Monday is the start of the work day. I wake up and roll out of bed and then start logging into work. The morning of Aug 29th was a bit different. There were rumors of layoffs. I was a bit confused because when John Legere merged T-Mobile with Sprint, he promised no layoffs and a need to have more people support the networks. I heard a meeting invite on Zoom was the digital pink slip. If the person you emailed replied back to you with an Out of Office message, that was their soul and their body have left the company.

The next day August 30th, I woke up and did the same routine. However, my coworker pings me on Slack and asked if I got a meeting invite from our Senior manager. I told him I didn't get one but I knew that was the digital pink slip. I was somewhat relieved because I thought if he got the pink slip, then I would be safe. This was at 8:00 AM PT.

At 8:30 AM PT, after I felt some relief, I got the dreaded Zoom meeting invite from my Senior manager for 9:00 AM PT. I joined the Zoom meeting and found my fate. I was to stop anything I was doing, and I had two tasks that I started. He didn't tell me why I was being let go. He said the company made some decisions and it was hard for him. My VPN connection was going to be shut off in 3-4 hours. I told my close coworkers. I wanted to express my anger to other slack channels I was in but I decided against it. I did receive a copy of the layoff letter but it was not the official letter. My first reaction was who else got laid off? I asked some people I worked with and some people knew and some didn't. The only sign was the people who were laid off had their Slack names grayed out. I was able to retrieve some documents from the cloud for a good 4 hours. After 4 hours, my work laptop was connected to the internet but going to any webpage would bring up a T-mobile Cybersecurity splash page saying the link was being investigated by T-Mobile.

I was part of the first wave of layoffs in the layoff-nomics time. I was told that when T-mobile and Sprint merged. The CEO at the time promised no layoffs for TWO YEARS after the merger. While the merger was announced, the ticking layoff bomb started until exploding on August 29th, 2022. The merger was supposed to make the network stronger and make more jobs. I should have known that any company that merges with another will have layoffs.

This was the first time I was laid off from a job. I had come close when ATT Wireless was bought out by Cingular Wireless. I survived that merger. Since this was the first time, I did not know what to expect. Around 30 days after the merger, my manager would ask me if I returned my laptop. I didn't know I was still considered an employee even though I didn't have network access to the company. He told me my badge still works and I could go into the office and get my belongings. I realized I was still get paid by T-mobile but I didn't have to work. All my benefits were still intact.

After 90 days from Aug 30th, my severance kicked in and T-mobile was paying for benefits until Jan 31st, 2023. For the first time being laid off, I was eligible for unemployment insurance and I also qualify for the Worker Retraining program. Since being laid off, I worked with the Worker Retraining program to join Bellevue College as a student in a Bachelor of Science in Cybersecurity degree. The degree focuses on cybersecurity in the cloud, particularly the AWS cloud.

For the Winter 2023 quarter, I am taking the following classes:

IT 231 - Intro to Cloud Architecture Services

COM340 - Advance Communication in Business and Technology

EXPRL240- Social Media for Job Search

Welcome to my blog where I will blog about my experience in school.