The day you get made redundant

The phone call

Mine came on a Tuesday. Diary invite, no agenda, HR partner CC'd. If you've worked in tech long enough you know what that pattern means before you even click accept. The body went cold first, then loud (the actual heart-thumping kind of loud), then very, very quiet.

Fifteen minutes later it was done. Org restructure, role no longer required, here's the package, sign by Friday. The HR person was kind. That somehow made it worse.

I want to write the article I needed that afternoon. Not the LinkedIn-platitude version. The hour-by-hour version.

The first 24 hours

Do almost nothing.

Specifically, do not:

• Post anything on LinkedIn
• Reply to the official email beyond "received, will review"
• Sign the deed of release
• Tell every contact in your phone
• Apply for jobs
• Cancel direct debits in a panic
• Drink to the bottom of the bottle (one is fine, six is a Wednesday problem)

The single most expensive mistake I see men make in the first 24 hours is signing things. Redundancy paperwork is a contract. It usually contains a release, sometimes a non-compete, sometimes a confidentiality clause that bites later. You have time. They want it signed fast because fast is cheap for them. Slow is cheap for you.

What to actually do, in order

Tell one person who isn't your partner. A mate, a brother, an old colleague. Someone who will say "mate, that's brutal" and not immediately try to fix it. You need a witness before you need a strategist.

Then tell your partner if you have one. Not over text. Face-to-face, sober, with the package document in hand so the conversation is about facts and not catastrophising. (Catastrophising can wait until 2am, like a normal person.)

Then sleep. Properly. The body has just absorbed a status hit and a financial hit at the same time, and the nervous system thinks something is hunting you. It isn't. Sleep is the cheapest medicine you'll buy this month.

The package, decoded

You'll get a letter or pack with three numbers that matter:

• Notice pay (your contractual notice, often paid in lieu so you don't work it out)
• Statutory redundancy (NES scale based on years of service)
• Ex-gratia / company top-up (the optional bit they're using to buy a clean exit)

The first two are yours by law in Australia. The third is the negotiable bit. Most men I know didn't negotiate. Most men I know wish they had.

Genuine redundancy payments are tax-free up to a base amount plus a per-year-of-service amount, indexed annually. Around forty grand was the base last time I looked, but get current numbers from the ATO site or a tax agent before you make decisions on it.

Get a lawyer to read it

Not your mate who does conveyancing. An employment lawyer. One hour, around three to five hundred dollars, and they'll tell you in fifteen minutes whether the deed is standard or whether someone has slipped in a restraint that locks you out of half your industry for twelve months.

I didn't do this the first time. I did the second time. The lawyer found two clauses I'd have signed without blinking. Cheapest insurance I've bought.

The week after

Three jobs for week one, in this order:

• Sort the money runway (how many months until you're in trouble)
• Tell your inner circle (boss-friends, mentors, old recruiters)
• Do nothing visible online

The temptation to post the brave LinkedIn announcement on day three is enormous. Resist. You haven't processed it yet, and the version of the post you'd write tomorrow is better than the one you'd write today. Wait until you can write it without the shake in your hands.

The thing nobody tells you

Redundancy is not a performance review. It feels like one. The brain insists on reading it as one. But the org made an org decision and you happened to be standing in the wrong square when the music stopped (the musical-chairs analogy is a cliche, and also exactly what it is).

You will still feel personally rejected. That's the hit landing. Let it land. Don't bypass it with a productivity sprint. Don't bypass it with the brave-face Slack-message to the team. Sit in it for a few days.

Then move.

What the Tuesday taught me

That the version of me who measured worth in the org chart was always going to take this hit eventually. Better at forty than at sixty. Better with kids who'll see me rebuild than kids who'll see me hide. Better with the runway I had than the runway I didn't.

Slow down. Read everything. Sign nothing yet.