I recently had a birthday. To celebrate I managed to get myself laid off a week ago so that I am currently on a "paid sabbatical". For the last 15 years, I have worked at Hyland Software which has been a fantastic experience. It was great working at a very succussful company with even better people. Hyland, like many other companies is struggling to find center after being very successful during the pandemic, has been struggling (relatively speaking, mind you) since then and the current economic downturn (inflation-driven really) is making it harder not for just Hyland but for a lot of tech companies. Layoffs are happening across the industry.
There are other theories as to the real purpose of the layoff. However, this post is not to talk about Hyland or its layoffs but rather what does mean for me as I enter the next year. What do I want to do next, do I really want go jump right back into the rat race or do I want to change my life completely by leaving the "tech" industry and doing something else. I know for a fact, that yoga teaching will not pay the bills for me. But what does "pay the bills" look like moving forward, do I really need to stay on the path I'm on, or do we make serious lifestyle changes so that our footprint and therefore cost of living are reduced? One post cannot address and I am certain that over time that whatever I think today will change, shift, morph to something different. That change is one of three things we are certain of - death, taxed, and change. Everything changes, every minute, every second.
