hard or doing much of anything. People were openly interviewing for new jobs at their desks. You’d walk by and hear someone being like, “Well, my strengths are …” Everyone was like, “Who are you talking to? Do you know anyone hiring?” There was a sense of solidarity, and no one gave a shit anymore. Even our bosses were getting laid off, so there wasn’t anyone to be mad at — I mean, maybe extreme upper management, but they weren’t in our office.

It was a weirdly fun time to be at work. All the guise of professionalism was gone. We were all in the same boat, using that time to network and stealing company swag. Within a few days, the office supply closet was completely bare. All I managed to get were some mugs and pens.

They also gave us really good severance — six months of full pay. I wound up having a new job lined up before our last day. Frankly, I don’t think anyone was really that surprised that we were closing. It was a start-up and terribly managed, and they just threw money at everything. At the beginning, they were flush with VC cash, and we could do whatever we wanted — I’d pitch a project that would require me to fly across the country, and they’d be like, “Okay!” It was clear that it wasn’t going to last. There was almost this sense of having gotten away with something.

Five weeks ago, a meeting was put on my calendar on a Friday to discuss changes within my organization. I knew that layoffs were coming at some point — our chief marketing officer had told us a few months ago — but I didn’t think I’d be affected. They’d hired a consulting firm to go through and “streamline” certain departments, but if anything, I thought I’d get good news. I’d built a lot of relationships in my role, and I’d heard that the team I managed, which consisted of 20 people, might be expanding. So I got on the meeting — we’re mostly remote — and made some stupid joke and then I saw my manager looking terribly sad. And they said my role had been eliminated and my team would be decentralized. My boss was sending me text messages the whole time like, “I’m so sorry, I had no idea.”

Come Monday, I found out which members of my team had been laid off too, and was completely shocked. One was a top performer. There were huge cuts across the company, almost at random. But no one knew who was safe and who wasn’t, which created more gossip. I got a call from a colleague who was like, “Oh my gosh, it’s a bloodbath.” He started listing all these people who were being let go. And I was like, “Yeah, and me too.” He couldn’t get off the phone fast enough.

Some people were dismissed immediately; others were given two weeks. They gave me five weeks, which I think was an attempt to be nice. But is it nice? It seems like they picked my final date based on the end of the quarter, so that they wouldn’t have to budget for my salary next quarter. Ultimately, it was just very awkward. I care a lot about my team, and I wanted to try to help with the transition as much as I could. But five weeks is a very long time to be hovering and feeling useless, the object of people’s pity. My end date was conditional — I had to stay for that five weeks if I wanted my severance package — but toward the end, I was just hanging around. During my last week, I got an automated email from the company congratulating me on my two-year work anniversary.

I stopped setting an alarm in the morning. If somebody needed me, they knew how to reach me, but I was only working for about two hours each day. There just wasn’t that much for me to do. I live near Disney World, so I went there a fair amount. I did a lot of reading. I went to 4:30 p.m. pilates classes. I’ve been looking at my LinkedIn. I trained for a 10K. I spent more time with my friends, and my dog got a lot of exercise. With my severance package, I technically don’t have to work for the rest of the year. Hopefully I find something new before then. But I also need some time to mend from this experience. I know I was valuable here, but they didn’t care — I was just a number on a spreadsheet.

I’d planned to send out a nice farewell note and put up an out-of-office message on my last day. But then, after I had five weeks to plan it, I got cut off from the system early, before I could do it. After all that, I didn’t even get to say good-bye. Now I just have to mail in my laptop.

When I was laid off and told that my last day would be in a month, I was in such shock that my immediate response was Maybe if I work extra hard before my last day, they won’t actually let me go. It was like a bad breakup where you hope you can change their mind. I had just turned 30 and gone through an actual bad breakup with my college boyfriend, too, so I was grappling with my self-esteem on multiple fronts.

Not that I even considered it, but if I’d left before my end date, I would just get two weeks of severance. So the choice was either get paid for six more weeks or two more weeks — sort of a no-brainer. I was looking for a new job the whole time, but I was also still working my butt off. I stayed in this denial phase that maybe, if I proved myself, they’d be like, “Oh, we’ll keep you on for one more month, and another month after that.” It was delusional.

