A short, fictional walk through the first ninety days after a layoff: the meeting, the walk to the car, the text to your partner, the COBRA math, the job hunt, the lowball offer with a clock on it. You do not win this by being upbeat. You handle the next real thing, in order. It takes about five minutes.
How it plays
You make one decision at a time, the same real ones the situation actually hands you. A few quiet meters track how you are holding up and move as you go. There are no points and no winning, just where you end up and what to do next. About five minutes.
WHO YOU ARE TODAY
Same situation, different starting hand. Some of these make the good endings genuinely harder to reach.
PICK A TONE
Unhinged, the same beats with the satire off its leash, is part of the full plan.
This is a story, not advice. The company is made up. The decisions are not, and the real versions of them, severance, COBRA, the search, are in the guides and tools when you want them.
MORE CHAPTERS, MAYBE
If this one lands, these are next. Each one keeps the joke on the system, never on you.
The Search
SOON
Two hundred applications. The software rejects you before a human reads one of them.
The Mandate
SOON
Return to office, for the collaboration you will do over Slack from a different floor.
The Restructure
SOON
We just raised forty million dollars. To celebrate, we are realigning around our priorities.
Going Solo
SOON
You are a business now. Your first client pays in ninety days, probably.