#anxiety

I've been searching everywhere for over a year, and nothing has come through. I only had two interviews in that entire period, and I was ghosted after both. I honestly don't remember the job market ever being this bad, and that just makes the idea of any upcoming layoffs feel even more terrifying than usual.

What a fun weekend this turned into, with me refreshing this page nonstop while chugging chamomile just to keep my nerves from going completely wild, only to spend half my time running to the bathroom from all the tea. It felt like an endless loop of checking updates, stressing, and trying to calm down, and I probably slept five or six hours total the entire weekend. The only thing that made it even a little easier was knowing there were other people going through the same thing, and there’s real comfort in not feeling completely alone in it.

I find the rumblings just (which will happen Thursday… where there is smoke, there is fire) rolling off my back, like water off a ducks.

In Jan/Feb 2021, I was part of the RIF and was able to find a new role. After living through that experience and being a people leader then, I told myself that next time major rumblings came around, that I would embrace the RIF. So here I am embracing Thursday’s news.

Sure there is anxiety about am I impacted or am I not, but I don’t really want to start this post-Verizon change pre holidays leading into 2026 that the macro US economy is going to be dreadful. With that said, there is life outside of Verizon. There are a lot of good things happening in industry outside of Verizon.

We are just a cog in the wheel for shareholder value and the stock price. Our CEO has made that crystal clear. It’s best to treat your role as a cog in the machine for you to enjoy life. Think about work in the hours of work, after work forget about it. Come back to it the next day. It’s ok to ignore a slack or an email.

RIF Package expectation based off previous years.

2 weeks pay for each year of service.

Vacation payoff (hope you didn’t drop below 150% before the year ended. *this was the first hint of it happening this year btw.

Stock together- we can dissect this wonderful move. Hans introduced it and ever since we have experienced the stock price lagging against the industry. Not the cause of it obviously, just ironic.

STI- probably *from what I’ve heard gets paid out but that’s coming from a friend of a friend

I was laid off this time last year. I was with Dell in various sales roles for 20 years right out of college. I became an adult and professional with Dell. What I’m learning is my Dell skill set isn’t seen as that well trained or valuable to many other companies. Maybe it’s a bit of age discrimination as well, but surely being early 40s doesn’t mean I’m already retired from any tech job does it? I don’t know. I’ve been doing gig work to survive, but I used to have a real career, decent pay, benefits, savings, retirement, travel, dignity… feels like I’m worse than back to square one now. I feel like I’m going to lose everything I’ve spent two decades building in my life because I can’t find another job like what I had at the only job I’ve ever really known. I used to be the guy that had enough to help friends when they were hitting rough patches, now I’m the one always asking for favors. Sorry, just having a panic attack in the middle of the night because of all of this. I’ve applied to hundreds of places, even outside of tech in other sales fields, and I feel like I do great in the multiple rounds of interviews, just to get rejected or even worse, absolute crickets. I can’t go entry level in another totally different field because I’m either seen as too old to be an apprentice, or too over qualified (they feel) for an entry level thing. So how do I start over then?! I also have other friends and former coworkers that have been recently laid off, so now I feel like I’m competing with them for a role. It’s all so frustrating and frankly scary. Make it make sense. I just want to work again.

Wish I could do a legit poll but I'll just ask. Are you worried/nervous because?

A. The company doesn't care and is just cutting anyone.
B. Im just not that busy so I can see why it would be me.
C. Leadership isnt communicating clearly on this RIF
D. Other

Anyone else here feeling like this ? Just tell me already if I’m jobless. I got so much debt that the severance wouldn’t be enough. I’m SCARED. If I make it this round , once frontier deal is complete that just means more layoffs. A lot of Frontier and Verizon engineers would just overlap jobs so that means MORE CUTS

If you get sick or a family member gets sick you will be moved to the top of the layoff list.

HIPPA protects your medical history but not your medical/insurance costs. The company has access to that data and will use it to prioritize people for layoffs.

If you get old, your insurance costs will go up, and you will be selected for a layoff.

Don't get sick or get old.

I can’t imagine a laid of AD calling to tell their director reports their fate.

I've heard this is not performance based, so what is it? How do they decide who to cut? Also, I hate that we have to wait until December to know if we still have a job or not. I don't get why they have to let us wait that long.

I’m afraid the holiday season will flop, and things will only get worse from there. Jobs are scarce, most of us have little to no savings, and there’s nothing to fall back on if it really hits hard. Maybe I’m anxious for no reason, but the vibe has never felt worse in my memory.

People were talking about cuts around holidays, what's going on with that?

