Reading about someone’s experience with department-wide one-on-one meetings scheduled with HR present brought back memories that made my stomach churn. The scenario is painfully familiar to many in the corporate world: the carefully worded email, the mention of a “support person,” and that ominous phrase about “changes to the department.”

Let’s be honest - corporate communication around restructures and redundancies often feels like it’s designed to create maximum anxiety. The moment you see that calendar invite for a one-on-one with both HR and senior management, your mind starts racing. Having been through this dance myself during the tech downturn of the early 2000s, I know exactly how it feels.

Reading about someone’s last day at work after being made redundant brought back memories of similar experiences in the tech industry. The familiar scene played out - the awkward HR meetings, fake sympathetic faces, and that strange liminal space between being employed and not.

The tech industry, particularly here in Australia, has seen its fair share of redundancy waves recently. Major players have been “restructuring” (corporate speak for showing people the door), often with very little warning. The story shared online today feels particularly relevant - that final walk through the office, the perfunctory HR meeting, and yes, the traditional raid of the stationery cupboard.

The phrase “organisational restructure” has become an all-too-familiar part of our corporate vocabulary lately. While scrolling through various online discussions today, I noticed a disturbing pattern emerging in conversations about workplace stability - or rather, the growing lack of it.

Looking back to my early career days in the late 90s, redundancies were relatively rare events that made headlines. They were treated as serious corporate decisions that could damage a company’s reputation. These days, it seems like they’ve become just another routine business strategy, as casual as updating the office coffee machine.