The Layoff Trilogy 2: Danger Day

Proxy with Yowei Shaw

Yowei Shaw

Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.8 • 589 Ratings

🗓️ 23 May 2024

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Please note: This story contains brief mention of suicidal ideation. If you or someone you know may be considering suicide, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing 9-8-8, or the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741.

After Elliot was suddenly laid off, his husband Miles kept working at the same company — in the same office, with the same HR rep, under the same threat that he might be next.

Then Miles heard a rumor: more layoffs were coming on the third Thursday of the month. Danger Day.

In this episode, Yowei follows Miles and Elliot through the horror-movie logic of layoff anxiety: calendar clues, changed meeting rooms, suspicious boss behavior, financial panic, phantom work limbs, and the feeling that one bad meeting can make your whole life disappear. With help from sociologist Ofer Sharone, they investigate why layoffs can feel so devastating — especially when you believed that working hard and following the rules would keep you safe.

From the episode:

— Ofer Sharone — sociologist at UMass Amherst, and author of The Stigma Trap: College-Educated, Experienced, and Long-Term Unemployed

New to Proxy? Try Bisexual Wife Guy for a classic case, or.HR by Proxy for the first full proxy conversation, where Miles and Elliot get to ask an HR rep the questions they've been carrying.

For episode liner notes, show gossip, and dispatches from the emotions beat, get our free newsletter File Under Feelings at proxyhq.org.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Ever wondered why some trends are just suddenly everywhere?
0:05.1	Newsflash, nothing gets popular by accident.
0:09.0	I'm Brittany Luce, and on the It's Been a Minute podcast, I take the things you and I are both obsessing over
0:14.3	and show you the invisible forces behind the scenes that make us love it or hate it.
0:19.8	Be smarter about what you're consuming. Listen to the
0:22.7	It's Been a Minute podcast today. Before we get started, a quick warning that in part of today's
0:31.7	episode, we talk about suicidal ideation. If you or someone you know may be considering suicide, contact the 988
0:40.4	suicide and crisis lifeline by dialing 988 or the crisis text line by texting home to 741
0:48.4	741. Again, that's dialing 988 or texting home to 741-741.
0:56.0	We'll also put that info in our show notes.
1:08.0	Hi, everyone. Welcome to Proxy. It's Yo-A. So when I describe my work to people, I sometimes call myself an emotional investigative journalist. What the hell is that? Well, I like searching for answers to questions and problems that start from an emotional place. That's what this show's about.
1:29.4	We're going to meet people who have questions like
1:31.1	how to approach sex after surviving prostate cancer,
1:34.9	how to be an introvert in an extroverted world.
1:37.7	And then I'm going to connect these guests
1:39.1	for a conversation with experts and people
1:41.5	who know a lot about these experiences.
1:44.0	And I'm kicking things off with a three-part series about a mystery with really personal stakes.
1:50.5	Why is getting laid off so emotionally devastating for some people like it was for me?
1:57.6	When NPR laid me off last year, I knew it wasn't because I did a bad job.
2:02.7	Also, I didn't have kids. I had savings. I had a partner.
2:07.5	And as experts told me, I had a good layoff.
	...

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