When I picked up my phone last Tuesday morning, two messages caught my attention. One from a colleague said she’d been laid off, and another from HR asked me to check my personal email. My throat tightened.
I found myself among the 14,000 corporate employees laid off by Amazon. I had just celebrated my one-year anniversary as a senior social media manager at Amazon Ads and it was exactly a week before my birthday. Talk about timing.
My immediate reaction was disbelief. Was I still dreaming? Was the email spam? Even though there were rumors about layoffs the day before, everything had seemed relatively normal. I was busy preparing for an event in mid-November. I guess I won’t be going to that one.
I called my partner and parents to tell them the news. They were supportive but also recognized the weight of the situation more than I could in the moment. It still hadn’t hit me. Where do you even start when there are hundreds of feelings?
Losing a dream role
My job at Amazon had been somewhat of a dream role, a signal to myself that I had “made it” in the corporate world.
In college at Wharton, many of my high-achieving classmates chased “FAANG” jobs (Facebook/Meta, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google/Alphabet), and as a marketing major, I felt even more driven to prove I’d stack up.
When I landed my job at Amazon, I felt like I had achieved that. And not only did I relish in the title, but I also enjoyed the work. From interviewing celebrities on the red carpet to traveling to my first Cannes Lions in France, the opportunities were exciting and meaningful.
As a daughter of immigrant parents, the prestige of working at a globally recognizable company felt like a testament to their sacrifices. Their hard work had helped me reach a milestone we could all be proud of. Even my grandma knew what Amazon was because of the packages on our doorstep. That felt like the ultimate proof that I’d “made” it.
‘I am so much more than my job’
While I worked at Amazon, I was already a part-time content creator on the side, highlighting Asian restaurants and affordable NYC recommendations. So when the layoff hit, I turned to that passion and challenged myself to make at least two videos a day.
There is immense stigma around layoffs, and I quickly realized how important it was to control my own narrative. I’ve posted every day since in a series I’ve titled “Lea After Layoff,” sharing my reflections as I cope and search for silver linings.
I’ve spent these first few days savoring solo bowls of pho in Chinatown and meeting my dad and sister for a weekday lunch in Koreatown. I’ve visited a new part of New York City every day and gone on runs across boroughs with my super mutt, Arlo.
These are the moments that make me who I am — the proud Chinese-American gal with the bottomless appetite for world travels and Asian eats — not the company I work for or the job title on my LinkedIn profile. Within just a few days, I’ve affirmed that I am so much more than my job.
I couldn’t have guessed how much my real-time layoff processing would resonate with others. With over a million views across my videos, I’ve heard from fellow Amazon employees who were also laid off as well as internet strangers rooting me on. There has been an overwhelming sense of community.
Soaking in the present, planning for the future
Reflecting on the past year, I feel immense gratitude for the professional growth, the inspiring colleagues, the projects that challenged me, and for the opportunity to live out a corporate dream.
Even now, I’m thankful for the time to reflect and process all my emotions — from the excitement of pursuing my passion projects to the fear of what’s next to the pride of discovering just how resilient I really am.
I know the corporate world and the accompanying heaps of applications, resume edits, and Zoom interviews are waiting for me. Just thinking about it gives me a knot in my stomach. Despite all my positivity, I know it will be hard, especially in this job market. I need a moment before I dive into a search for new social media roles.
For now, with this unexpected time, I’m so excited to expand my content creator journey, actually celebrate instead of working on my birthday, take a vacation with my family over Christmas, and let myself live in the present. I’ve never been great at that, but it’s time to practice.
Six months from now, I have no clue what my day-to-day will look like. And I don’t know if I’ve ever been able to say that, jumping from college into one corporate job after another. It’s nerve-wracking, absolutely. But it’s also kind of thrilling.
Lea Chen is a content creator and social media marketer with experience at IBM, Goldman Sachs, and Amazon. She graduated magna cum laude from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania with concentrations in marketing and entrepreneurship.
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