My name is Andrew, I’m 41 years old, and I live in Raleigh, North Carolina. I’d been with my company for almost seven years. Not a startup, not corporate either—one of those mid-sized places that prides itself on culture. From day one, my boss loved saying we were a “family.” It came up in meetings, emails, even performance reviews. At the time, I believed it.
We had team lunches, birthday cards, inside jokes. When my dad was hospitalized a few years back, my boss told me to take whatever time I needed. “That’s what family does,” he said. I worked hard in return. Late nights. Weekend deadlines. I trained new hires without being asked. I thought loyalty went both ways.
Then the market dipped.
At first, leadership assured us everything was fine. They said the word “transparent” a lot. We were told there were no plans for layoffs, just “tightening belts.” The family analogy came out stronger than ever. We just had to stick together.
Two weeks later, I got a calendar invite titled “Quick Check-In.” No agenda. No HR included. I knew immediately.
My boss didn’t look me in the eye when I sat down. He read from a script, talking about restructuring and difficult decisions. My role was being eliminated, effective immediately. I remember nodding while my ears rang. I asked why me. He said it wasn’t performance-related. I asked how they chose. He said it was “what made the most sense for the team.”
The team. The family.
HR joined the call halfway through. My access was cut before the meeting ended. By noon, my work email was gone. Slack gone. Seven years reduced to a severance packet and a reminder to return my laptop.
What hurt most wasn’t losing the job—it was how fast I disappeared. Coworkers I’d mentored for years didn’t reach out. Later, one admitted they were told not to, “to avoid confusion.” My boss sent a generic goodbye message to the team, thanking me for my contributions. No mention of family.
Within a month, I saw job postings for a role suspiciously similar to mine—lower pay, different title. That’s when it fully sank in. We were never a family. We were convenient. And when I became inconvenient, I was gone.
I’m working again now, somewhere quieter and more honest. No one calls it a family. They call it a job. And strangely, that feels far more respectful.