Some people have the intuition that they’re getting let go. I did not. I was never really given a reason. It seemed like a weird mismanagement issue, though I never really got to the bottom of it.

After I talked to HR, I went back to my desk. I sort of assumed my boss would say something, but she didn’t. So I waited for maybe an hour and then was like, Fuck this, I’m going home. Then I went out with a friend and got really, really drunk. The next morning I was so hungover, but I went into work anyway. And for the next few weeks, I was just trying to do everything as perfectly as possible. There was actually a lot of work to do. I had to finish up all of my deliverables and create a handover memo for all my responsibilities. I was also trying to be strategic. I figured that everyone I worked with might hopefully be a reference for me someday. So I wanted to be in everyone’s good graces.

I had a lot of access to free products at my job, but I didn’t take anything. I was honestly too nervous. I downloaded my contacts and some of my work off the company server, and I even felt guilty about that, which I know I shouldn’t have. At one point I asked my boss if we could say that I was leaving — not that I had been laid off — and she was like, “No.” She was not interested in being remotely helpful. Looking back, I’m so glad I got out of that job. It was such an awful workplace. And it’s wild to me that I was so desperate to stay for as long as I could.

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Finance

Bluespring adds $2.3bn in assets with SHP Financial purchase

Published

6 hours ago

February 11, 2026

Press Room

Bluespring adds .3bn in assets with SHP Financial purchase

In 2025, Bluespring added over $6bn in assets under management to its business. Credit: Digitala World/ Shutterstock.com.

Bluespring Wealth Partners has purchased SHP Financial, a firm based in Massachusetts that manages about $2.3bn in assets for mass-affluent and high-net-worth clients.

Financial specifics of the deal remain undisclosed.

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SHP Financial was established in 2003 by Derek L. Gregoire, Matthew C. Peck, and Keith W. Ellis Jr., who began their financial careers together in the insurance sector.

The company employs around 50 staff across three offices in Plymouth, Woburn, and Hyannis. Its team includes seven advisers and 18 other financial services professionals.

The firm is known for providing fiduciary advice and offers services such as its SHP Retirement Road Map, aimed at making retirement planning more accessible to clients.

Peck said: “We are deeply protective of the culture we’ve built over the last two decades and were intentional about choosing a partner we felt could help us fuel SHP’s next stage of growth while helping us remain true to our goals.

“And we found that partner in Bluespring. We believe Bluespring can provide the resources and support needed to grow and invest in our team, while preserving the client experience that defines SHP.”

In 2025, Bluespring added over $6bn in assets under management to its business.

Bluespring president Pradeep Jayaraman commented: “SHP is a team that has already built meaningful scale and is still hungry to grow. That’s what makes this an acceleration story, as opposed to a transition story.

“SHP’s founders are seasoned leaders in the prime of their careers, still deeply engaged in their business, with decades of success yet ahead.

Last month, Bluespring added Coghill Investment Strategies, managing around $600m in assets, to its network.

Finance

Oregon Democrats’ campaign finance proposal would establish spending limits, push back other provisions

Published

18 hours ago

February 10, 2026

Press Room

Oregon Democrats’ campaign finance proposal would establish spending limits, push back other provisions

The Oregon State Capitol in Salem, Ore. on Monday, Feb 2, 2026.

Saskia Hatvany / OPB

State leaders are trying to stand up a law to massively overhaul Oregon’s campaign finance system.

Now, two years after the original bill’s passage, a new proposal would limit political contributions before the next general election as planned, but give the Secretary of State more time to launch a required system to track spending.

An amended bill, unveiled Monday evening, is shining a spotlight on the divide between the politically powerful labor and business groups who support it and good government advocates who are accusing state leaders of trying to skirt the intent of the original legislation.

House Bill 4018, which saw its first public hearing Tuesday morning, comes as state officials seek to prop up the campaign finance bill passed in 2024. Since then, state leaders have been jockeying over how best to quickly set up the bill for Oregon’s elections. For years, the state has not capped political giving.

