I spent over 10 years at Meta, joining in 2012 when the company was still called Facebook and the newly acquired Instagram team occupied just two rows of stand-up desks in a half-filled Menlo Park campus.
As a global director, I helped lead a creative group launching campaigns with Marvel, Disney, Mini, Lexus, Wendy’s, Activision, and a fleet of innovative agencies and brands that trusted us to bring their stories to life on our platforms. I loved my job.
My team became my work family, Meta’s hallways became my work home, and the security badge hanging from my belt became a big part of how I saw myself.
Then, at 3 a.m., that all changed.
I saw an email from the Meta Leadership Team addressed to Thomas (uh-oh, that formality must mean trouble). I opened it and read, “We’ve made the hard, but necessary decision to lay off 13% of the company. Unfortunately, you’ve been included in the layoff.”
Gulp. I was on the list. I was laid off from my job.
I was hit with a few realizations later that morning
My first thought after absorbing the news was, “Who else on my team was affected? How can I help? Who needed to talk? Who is taking it the hardest?”
They were my team, and I needed to be there for them. But then it struck me. Effective immediately, I had no team.
Next, I considered how I’d break the news to my family over toaster-cooked waffles and orange juice.
“We’ll be fine, we’ll figure it out,” said my wife. And the kids seemed more concerned about making the bus than the severance and COBRA options.
I didn’t know how loud my life was until it suddenly went quiet
Instead of waking up early to an onslaught of internal team meetings, soul-twisting client fires, and an endless marching of BHAG quarterly goals, I found myself with a different morning agenda.
I’d quietly tiptoe out of the house at 4:30 a.m. and make my way to the moonlit beach.
Groggy morning hellos from co-workers in the micro-kitchen were replaced with a community of beachside foxes, coyotes, owls, and an occasional dolphin, effortlessly bringing a human mind that had been running at full throttle for years to a much-needed halt.
In the stillness, I started to hear my inner voice again. It told me that I had grown to love building up the people on my teams far more than building up the ideas we delivered to clients. It had become about the people. And I was still without a team.
The time to myself helped me rethink my career
Soon after the layoff, a professor friend asked me if I’d like to lecture in his college class. I loved it. Word spread, and I found myself accepting more invitations to lecture at universities close to my Los Angeles home and as far away as Virginia.
College campuses are filled with talent brimming with ideas, ambition, and wide-eyed excitement. Students share many of the same anxieties as my corporate teammates about their projects, performance, and future. When I realized I had answers to give, I decided I didn’t want to chase another corporate badge.
I became an adjunct professor and am now a lecturer. I’ve begun mentoring college students and recent grads, helping them find their voice and land their own dream roles. Years as a people manager, team leader, and hiring manager give me the ability to help students see behind the curtain and find their footing in a job search landscape full of AI black holes, unexplained ghosting, and never-ending digital applications.
I now help them navigate the madness and find their own work family, work home, and work purpose. I suddenly find myself feeling like I am exactly where I belong.
A message to those recently laid off at Meta
If you’re reading this and you’re one of the tens of thousands who have been told you were laid off as part of a “necessary business decision,” I know how incredibly lonely that can feel.
But here’s what I didn’t see at 3 a.m., staring into that soon-to-be-returned company laptop: I wasn’t actually being kicked out. I was being kicked toward a place where I could do truly authentic work and help people the most.
And that team I lost? I found a new one. They just happen to be sitting in college classrooms.
Tom Gilmartin is the founder of Gilmartin Career Launch Coaching and lives in Los Angeles. Connect on LinkedIn.
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