What I Learned Being on Both Ends of Layoffs

It will never feel normal to me

I WILL NEVER forget my first experience with mass layoffs.

It was the late 1990s when I served as a Vice President at American Online, then a dominant player in the tech industry. An edict came down from on high for all managers to cut 10 percent from their teams.

When I explained to my boss that there were no under-performers on my already overburdened and exhausted team, I was informed that there is always dead weight, so just pick the lowest performing person among my high-performing team to fire.

This was shocking to me not just because of the inhumanity but also because AOL was making record profits, and its constantly rising stock was enriching executives to obscene levels. I was surrounded by people who owned private planes, and one top executive was buying a sports team.

Why did we need to fire people?

As I quickly learned, we did this for the same reason we did everything: to please Wall Street.

I was forced to choose someone to sacrifice.

That person ended up being my assistant. W…