Watch out for insensitive behavior as layoffs continue. Posting braggy stuff on LinkedIn when everyone’s facing anxiety and stress? And that “Happy OOOday!”—come on, read the room! Are you already planning a team dinner or workshop to pretend nothing’s happened?
Keep an eye out. This could be a good chance to spot those snakes, sociopaths, and clueless folks or managers with big egos around you.
Great topic. Let's agree there's a difference between genuinely trying to find healthy ways to cope (actual positivity) vs denial/defeatism/viciously turning on each other (e.g. the recent posts here re H1B visa holders) which falls into the category of toxic positivity.
So in the vein of actual positivity, I'd like to share that I've been through many rounds of reorgs and layoffs in my corporate life. Been laid off more than once. When I accepted that I have no control over it and instead focused on what I can control, I found it a lot easier to cope. The stress/anxiety/grief of layoffs is real, but so is my confidence that I'm a valuable highly-skilled worker who will find another job. I remember leaving swoosh and feeling like I was jumping off a cliff - and yet life on the other side of "the big 3" in Portland (swoosh, adi, columbia) is finally more positive, more peaceful, less adrenaline, and better healthcare for my family and I. Now I prioritize my mental health, feeling safe, job stability, health care over the fake prestige of working at a big name brand. My wife said the best thing I ever did for myself was step off that endless hamster wheel. This pivot paid off for me - maybe it can work for you too if you give it a chance! Best of luck to all.
Tagging onto the Linkedin advice, if you need help with your LinkedIn, I had asked SU (LinkedIn creator who works at Nike) for help. I actually don’t know her personally, but I slacked her and she was kind enough to take a look at my profile and suggest some updates I could make to increase my visibility. Might be an option.
Speaking of LinkedIn, everyone at Nike should be networking right now. The amount of people I work with who haven't updated it since they were an intern during their U of O or EKIN days is frightening. I can see how it's easy to weave your lives around Nike but there is life outside it, and a career outside it, that your experience at Nike will go very far in securing. I have worked most of my career outside the swoosh and being there now, I can say I've never worked with a more intelligent, capable, passionate and talented group of people. I wish everyone the best during this time and look forward to seeing what some of those who end up getting let go do when empowered outside the berm. Xo.
@egs+1r Your wisdom is impressive. Thank you! Just curious, what motivates you to continue sitting on layoff.com during the weekends?
I know my snakes, sociopaths, and inept way before layoff news broke!
It is not hard to spot them.
@jid+1r74RKuA You seem to be someone who always struggles to read between the lines
TBH this post read a lot like “if I’m not happy, no one should be.”
All positivity is toxic
I’m going to say this, stop worrying about other people and focus on yourself. First off, do you have the ability to change a decision that was likely made months or weeks ago change? Answer is no.
So what are you going to do about? Sit on this site and doom scroll all day? Determine how you persevere through this instead of letting it eat at you. You have control over what you’re doing right now, tomorrow and the next day. Those are things you control. So control them.
I hope you look back at this moment and analyze your actions during a corporate reorg. This isn’t a one and done but will happen many more times in your career, with it being at Nike or somewhere else. This is my 4th reorganization in my 15 year career. I was laid off from another employer 4 years into my career. It ATE away at me, I second guessed everything I did. Made me a shell of a person for 6 months leading up and to my eventual demise with that company. You know what, I had no control over the decision and it almost ki-led me.
I joined Nike just before the 2017 reorg and I said not again, once again ate away at me but this time I kept my job. 2020 rolled around, covid was going on. I learned to manage the fact I had no control over Covid, Nike, or what my position held. So I focused only on the thing I could do, ie: projects around the house, working out at home, learning a new hobby or improving my resume. Either way it was going to make me a better person.
I’m happy I did it all because literally I’m not worried what the future holds once again. But I know where I want to go.
The examples OP listed were team dinners and workshops. I think team dinners should always be optional because people have lives, but workshops are part of just doing work in a team environment. So I will ask, for those who will have to wait until May for their turn, what should teams do in the meantime? Spiral? It’s one thing to be sensitive and acknowledge that everyone may be processing this differently and it’s a cr-ppy situation, and another thing to allow it to paralyze us. Work is still happening. Teams are still getting wins. For those who are in a state of fight or flight, sometimes positivity can feel like an attack to their own reality, but the ownership for that feeling is just as much on the person feeling it because we own our perceptions.
@zwy — Please read the examples again. Toxic positivity, particularly any insensitive behavior impacting others, diminishes the value of genuine optimism.
Ok sure. Being sensitive is important. But also don’t drag people who are choosing to try and find positivity in this sh---y situation. It’s also not healthy to let yourself just sit and stew in negativity in situations that you have no control over. People are allowed to cope in the ways that help their own mental health, and some people choose to focus on positivity. People are still allowed to find things to be happy about and try and share what positivity we have available to us. Not all of us resign ourselves to 24:7 anxiety.