Up in the Air — Covid Edition

When the “catch up” meeting popped up in my Outlook calendar last summer, it wasn’t from my manager, who I speak with most days. Nor from my manager’s manager who I provide biweekly briefings to. Nor from his manager who visits our office approximately once per quarter. It was arranged by the head of our division. It was Friday and that could only mean one thing.

16 years ago I was sitting in the car with my wife and newborn driving to our Green Card Interview. In the 1990 movie, the protagonists were separated and interrogated on various details newlyweds should know to demonstrate evidence the marriage was genuine. My wife was nervous about the large number of personal questions we would be asked. I assured her everything would be fine; however, secretly I hoped it would turn out like the movie as it would make for a far more interesting adventure to what would be an otherwise dull government agency meeting similar to periodically renewing my drivers license. Unfortunately, our experience ended up being relatively uneventful; we showed the investigating officer our wedding pictures and newborn which appeared to easily satisfy her; after only a few minutes we were scuttled away to the next room to fill out our paperwork.

Likewise, I was curious about how much the experience of being terminated via Zoom would turn out like the 2009 Up in the Air Movie. As is often the case in movies, the two protagonists are diametrically opposite; an older male business minded veteran is paired with a young female energetic rookie ready to make her mark via shaking up the corporate termination process. One of her ideas was conducting company terminations via remote call. However this was 2009 — well before Zoom meetings were commonplace. Even by 2020 it would be uncommon to be terminated via Zoom, but of course 2020 was no normal year.

A year prior, my company had decided on an initiative to rewrite some older software they were supporting into the modern era. Older software is often euphemistically referred to as “legacy.” That doesn’t mean it provides ongoing financial revenue but means the original developers have long gone, and no one currently supporting it fully understands the motivation behind the codebase nor all the various feature implementations contained within.

Management was playing hot potato with the project. Every couple months a senior product manager would be assigned to be the new product manager tasked with managing the software rewrite. They would create colorful spreadsheets containing detailed project timelines and associated slide decks with lots of impressive technical jargon (usually frequent mentions of cloud architecture and distributed systems). After a couple months pushing paper and holding empty status meetings they would soon realize they were lacking in several key technical skills and conveniently were then transferred into higher priority projects.

After this cycle repeated a few times, my manager’s manager pulled me into his office to discuss the project. He told me it was now “my baby”; I was expected to produce a technical and functional specification outlining the product requirements and manage a team of off-shore developers tasked with implementation. I left the meeting confused about whether I had just been promoted. More than confused I was also fearful. This was no normal piece of software; rewriting 1 million+ lines of code written in 20 year old language frameworks required deep knowledge of both old and current software tools. The functional application required sophisticated knowledge of time series forecasting and analysis. Additionally, it required significant industry knowledge of features relevant to the industry, and project management skills relevant to managing off-shore developer teams.

I like to think of myself as having well rounded skills. I have held a variety of roles within the financial technology industry, commonly portmanteaued as “fintech”, including development, data science, modelling, trading, technical writing, and dabbling into sales from time to time. Normally, I would be enthusiastic to utilize all my various skills; however this was no ordinary project. Would I fail and suffer the same fate as those before me?

Indeed my initial fears were soon realized. Covid lockdown had just started and my kids were sent home to attend classes via Zoom; one child is special needs and therefore needed full time supervision. I would start calls with the off-shore team at early morning hours, complete my morning routine, read emails, attempt to update my project schedule, perform some software testing, learn about some of the new frameworks, all while simultaneously task switching supervising the kids on Zoom. Every day was a mad scramble; I was just pushing paper and would end most days exhausted. I would dread Monday mornings.

I was having trouble reporting specific and meaningful progress to management. I was afraid to set goals knowing they were unlikely to be met. I was failing; however unlike the other senior managers who had failed before me, I had no such other pressing senior level projects to fall back on. My productivity waned and I waited for the inevitable.

Back to that summer day. This time my experience played out just like the movie. My department head was paired with a bubbly young unfamiliar HR representative. She explained to me I would be leaving the company that day; however they had prepared a “standard” severance package including a one-time severance payment, extended health benefits, and free access to career consulting resources. He asked me if I had any questions; I politely thanked him for my time at the company and the call shortly ended. I texted a few of my coworkers to let them know the news; we had brief and awkward text message dialogs to wish each other good luck going forward.

It is easy to get depressed and lose faith in your abilities after a lay-off. However, I had a remarkably smooth and speedy rebound. I made sure to take a couple weeks off to clear my head prior to starting my job search. I started looking for work in the 3rd week, was interviewing by the 5th week, and had multiple offers by the 8th week. The kids had since returned to the classroom full time, freeing up my resources to focus on my tasks at hand. The new position had welcoming coworkers; I was assigned to a project that resonated well with my skill set, and for once I look forward to Monday mornings again.

What are some key takeaways?

Be prepared

You can be let go from your job at any time. Interview skills are different from job skills. I have been to hundreds of interviews and already heard all the technical and personality questions. A good piece of advice is to go to a couple interviews every year to keep your interviewing skills sharp.

Don’t be afraid of difficult conversations.

It is easy to convince your manager you are good enough to take on new challenges. It is much harder to convince your manager you are not good enough. Be prepared to propose a creative solution that balances your ability with contribution.

HR is not your friend.

While HR may pretend to be friendly, their duty is to the company. There is no such thing as a “standard” severance offer — any offer can be negotiated or litigated. Their job is to get you out the door as cheaply and in a least disruptive way as possible. Treat them like you would an IRS agent or police detective: Make short acknowledging statements e.g. “I will have my attorney look at your proposal and get back to you”. Do not show either satisfaction or dissatisfaction with any proposal; doing so can only hurt you during future negotiations.

Most importantly, do not lose faith in yourself.

Just because you perform poorly in one project that doesn’t mean you cannot turn in a gangbuster performance in the next. Keep your skills relevant and sharp, and don’t be afraid to challenge yourself.