State elections officials have warned repeatedly that the legislation from 2024 was flawed and that Oregon was barreling toward a failed implementation. The Oregon Secretary of State says it needs far more money — potentially $25 million — to keep things on schedule.

In addition to a dizzying array of technical changes, the new bill gives the state more time to create an online system to better monitor and track political spending and giving. It would move the start date from 2028 to 2032.

The bill maintains the original plan of capping political donations by businesses, political committees, interest groups, labor unions and other citizens by 2027.

“If our goal is to strengthen trust in democracy, we cannot afford a rollout that undermines confidence in government’s ability to deliver,” Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read said in testimony supporting the bill on Tuesday.

“Oregonians deserve campaign finance reform that works, not just on paper, but in practice,” said Read. “They deserve a system that ends unlimited contributions. HB 4018 is a step closer to achieving that goal by preserving the key contribution limits promised to Oregonians while providing a realistic runway for the state to resolve the more complex reporting and transparency issues.”

Rep. Julie Fahey (D-Eugene), right, and Rep. Lucetta (R-McMinnville) attend a legislative preview for the press on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026 in Salem, Ore.
*Saskia Hatvany / OPB*

House Speaker Julie Fahey, who proposed the bill, believes it “addresses the most urgent needs of our campaign finance system,” a spokesperson for the Lane County Democrat said. For the tracking system, the bill “will give the Secretary of State the time needed to build it carefully, test it thoroughly, and roll it out without risking problems in the middle of a major election.”

The bill has the backing of labor groups such as the Oregon Nurses Association, Oregon AFSCME, Oregon AFL-CIO and the Oregon Restaurant & Lodging Association. Republican leaders have yet to chime in.

“Oregon is fighting hard for a transparent, robust, and intact democracy against a challenging national landscape from federal threats and corporate power. Fair elections are the foundation of this,” said Harper Haverkamp, of the American Federation of Teachers — Oregon. “The upcoming rollout of recently passed campaign finance reforms is something for us to look forward to — but the rollout must be done right.”

Campaign finance advocates offered a withering view of the proposal on Tuesday, saying they were excluded from discussions around crafting the bill and calling on lawmakers to reject the bill. In written testimony, one of them urged lawmakers to “Stop kicking the can down the road.”

The bill “massively changes [the 2024 bill] to come very close to making the contribution limits and disclosure requirements illusory,” Dan Meek, a Portland attorney and campaign finance reform advocate, said in Tuesday’s public hearing.

Among other things, he added, the bill would delay disclosure requirements by three years. It would also only restrict a group’s contribution to a campaign if the Secretary of State’s office determined that a single person had created them with the intent of evading limits, “which will be very difficult to prove,” he noted.

“This is another stealth attempt by legislative leadership and the big campaign contributors to do an end run around on campaign finance reform, before it’s set to be implemented,” Kate Titus, the executive director of Common Cause Oregon, said in a statement to OPB Tuesday.

The bill is scheduled for another public hearing on Thursday.

Finance

Finance Chiefs Struggling to Deliver in Face of Growing Pressure to Embrace AI

Published

1 day ago

February 10, 2026

Press Room

Finance Chiefs Struggling to Deliver in Face of Growing Pressure to Embrace AI

Latest research from Basware shows majority are investing in technology, but ROI remains elusive

CHARLOTTE, N.C., Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Calls from boards of directors and executive leadership to “do something with AI” are growing louder, and finance is struggling to answer them. According to a new report from Basware, a global leader in Invoice Lifecycle Management, nearly half of CFOs say they feel increased pressure from company leadership to implement AI across their operations. And while many are investing in agentic AI in response, a majority admit they are largely experimenting with the technology and flying blind when it comes to putting it into practice and delivering ROI.

As revealed in AI to ROI: Unlocking Value with AI Agents report, a global survey conducted by FT Longitude with support from Basware, six in ten (61%) of 200 finance leaders across the US, UK, France and Germany polled say their organization rolled out custom-developed AI agents largely as an experiment, simply to see what the technology could do. And one in four admit they still don’t fully understand what an AI agent looks like in practice.

