Preface: I work from home for a massive mortgage company based out of California. I am a Sr. Loan Processor. We have been demanded to work 6 day weeks ever since the Covid housing boom started – even though when we were hired we were promised we would only have to work 1 weekend per month. I have averaged 50+ hours a week, and give up a lot of my personal free time to be available nights and weekends as that's when borrowers are usually home and able to answer questions and submit documentation to complete their loans.
I just got off of a conference call where 29 people including myself were mass fired. Apparently we don't even deserve a one on one anymore, as we were lead like lambs to the slaughter of our livelihoods. This was just one in a series of mass firings, but it really caught me off guard as I was a top producer just last year. I am guessing the reason I was included has to do with my performance at the end of December through January: my grandmother contracted Covid in December and suffered a massive heart attack that took her life in early January. This woman had a big hand in raising me, we were very close. I got 5 days off which were used crying, consoling family, searching through her things for photos and burial garments, and attending the funeral… and when I came back to work I was still devastated but I did my best and ended up in the bottom half production-wise. I guess that's all it takes, a couple slow months and no humanity from an upper management who just sees us as numbers.
My emotions have ran the gambit from terrified to angry to hysterical. If this has happened to you, please know you are not alone. I don't know how I'm going to pay my own mortgage now (how is that for irony) but I have been down before and I never stay down long. This subreddit gives me a lot of faith. Please keep it going, we really need you all in todays world. I'd say “it's a jungle out there” but honestly you'd probably be safer in the jungle than corporate America these days.