I’ve heard notifications are going out to folks. Some of my colleagues have gotten an e-mail with a 9/1/26 date to be fully moved to Houston. I haven’t received anything yet. Have you?

What’s the schedule for finding out this week? Do SDs know or do they find out tomorrow or Tuesday? Does everyone else find out Thursday? How will it happen?

That's our reality now, and I admit, I'm not handling it all that well.

I don’t even know where to look for another job anymore. I’ve tried everything, sent out more resumes than ever, reached out to everyone I know, even looked far outside the box. I’m willing to take lower pay, worse benefits, whatever it takes, just to have some kind of backup if I get laid off. Nothing has worked out. It just makes the worry that much heavier.

Gone

I haven’t heard anything myself, but I’d really like to know if next week is going to be safe for all of us. I honestly just need a breather.

I can barely manage the stress. I’ve tried everything and gone through every emotion on the spectrum, from outright fear to total indifference. This is taking a real toll on my health. And of course it’s happening at a point in my life when I’m already juggling so many things that dropping even one could cause a disaster. I can’t imagine I’m the only one feeling this way.

I tried gaming, watching a movie, and a bunch of other stuff and nothing helped. All I can think about is potentially being jobless next week. I don't have savings, so I'll be sc--wed if I can't find a replacement job right away, which is highly unlikely. I just feel sick to my stomach about the whole thing.

I’m waiting to hear whether I’m getting cut, and I’m calmer than I thought I’d be. I spent a long stretch tightening things up at home, cutting back, saving where I could, and making sure we built a routine that didn’t depend on every paycheck lining up perfectly. That mindset changed everything for me.

We built our life around flexibility instead of pressure, and now even a layoff wouldn’t send us into a tailspin. It took effort, sure, but it taught me that preparing for uncertainty gives you a lot more control than you think.

Whatever comes next week, I know I’m not walking into it empty handed.

I’m thinking at least a year in this economy.

There is more information about this mass layoff on every news website. Reporting to work as well as all internal websites is like crickets, no information - like nothing is happening. Next time please let the employees know they are getting let go before it hits the news. This suspense is ki-ling me - Do I stay or do I go, just tell us already who is being affected.

Let’s start a thread here…

Asking for sincere honest responses. What do you think your chances are that you, personally, will be laid off? I’m guessing mine are at least 70/30 I’ll be cut. That’s based on my organization, my age, my salary.

Seeing my fellow Verizon team mates stressed about potential layoffs is hard. Seeing LinkedIn influencers rush in to ‘add value’ just to boost their own metrics? Infuriating. They act like they’re offering wisdom, but really they’re just feeding on the anxiety like opportunistic sharks. It’s deplorable.

Anybody else feels completely suffocated knowing you're basically trapped here for who knows how long because the job market is a wasteland right now? I keep searching and pushing and checking every lead, and it still feels like there’s nothing worth grabbing onto, so barring a layoff, which would be its own disaster, it really feels like there's no escape from this stressful place anytime soon. And that thought makes me hyperventilate.

Not that I have much of a choice. But this is exhausting and completely demoralizing.

Judging by how my team’s been feeling, I’m definitely not alone. It makes waiting for next week even harder. There’s nothing to look forward to, just hoping to hang on to a job you can’t stand because there are no real options out there. It’s doing wonders for everyone’s mental health.

Somehow it’s always the rest of us who end up jobless, no matter what else is going on.

I know I will be axed, low work volumes, manager who does not care and the unit is a cost center (not contributing to the bottom line).

I have about $40K in 401K loans?

What happens with that.

I cannot repay.

Please. No trolls. I haven’t slept in over week just thinking about get laid off.

Anyone else just wishing for all of this to be over? The anxiety of waiting is so detrimental to everyone's health. Office is quiet as a church mouse, I do not know if it was leaked from within or one of the disgruntled SVP's earlier this week who got terminated.

BUT I just prefer to know already... a week more of this is torture, honestly. Rip the band-aid and let people know, dude.

And that we won't be ambushed by more cuts tomorrow or next week?

Whatever happened to make America great again??? 15k Vzw coworkers lives will change come next week. Corporate America greed wins again. I’m here refreshing this website to see if anything new comes up. I’m paranoid , I can’t sleep , what happened to the big tax break these corporations got from trump ?? That’s still not enough ???

Does anyone know when the AD is officially informed?

Many levels of IT management (Managers, Sr Managers, director) riffed today. Hard to say what comes next but it don’t look great for TMO employees

I have been having nightmares since the news broke out, Not able to focus, moral is low, zero motivation to do anything. Not willing to put in any effort until I know my fate next week. I mean whatever happens happens but next couple of days are going brutal!