Journalism of Courage
Across the tech sector, major global companies have been downsizing amid changing economic landscape with the rise of artificial intelligence. The news of getting laid off is never easy for employees, but the way companies deliver the news can make a difficult situation even worse. While professional terminations follow a respectful and clear process, some companies have resorted to methods that employees have called “shocking”.
An Indian staffer was let go by his US-based company. In a Reddit post, he explained that the layoff happened without any prior warning, leaving him shocked and unprepared. He woke up to see a mandatory meeting invite for 11 am and within minutes was told that the company had made the “difficult decision of letting most of their Indian workforce go”. But, this wasn’t an isolated incident.
Thousands of Amazon employees across the US were abruptly notified of their termination early Tuesday morning, receiving text messages from the company before they even reached work.
According to Business Insider, the messages — some directing recipients to check their personal or work email, others instructing them to contact a help desk — confirmed that the workers had been laid off as part of a sweeping corporate restructuring.
The job cuts are part of Amazon’s previously announced plan to eliminate around 14,000 corporate positions as the company seeks to streamline operations and pivot more aggressively toward artificial intelligence initiatives.
Many of those affected reportedly worked as retail managers. In an internal memo shared on Slack, Amazon’s head of human resources, Beth Galetti, said employees would continue to receive full pay and benefits for 90 days and would be offered severance packages.
A Reddit user recently shared how they were laid off during a three-minute online meeting with their company’s COO. The user, who worked remotely for a US-based firm, said the call began normally — until the executive disabled everyone’s cameras and mics and announced that “most of the Indian workforce” was being let go due to restructuring.
No questions, no warning — just a short message and a follow-up email confirming the termination. “It just took three minutes of his day,” the user wrote, describing how stunned and helpless employees felt after the call ended. The post quickly went viral for capturing how impersonal modern layoffs have become.
Perhaps the most infamous layoff moment came in 2021 when Better.com’s CEO fired 900 employees over a single Zoom call. “If you’re on this call, you are part of the unlucky group being laid off,” he said flatly.
The clip went viral, becoming a symbol of corporate coldness in the remote-work era. The CEO later apologised, but the damage — and the meme — was already made.
Hundreds of General Motors engineers found out they were being let go not in person, but over a Microsoft Teams call. The Detroit automaker laid off more than 200 salaried staff — mostly CAD engineers — during morning video meetings that lasted only a few minutes. Managers reportedly told employees their roles were being eliminated “due to business conditions,” assuring them it wasn’t about performance.
The layoffs came just days after GM reported strong quarterly earnings and raised its profit outlook. The abrupt timing and virtual format left many blindsided — proof that even in a record-profit quarter, job security can vanish with a notification chime.
In 2022, several India employees of social media platform X (previously Twitter) discovered they had been locked out of the company’s systems — their Slack access revoked, emails disabled, and logins blocked — marking the start of Elon Musk’s sweeping global layoffs. The abrupt move left teams across marketing, communications, engineering, and parts of public policy in disarray, as hundreds tried to confirm whether they still had jobs.
At around 4 AM, the company sent emails to affected employees on their personal accounts, informing them they would soon lose access to internal systems. The cuts were part of Musk’s worldwide downsizing drive following his takeover of the platform in the year, which triggered uncertainty and anxiety across Twitter offices from San Francisco to New Delhi.
