Essential Until It Wasn't
The article reflects on the experience of being deemed an essential employee during the early pandemic, only to later face layoffs as economic conditions shifted. It explores the dissonance between corporate messaging about worker value and the reality of job security, highlighting how quickly essential status can vanish.
Background
- The article reflects on being laid off after being told you were "essential" — a critique of modern tech corporate culture where loyalty is rarely mutual.
- "Bricolage" is the blog of an anonymous software engineer, often exploring the psychological toll of tech work and capitalism.
- The piece taps into the 2022–2025 wave of tech layoffs (Google, Meta, Amazon, startups), where even high-performing employees praised as indispensable were let go.
- No specific company is named, but it's about the startup lifecycle: early employees are "critical" until growth slows, then discarded.
- Key concept: **"essential until it wasn't"** — companies extract maximum value from workers, then shed them when conditions change; the author argues this is a feature, not a bug, of capitalism.