Finance
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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The seven-week military conflict in the Middle East will redefine Hong Kong’s role as a global financial centre, positioning the city as a safe harbour for capital and investments.
Anecdotal evidence suggested that more banks had turned to Hong Kong to protect their businesses and committed themselves to expanding their presence in the city. At the same time, inquiries about adding allocations of mainland Chinese assets among global investors had recently increased, potentially enlarging the customer base for the city’s asset-management industry and family offices and driving demand for offshore yuan-linked financial products.
For years, Hong Kong’s status as a financial centre in the Asia-Pacific region has been challenged by Dubai, which has risen to prominence as a gateway linking Asia and Europe in capital flows, transport and logistics. With the war destabilising the Middle East – at one point forcing the closure of the Dubai International Airport and sending stocks in the Gulf region plunging – Hong Kong has re-emerged due to its geographical location, a pegged exchange rate, free capital flows and support from China’s economic strength.
“In that context, China and Hong Kong are attracting renewed attention,” said Gary Dugan, CEO of The Global CIO Office in Dubai, which advises family offices and ultra-high-net-worth individuals globally. “There is growing interest among some clients in increasing exposure to China and Hong Kong. It is less a simple flight to safety and more a reassessment of where investors see relative value, policy consistency and long-term strategic opportunity.”
Dubai now relies on trade, tourism and finance as the pillars of its economy, reflecting the success of its four-decade diversification away from oil for sustained growth. The United Arab Emirates city is home to Jebel Ali Free Zone, the biggest free-trade zone in the Middle East, and the second-largest stock market in the region, with combined market values of US$1.01 trillion. The city, also a global hub for gold trading, has a population of 4 million, about 80 per cent of which are foreign expatriates. Dubai’s economy grew by 4.7 per cent in the January-to-September period last year.
Before seeking a new referendum MPS needs to rebuild trust in the community through completing state audits, putting in place controls to prevent overspending and routine reports to the public.
For MPS Superintendent Brenda Cassellius, who just wrapped up her first year leading Milwaukee’s public school system, her tenure has been punctuated by some very big numbers.
The first is $252 million. That is the amount of new spending voters narrowly approved in an April 2024 referendum to support operations in Wisconsin’s largest school district. Just months later, MPS was rocked by revelations the district was months behind in filing key financial reports to the state, which led to former Superintendent Keith Posley’s resignation.
The second is $1 billion. MPS faces a deferred maintenance backlog exceeding $1 billion. The district’s enrollment has declined 30% over the last 30 years, leaving many schools at less than 50% full. That, in part, is driving a plan to close some schools and to improve others to help lower costs.
The final is $46 million, the deficit MPS was running for the 2024-25 school year, an unexpected shortfall which has led to hundreds of staff layoffs.
Getting the district’s accounting, budgeting and financial reporting back on track has dominated Cassellius’s first year at MPS. In an April 15 interview with the Journal Sentinel’s editorial board, she talked in detail about the challenges putting that into order and progress she sees in restoring transparency into its operations.
State funding and aging buildings create budget nightmares
Cassellius says state needs to keep up its share of school funding
In an interview with the Journal Sentinel editorial board, MPS leader Brenda Cassellius says budgets and buildings are her two top worries.
Cassellius said the on-going budget crisis is her top concern. She said the state’s failure to live up to its share of funding is exacerbating MPS’ budget woes. A group of school districts, teachers and parents filed suit against the state Legislature and its Joint Finance Committee claiming the current state funding system is unconstitutional and prevents schools from meeting students’ educational needs.
Funding for special education is especially critical. About 20% of MPS students have disabilities, almost twice the share of the city’s charter schools, and the average of 14% across Wisconsin.
“What’s keeping me up now, you know, is really just the budget crisis we’re in, with not only this year but multiple years going out without additional state aid, we’ve been not getting funding for what our needs are for our students, and particularly our students with special needs,” she said.
Although the state budget increased special education funding to a 42% reimbursement rate, the actual rate has been about 35%. Another component to the budget headache is the age of MPS buildings. The average age is 85 years-old compared to 45 across the nation.
“We have just kicked this can down the curb or kicked it down the street or whatever you call it for too long. And it’s time that we really take on a serious conversation about the conditions of the learning environments in which we send our children,” she said. “Particularly in Milwaukee Public Schools, we serve the most vulnerable children. Children who have language barriers, children who have disabilities, children in high-concentrated poverty.”
