I worked at a company for over 11 years. I loved my job, and my job loved me. Throughout my time there I was promoted to lead a small but important department. We were well liked and respected both internally at the company and externally by our partners. It was a great thing.
Then a giant corporation bought a majority stake in the company. Little by little, they dismantled our smaller company, until after about 2 years, there was very little of it left. The problem here being that the larger company did not seem to even remotely understand (let alone be interested in understanding) how our company functioned, so it got very chaotic very quickly. Employees and teams that perform similar tasks are not interchangeable, yet big corporation kept shuffling things around so much that soon enough it was unclear what anyone was responsible for anymore. Things were constantly breaking, and any sense of efficiency was lost.
It's amazing that in such a short time, the best job any of us had ever had quickly turned into one of the worst. It was incredibly heartbreaking to watch the thing that we had built with so much love, integrity, and passion for what we did be so carelessly dismantled into something barely functional.
Then, just shy of my 12 year anniversary, I was laid off. It was pretty devastating, but I had essentially already mourned the death of my company, so I was pretty prepared for it. I had been feeling ready to move on, so I took it gracefully, accepted my severance, and that was that. The most insulting part was that my boss (who started managing me after the takeover), decided that this particular week would be a good time for him to take a vacation. He did not deliver the news to me, and I did not hear from him ever again. There was something like 100 layoffs in his department that week. What an asshole.
To be fair, the severance package was fairly generous: about 11 weeks of pay for my nearly 12 years of employment. Working in entertainment, I've been very nervous about finding another comparable job, since this is the WORST time to find a job in my field in as long as I've been in the job market.
But yesterday I received a job offer. They were very impressed with my record and reputation at my last job, offered me a title bump and about a 40% pay increase. AND before my severance period was up! I can't imagine how this could have gone better.
TL;DR: Big corporation took over and ruined my company, laid me off, without even a word from my boss there. Quickly got a new job with a higher pay and title.
I know it's rough out there, but sometimes these things do work out!