I would like to start this post by giving a brief description of my background. I am a happily married man with a newborn son, honorably discharged veteran, diligently remained in my field for 6 years attempting to give my ALL to build some kind of maintainable life together with my lovely wife in this country of “dreams”. We were kids with literally nothing but garbage bags and clawed our way into respectable corporate positions after years of juggling college, the military, work etc.
I have recently been a part of a “reduction in workforce” (mass layoffs) that came out of nowhere. This is a company that sells product globally, easily bringing in millions in revenue. This all started with everyone being informed sporadically in a mandatory meeting that was no were near scheduled that we will now be merging with a similar company, and if you are “in this meeting, you have no need to concern about losing work.” This was said by upper management and executives many, many times over a course of 3 months. Initially, I was scrambling to find a new position elsewhere. After 6 weeks of not bein let go and seeing more product being moved than ever I decided to slowly stop searching. Over this course of time, the now merged company was sending all kinds of propaganda about how they are revamping the “2.0 version” of these merged companies and will be stronger than ever. This made EVERYONE feel confident with their positions being secured.
As my wife and I were getting ready to go home for the very FIRST TIME together as a family with our first newborn, I received a phone call through teams on my cell phone notifying me that I need to turn in my equipment by that Friday (2 days) as I had been one of the many to lose my position to the reduction in staff. I never in my life felt like completely losing my mind on someone in a professional setting, but I was livid. I remained professional even though we had been awake three days at that point. So many emotions at once “My son has not been on this planet more than a day, and I am already not sure how I will provide for him.” Was not a part of the emotions I was anticipating on what was supposed to be one of our happiest days as a family. I initially did not even know how to tell this news to my wife at this point. This was a soul crushing feeling for us after pouring our souls into developing professionally, sacrificing any form of fun or freedom, and honorably serving at the need of the federal governments every whim.
My company did not give me any kind of severance and they did not even buy out my PTO (Which I had to use some of for the birth of my son). My last check was less than half of what I typically earn. I attempted to reach out to my direct manager, because this feels like it should be illegal at this point, and he straight up ignored my calls and texts.
It turns out that this company was doing all kinds of shady things and had suits pending against them. I suspect that this whole ordeal was to keep staff working so they could retain as much profit as possible for the upper guys, because that is how it usually goes in this wonderful land of opportunity.
I wanted to see if anyone on here has been in a similar situation. Any kind of guidance or feedback would be deeply appreciated, as I truly do not even know how to proceed.