What needs to happen before MPS seeks another referendum
Voters need to be comfortable MPS has made tough budget decisions
In an interview with Journal Sentinel editorial board, Brenda Cassellius said voters will need to see budget improvements before seeking more spending
Cassellius said MPS will definitely need to go back to voters for a new referendum in the future. In addition to the 2024 measure, voters approved an $87 million plan in 2020.
Before doing that, she said the district first needs to rebuild trust in the community through completing required state audits, putting into place controls to prevent overspending and routine reports to the school board and public about finances.
“I don’t think that the voters are going to want us to bring something forward until they feel comfortable that we have done the cleanup that is necessary,” she said. “And we’ve built the trust that we have the sufficient controls in place.”
In the interim, she’s hoping the state will meet its constitutional responsibility to adequately fund public schools.
“What the public expects is you know where the money is, you’re spending it as close as you can to children, you’re getting good on the promise around art, music, and PE, and the things the public said they wanted to fund,” Cassellius said. “And they want their kids to have so that they have a quality education and an excellent education in Milwaukee Public Schools, and that they had the right amount of staff that they actually need. In the school to be safe and to run a good operation.”
Rebuilding finance staff in wake of $46 million in overspending
MPS is rebuilding school finance staff in wake of reporting lapses
In an interview with the Journal Sentinel editorial board April 15, MPS superintendent discusses accountability for district’s financial problems.
The $46 million budget shortfall from the 2024-25 school year started coming into view last fall and was confirmed in mid-January. Cassellius noted that in addition to hiring a new superintendent, MPS also parted ways with its comptroller and CFO.
“We are really rebuilding the personnel and staff of the finance department. That is what’s critical, is having the right people in the right seats doing the work,” she said. “Also critical is making sure that you have the right controls in place. The audit findings found that we did not have proper controls in place and now we have those proper controls in place and when we find things we put new SOPs in place and that is what any business does.”
Identifying that shortfall, though painful, was the result of better accounting.
“Being three years behind in auditing means that you don’t have full sight on your actual revenues and expenditures. And so we have now full sight of our revenues and our expenditures and that’s why we were able to see this new deficit of $46 million,” she said. “And we still continue to work with DPI on those processes to make sure that every month we’re doing monthly to actuals and doing those accounting, reporting that to the board. In a way that is consumable to the public that they can understand.”
Jim Fitzhenry is the Ideas Lab Editor/Director of Community Engagement for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Reach him at jfitzhen@gannett.com or 920-993-7154.
Property markets move in cycles, and with interest rates rising and other pressures like high fuel costs, some markets are clearly slowing down. Many first-home buyers who have only ever seen markets going up are conditioned to think that when purchasing, competition is always intense and decisions need to be made quickly.
In those times, buyers often feel they need to act fast, stretch their budget and secure a property at almost any cost. But things have definitely changed.
In a softer market, the dynamic shifts. Properties take longer to sell, competition thins, and it’s the vendors who begin to feel pressure.
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For buyers who understand how to navigate that change, the balance of power quickly moves in their favour. The opportunity is not simply to buy at a lower price. It is to negotiate from a position of strength.
If that’s you right now, these are the key skills first-home buyers need to take advantage of in softer market conditions.
The most important shift in a soft market is psychological. In a rising market, buyers often feel like they are competing for limited opportunities. In a softer market, the opposite is true. There are more properties available, fewer active buyers and less urgency overall. This gives buyers options.
When buyers understand that they are not competing with multiple parties on every property, their decision-making improves. They are more willing to walk away, compare opportunities and avoid overpaying. Negotiation strength comes from not needing to transact immediately. When that pressure is removed, buyers are able to engage more strategically.
One of the most common mistakes first-home buyers make is continuing to apply strategies that only work in rising markets. Auction urgency is a clear example. In strong markets, auctions often attract multiple bidders and create competitive tension. In softer conditions, properties are more likely to pass in, shifting the process away from a public bidding environment into a private negotiation.
This is where leverage increases.
Private negotiations allow buyers to introduce conditions that protect their position. These may include finance clauses, longer settlement periods or price adjustments based on due diligence. Opportunities that are rarely available in competitive markets become standard in softer ones.
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