2023 has seen a slew of layoffs, especially those in the tech sector. Massive corporations like Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon, among others, have been terminating the contracts of tens of thousands of employees, leaving throngs of people looking for gainful employment elsewhere.
And while businesses will often offer workers some form of severance package that’ll give them some breathing room as they look for a new gig, some, like TikTok user Jaylene (@lillene17), aren’t as fortunate to have that monetary cushion.
In a viral clip, Jaylene says she was fired out of the blue from the company while still under her “probationary” period, which means she wasn’t given a severance. To add insult to injury, she moved countries for the job, and prior to being fired, she was in a meeting that featured two new employees her company just hired.
@lillene17 Hire me x #laidoff ♬ original sound – Jaylene
“Guys I got fired yesterday. Actually not yesterday the day before but still,” Jaylene begins the video. “It was so out of nowhere. I was just like sat in the Monday morning meeting like I am every single Monday morning. And everything was fine.”
She then shares that they introduced two new employees in that meeting. “And they even introduce two new joiners to the business, two new people in this Monday morning meeting,” she says.
After the pow-wow, Jaylene explains that she returned to her work, and everything was business as usual until she received a message from her boss. Initially, she thought it was an innocuous ping. He asked her to hop on a call quickly.
“I’m like, ‘yeah sure.’ And this is like so normal to me, like he does this all the time,” she says.
However, this wasn’t a typical call.
“So I jump on the call and I’m like, ‘Hey, how’re you doing, blah blah blah,’ and then he’s like, ‘Uhh not so good, Jaylene.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh. What’s happened?’”
It was at this moment that her boss let her know that she was being fired, which came as a total shock to the TikToker.
“It’s like a weird out-of-body experience,” she describes the moment. “I’m like what the hell is happening.”
Jaylene says her manager attributed her firing to “budget cuts, recession, like, last one in, first one out kind of situation.”
She then found out she wouldn’t be receiving any severance package as she had only been with the company for five months.
“And then he’s just like, ‘Yeah, and HR are gonna book you in for a meeting in fifteen minutes to talk about like how you’re not entitled to literally anything,’” she recalls. “Because I’ve only been there for like five months…so I don’t get any kind of severance.”
Jaylene then notes that she moved to a different country for the job, which made the firing all the more frustrating.
“But yeah, so now I’m unemployed,” she concludes.
Her video has garnered nearly 300,000 views since it was shared March 29.
In the comments section, one viewer argued that Jaylene’s 5-month probation period was too long for her to be fired without receiving any form of severance package. “5+ months is a LONG probation period,” they wrote.
“People say that having a business is risky…to me being able to get fired for no reason outa nowhere is the real risky thing,” someone else remarked.
Another commenter said that Jaylene should be entitled to some form of compensation after being let go so unceremoniously. “Talk to citizens advice, you should at the minimum be paid a month’s notice, check your contract,” they suggested, pointing to a U.K. organization.
Others were thrown by the manager’s reasoning to fire her.
“Last one in, first out because of budget cuts but they hired two new people the same day,” one user wrote.
However, Jaylene clarified in a response that it was just her department that was facing the cuts. “Poorly phrased from me it’s a company offering a bunch of services, just my department was facing the cuts,” she wrote,
The Daily Dot has reached out to Jaylene via TikTok comment.
