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“It must be easy for you to have these 10-minute, 15-minute meetings, tell someone they’re fired, completely ruin their whole life, and then that’s it,” Peach tells HR in the film Resource Representative. To her, it was “like a slap in the face.”
Cloudflare did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Washington Post. Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince On X (formerly Twitter) said it was “distressing” to watch the video, noting that “managers should always be involved” in firings and that “no employee should be surprised if they perform poorly.”
Thousands of workers in the tech, media and financial industries have been laid off in recent months, and videos like Peach’s have emerged as young people speak out about job losses.Young workers say they find catharsis and connection Severe layoffs have taken a severe toll on their financial and mental health. As they vent about the objectivity of job hunting in the age of artificial intelligence recruiters, they also openly express their willingness to walk away from unsatisfying jobs.
Their The candor marks a significant change from the shame and reticence that has accompanied unemployment in the past. While some criticize these workers for being naive to the realities of the job market, experts say the urge to share is helping young workers cope with painful aspects of working life.
“There are a lot of benefits to people saying, ‘Hey, this is what the workforce is actually like,’” said Morgan Sanner, a Gen Z expert in Columbus, Ohio, who also works in human resources. “It provides a way for people to feel less alone in corporate spaces.”
Peach’s post sparked almost immediate outrage and admiration online. Some praised Peach for sharing her experience, but she did not respond to The Washington Post’s request for comment and denounced the company’s impersonal approach to the layoffs. Others believe releasing the clip, which has been viewed more than 2 million times, could damage Peach’s career.
Employment experts say expressing dissatisfaction online could cause more problems. For example, Chambord Benton-Hayes, an employment attorney in Oakland, California, points out that in some states it is illegal to record a client without their consent.
“Employees who feel they were treated unfairly may find it helpful to use social media to share how they were fired,” Benton-Hayes said in an email to The Washington Post. “I generally don’t. Would advise my clients to document their redundancy process unless they suspect illegality and want to prove this.”
Andrew Roth, founder and CEO of Gen Z consultancy dcdx, said workers of his generation are particularly uncomfortable with uncertainty, which has found no place amid layoffs and the many changes brought about by the pandemic. Not here.
“When there are a lot of things outside of our control, it becomes a much more arduous process,” Ross said.
On Instagram, Chloe Shih, who works for Discord, documented her growing uneasiness as job losses swept across the tech industry earlier this year. Last month, Discord said it would cut 17% of its workforce, or about 170 positions. “Twitch just announced massive layoffs, and it scares me,” she said on January 11, highlighting another company that was cutting staff. “That’s the thing, no one is safe.”
The next day, she recorded the news of her unemployment on tape, her eyes wide open and her hands covering her mouth. “Holy [expletive], man. I’m just leaving like this? “
Shi did not respond to a request for comment from The Washington Post.
Gen Z is expected to become the third-largest age group in the workforce this year, according to 2022 data from Gallup, and younger millennials are experiencing more work-related burnout than older generations. Gallup reports that employees who experience severe burnout are more likely to leave their jobs.
Just before Christmas, Piper Phillips quit the job she loved with no other plans. For more than a year, the 23-year-old has been enjoying working remotely as a marketing director for a startup in New York City. But after enjoying the company of colleagues, happy hour, and dinner at a conference during a work trip, she decided she wanted to work in person.
In a journal entry the day before she resigned, Phillips promised herself not to let the job search stress her out.Instead of desperately “searching” for a job, she reframed the process as more carefree “Looking for a job.” She explained on TikTok that she wanted to explore her options and find the perfect fit, where she had been documenting her search.
“If I’m in a more positive frame of mind, it’s easier for me to find a job than if I’m unhappy,” Phillips told The Washington Post.
Phillips knows it’s a “big honor” to step away from her original role, but not everyone can be picky. (She had savings to fall back on and used the money she made from TikTok to pay rent.) Many people called her quitting her job “ridiculous” and told her she “shouldn’t” work for fun. ” But mostly, other young workers are encouraged by her positive attitude toward job hunting.
“I get a lot of comments like, ‘Oh my gosh, I did that, it was the best thing I could do,’ or ‘I wish I could do that,'” Phillips said.
Career counselor Mimi Gonzalez said many young workers are finding the job market difficult to navigate as the pandemic disrupts their ability to build relationships. She said some people are “afraid” of talking to people they don’t know, which makes networking and interviewing difficult.
“There are so many young people navigating this strange world because they don’t have help,” Gonzalez said.
But on social media, young workers are looking for someone to sympathize with.
Since the fall, Meolah Delinois has been looking for part-time jobs and summer internships that she could start immediately. The 22-year-old graduate student at Delaware State said she was frustrated when recruiters reached out and didn’t respond for months. She has repeatedly appeared in virtual interviews, only to be ghosted. More than 130 job applications resulted in nothing, even though her only non-negotiable was matching her salary from her last internship. She had no choice but to move back in with her parents.
“I’ve been working since I was 16, and I’ve never struggled to find a job like this,” Delinois said.
Like Phillips, Delinos has been sharing her experience of unemployment on TikTok. In one of the articles, she describes the challenge of not comparing herself to others. In another photo, she imitated a crash clip of audio from the hit TV show Bears.
Delinos said something that would be stressful and “a little embarrassing” to discuss in person is much easier to share on a social media platform. After seeing her TikTok, many people contacted her to share their difficulties in finding a job, including close friends she didn’t know who were also struggling.
“Being able to share it on the app and have a lot of different people talk about their experiences and relate to it,” Delinois said, “is really powerful.”
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