Snippet: Some Google Employees Didn’t Realize They Were Laid Off Until Their Badges Wouldn’t Let Them Into the Office ☇

Aaron Mok, Kate Duffy, and Sawdah Bhaimiya for Insider:

Google employees were notified early Friday morning by email that they’d been laid off — but if they didn’t check their inbox before commuting to work, they were in for a tough surprise.

One laid-off Google employee, a software engineer who requested anonymity to speak freely, told Insider that he witnessed one of his co-workers repeatedly try to scan his employee badge to get into Google’s Chelsea, New York office, only for the card reader to turn red and deny him entry.

His colleague was clearly confused, the former employee told Insider, and after his badge failed to work, he walked past reception toward the staircase that led up to the office, where he was met by a security guard who escorted him out.

Laying people off should be done with care—even if the business took a day or two to properly communicate with everyone and leave them with their dignity, it’s not going to disrupt regular operations much. Instead, they were basically thrown away in a horrible, dehumanizing, impersonal way (especially with the toxic assumption that they’d be checking their inbox before coming into the office). And people wonder why there’s no loyalty to employers in this day and age—crap like this happens way too often.