It’s a vexing problem, and as they look to the year ahead, CFOs need to focus on solving it.

The Rise of Agentic AI

Two-thirds (66%) of respondents to the Basware survey say there is more hype around agentic AI than any previous technology shift, yet three-quarters are still figuring out the best way to leverage it. And the C-Suite is losing patience.

“We’ve reached a tipping point where boards and CEOs are done with AI experiments and expecting real results,” said Jason Kurtz, CEO, Basware.

And as the Basware research makes clear, agentic AI is the key to delivering them. While overall AI return on investment (ROI) rose from 35% to 67% in the last year, survey data shows agentic AI far – and companies using third-party solutions already embedded with AI agents – outperformed all categories with an average ROI of 80%.

Scoring Easy Wins

“Finance teams that focus on areas where AI can have immediate impact, such as automating accounts payable, improving compliance, reducing errors, and detecting fraud, can deliver these results,” Kurtz adds.

Respondents to the Basware survey confirm this, with 72% saying they see accounts payable (AP)—often the most manual and data-heavy part of the finance function—as the most obvious starting point for agentic AI. And it’s an area where Basware can deliver quick wins. At the end of the day, AP is a data problem. and Basware is solving it with AI. Over the last 40 years, the company has built the industry’s largest set of structured, high-quality AP data and processed more than two billion invoices. And it’s applying AI to this data to train its AI agents and deliver context-aware predictions, enabling finance teams to spend less time analyzing and more time deciding and acting. Other areas where they will likely deploy agentic AI:

Automating invoice capture and data entry (30%)
Cash flow management (24%)
Scenario modeling and forecasting (23%)
Lower operating costs (21%)
Running real-time risk and market analysis (20%)
Automating financial reporting and reconciliations (20%)
Streamlining compliance checks and regulatory filings (19%)
Detecting duplicate invoices or potential fraud (19%)
Reducing overpayments or duplicate payments (18%)

Build Vs Buy

Organizations that leverage intelligent platforms like Basware’s Invoice Lifecycle Management that are embedded with agentic AI and uniquely designed to drive these processes can deliver the results they’re leadership is expecting with greater speed and cost efficiency than cobbling together point solutions or attempting to build their own.

Take InvoiceAI, a solution delivered on the platform that intelligently and securely applies generative and agentic AI, natural language processing and deep learning across the entire invoice lifecycle. Leveraging embedded AI Agents, the solution goes beyond simple automation to autonomously processes invoices and deliver game-changing improvements in speed, accuracy and compliance.

From Hype to Reality – and ROI

But achieving these results requires clear strategies and governance to drive them.

According to the Basware survey, nearly three quarters (71%) of finance teams seeing the weakest returns from AI reported acting under pressure and without direction, compared to 13% of teams achieving strong ROI.

“Our research confirms what we see every day: AI for AI’s sake is a waste,” Kurtz said. “Agentic AI can deliver transformational results, but only when it is deployed with purpose and discipline. And that means embedding AI directly into finance workflows, grounding agents in trusted data, and governing them like digital employees. This is how AI moves from innovation to impact. And this is what Basware delivers for our customers.”

To learn more about Basware’s Invoice Lifecycle Management platform and the value it is delivering to enterprises around the globe, click here.

About Basware

Basware is how the world’s best finance teams gain complete control of every invoice, every time. Our Intelligent Invoice Lifecycle Management Platform ensures end-to-end efficiency, compliance and control for all invoice transactions. Powered by the world’s most sophisticated invoice-centric AI – trained on over 2 billion invoices – Basware’s Intelligent Automation drives real ROI by transforming finance operations. We serve 6,500+ customers globally and are trusted by industry leaders including DHL, Heineken and Sony. Fueled by 40 years of specialized expertise with $10+ trillion in total spend handled, we are pioneering the next era of finance. With Basware, now it all just happens.

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2889805/Basware_x_FT_Longitude_Agentic_AI_Report.jpg
Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2398888/Basware_logo.jpg

SOURCE Basware