The Grief of Losing a Job You Didn't Even Like

Mass layoffs have impacted the majority of Americans in the 2020s, and it's only going to get worse. Losing the illusion of choice leads to unexpected grief few are prepared to deal with.

Jul 15, 2025

The Encyclopedia of Grief is an archive of the kinds of grief that shape our lives quietly, often without anyone noticing. This season is focused on the grief that follows the broken promises of modern day life. We’re not here to fix anything. Take what you need and leave the rest.

Some griefs are hard to explain because we’re taught we shouldn’t feel them in the first place.

Eight months after I started my dream job at a prestigious tech company, my entire team was laid off. Over 200 people. Here one day, gone the next. With zero warning that things were headed in that direction.

The layoffs were devastating. I’d come to love many of these people, relying on them as I adjusted to this new culture. They were my friends, mentors, colleagues.

The entire thing was confusing and stressful. It left me wondering when the same fate would come for me. Because somehow, I was one of the lucky few to be spared from the layoffs due to my transferable skills and entry level income.

My life changed drastically overnight. I went from being an analyst to an experience designer, which have overlaps but are ultimately very different positions. In a mad dash, I got certified on a new product, learned a whole new language, and dusted off my design skills.

It was clear that I could either adapt to this new life, or leave. Sink or swim style. The worst part? These layoffs were just the start. Each quarter, we lost more colleagues than the last. There was an expectation that any of us could lose our job at any time. As if a chopping block was hanging over our heads. We may have been high paid, highly skilled workers, but that didn’t seem to matter to the executive team or the board.

Eventually, I left the company all together.

We may have desires around how things are going to go, but often life has other plans for us.

Since the start of Covid-19 in early 2020, approximately 40M people have been laid off. In the first five months of 2025, there were over 84M layoffs or discharges.

Millions of folks face waves of shame and guilt over something completely outside of their control. Because there is nothing our society loves more than putting the blame on the individual rather than the system.

Layoffs have a long and painful history rooted in industrial capitalism, where workers are seen as disposable when machines broke or profits dipped. In the 20th century, moments like the Great Depression revealed how job loss could be systemic, not personal—and for a time, some works were promised lifelong employment. But that promise was never universal, and it didn’t last.

By the 1980s, mass layoffs became a regular business strategy. Today, jobs are often lost without warning, through algorithms or scripted calls, even in good times. Your company could be making record profits and still conduct quarterly mass layoffs.

The grief that follows isn’t just about income. It’s about losing structure, identity, and a sense of place in the world. But there is a part of this process that is often overlooked: the grief of losing a job you didn’t even like.

Many people work jobs they don’t particularly love because it gives them the money they need to survive. Oftentimes, they get good at that job. They make friends, get promoted, and receive awards. Eventually, their self worth is intertwined with that job, for better or worse.

Until one day, it disappears into smoke. They receive the meeting on their calendar, or AI-generated email in their inbox. The house of cards collapses. Leaving them with nothing but a confusing mix of feelings and no real support to deal with them.

✾ What This Grief Looks & Feels Like

It starts small. You find yourself scrolling LinkedIn with that familiar clench in your stomach, the one that says everyone else still belongs somewhere. You click on an old Slack channel out of habit, knowing no one’s posted in weeks, but still hoping for a flicker of connection.

You remember your last day at work. Wondering if what you felt was sadness or freedom or something too complicated to name. Your mind knew something had ended. But your heart and your body wasn’t so sure what to do about it.

Because even if you didn’t love the job, it held you. It gave your days a spine. A rhythm. And when that rhythm disappears, you lose more than a paycheck. You lose the odd comfort of structure, even if it sometimes suffocated you. You lose the tiny rituals. The favorite lunch spot. The weird work friend who understood you in ways your actual friends never did.

There is shame in the loss. How dare you grieve something you claimed to hate? But there’s also relief, and that’s confusing too. It’s both. It’s always both.

✾ Mythic Mirror: Ariadne After the Labyrinth

In Greek mythology, Ariadne helps Theseus escape the labyrinth. But after he succeeds, he abandons her on a deserted island. She’s left behind with nothing. No lover, no plan, no way home.

Many remember Theseus as a hero. Few remember Ariadne’s part of the story. Even fewer remember what comes after: how, in her solitude and despair, she is found by Dionysus (the god of wilderness, ecstasy, and rebirth) who offers her a new kind of life.

Losing a job you didn’t even love can feel like Ariadne’s abandonment. You gave your labor and your loyalty to a company for years. Then they drop you.

✾ Three Ways to Work With This Grief

Make a Grief Resume

Not the kind you’d submit to HR. This one lists what you lost and what you learned. List the relationships, routines, inside jokes, annoying emails, and all the roles you quietly carry.

Over time, you’ll start to forget about the details that brought you a lot of joy in your role that could be part of your job search criteria.

Hold a “Lunch Break” Funeral

Pack the lunch you used to bring. Go to a park. Eat it. Pour out a little iced coffee for your former self. Mourn the tiny rituals you didn't know you’d miss.

Build a Rejection Shrine

Rejection stings. But many believe that it can be transmuted into power if you give it a place to burn. Set up a shrine with some of the tokens you have from your role: the layoff email, old ID pages, outdated sticky notes, worn journals. Arrange it somewhere silly or sacred. Let it become art.

✾ Closing Reflection

Grief doesn’t always come from love. Sometimes it comes from the end of something familiar. The shape your life took, the rhythm of your days. Even the version of you that showed up every morning. Those things mattered, even if the job didn’t

When they vanish, something quiet collapses. And that collapse deserves to be named.

Thank you for spending some time with this grief. Each entry in this library is a small act of remembrance for the parts of us that were never given space to feel, question, or break apart.

For additional support, the Grief Resource Hub is here for you. We are here to sit beside grief, not tell it what to become.