This happened a while ago and I couldn't talk about this before because the person I found this out from still worked there and I didn't want to get them in trouble. They don't work there anymore so here it goes.
After 2 years of putting everything we had I to this company until there was nothing left to give, a bunch of senior lead women and non-binary people were suddenly laid off. They said it was “due to covid” but we all noticed the specific people chosen had some things in common. We had all asked, at some point or another, for better working conditions. We asked, politely, for better schedules. We were exhausted. My mental and physical health declined rapidly. I almost died driving home from work from exhaustion. We would work every night and weekend for .months at a time to make their shitty deadlines. When we pointed out something sexist we were looked at like we had two heads. Women were fired in retaliation for going to HR when the CPO sexually harassed them.
Etc etc etc. I really could go on and on.
But to the actual point of the post:
Said person who still worked there messaged me about a week after the layoff. They said they were in a one on one meeting with the CPO. They needled a bit at the end and asked what his reasoning was for choosing us to be fired. Even though I knew why, I was still shocked by what he said.
“You have to cut the cancer out before it spreads.”
I felt sick. I gave everything I had and me and the wonderful peers I worked beside were being compared to cancer.
But if a man like that calls us cancer, that means we were doing something right.