The Odd Single

On February 24, Greg Knauss was asked to remove himself from his place of employment.

That request came from his boss.

[The "Odd Couple" theme starts to play, but instead of a saxophone, it's a tuba, which is somehow both sadder and much funnier.]



I had never been laid-off before, so I'm going to use that as the excuse for not knowing what was coming, and not that I'm a monumental naif. When a one-on-one with your manager appears on your calendar late Friday afternoon for early Monday morning, I can now state with confidence that it's not going to be a good thing. They're trying to do you a favor by not ruining your weekend.

I was also surprised to find out that I'd be given two weeks notice -- like if the company was quitting me. "We've enjoyed our time here, Greg, but have an opportunity that we feel we can't pass up."

I'd just had a good review, with a raise and a bonus, and I'm pretty sure my manager would have assured me that I wasn't being dropped over the side for performance reasons if Legal allowed them to say anything that wasn't absolutely, litigationally neutral. I'd wager the "I'm sorry" was reviewed and approved. It took all of fifteen minutes.

Since I am a giant bundle of OCD ticks and reward triggers, I used the two weeks to finish some documentation, host an in-person knowledge transfer, test and check-in the last of my code, and give a presentation to a large group of senior engineers on an architectural change that I'd made and was proud of. My wife made me remove the strike-through over my title on the first slide: "Greg Knauss, Expert Engineer". 

Well, I thought it was funny.

All told, getting laid-off seems to have gone as well as it could have, other than the whole not-having-an-income thing. They offered generous severance, plenty of support services, and that two weeks where I could say my good-byes and tidy up. I genuinely valued that.

I signed the non-disparagement agreement to get my severance, so the only real complaints I have are ████ ███, ████ ██ ████, and that motherfucking █████ ███ bullshit.

Ahem.

As of today, I'm two months out from my notice, and the various services will start to wind down through the start of the summer. I'm paying for my own health insurance. In two weeks, my "preferential re-hire period" ends and I won't be considered for another role at the company for a full year. It's like when the girl who dumps you blocks your number, but in a way that's intended to encourage you to move on. Also, stop driving by her apartment, man; it's creepy. It's not your business whose car that is.

I think the biggest worry I have about all this is that it probably means my career is over, at least as a living, growing thing. I'm 57 years old, and I have no managerial aspirations or interest. IC4LIFE, baby. I'm good at what I do -- sometimes very good -- and I've been lucky enough to get paid increasing amounts of money to do it over the past 40 years. I've maybe, possibly, perhaps improved the lives of the people who use my software a little.

But 150,000 programmers were laid-off in 2024, with another 22,000 so far in 2025. There's a global recession coming because Biff Tannen is in charge of the economy, and wants to see if he can do a wheelie. Oh, and anyone with a Cursor subscription and a big hole where their common sense should be thinks they're going to start writing production code.

That's not (much of) a lament. I'll be (mostly) fine. If my career is over, employment probably isn't. I feel sorry for the people who didn't have the foresight to be born into literally the best job market for nerds in the history of the planet. Sorry, kids. It honestly seemed like the party would go forever.

It's my emotional well-being that I have the biggest worries about, which is a very old-white-guy thing to have worries about after getting canned. I have yet to even begin the re-framing that I thought was still a decade away. If I'm not a professional, career programmer, who am I? Yeah, yeah: father, husband, friend, sexual dynamo, I know, I know. But I've put an awful lot of my conception of myself -- the me that I think of when I think of me -- into making software. "What do you do?" doesn't really cover it -- it's more "Who are you?"

I've been encouraged by various smart and emotionally healthy people to see this as an adventure. But, of course, the Chinese word for "adventure" uses the same glyph as  "unsettling disconnect between the current state of reality and the previous one, where you inextricably linked your self-identity and self-esteem to the recognition provided by the corporate reward cycle." It's a complex and beautiful language.

I sold my first piece of software when I was 17, and I've been doing basically that same thing in the four decades since. If I'm being honest, the idea of having that particular often-upward avenue closed off -- by economic forces, by the biases of the culture, by the fact that various industry whims and fads that are treated as roadmaps -- scares me, and I haven't found a good way to deal with it yet.

Where am I going with this? I was hoping you'd know.


 




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