This can be a bit of a class thing. If one has enough money/capital/savings to weather the unemployment, why panic? And if one has been raised in environment where there never are such buffers, panic is the default answer.

Once you've been laid off for the first time you soon learn to be prepared.

Once you've been laid off 2-3 times in your career your entire perspective on work will change.

The last time I got laid off I had a settlement payment of one years pay, some of which was tax free, it took me 4 months to find a new job, and it resulted in a pay rise. I was lucky... I have a friend who had unstable employment for 2 years after his layoff.

I was anxious as fuck for the whole time and felt like an absolute failure. As a result of that experience, I have carefully piled up enough liquid savings and investments to pay my living expenses for many years without working, with ~2-3 years worth sat in cash equivalents.

Anyone in tech following the 3-6 months savings advice is living on the edge.

I was laughing out loud at the absurdity. Oh I got laid off? Well, time to let my dog code computer games.

At least, for me, the level of panic would depend on how long I can pay for rent / mortgage and covering the costs of having a family, diapers, food, heating, paying the bills, so basically everything that makes sure that a temporary change in employment status doesn't result in multi-decade negative effects on my family's life.

If I could cover these with my savings for 1y+, I'd give zero fs about getting laid off. Unfortunately, I can't, so time to focus on spending less, earning more, saving more.

Maybe they have savings. They might also be eligible for some kind of allowance/benefits for some time and therefore are not immediately losing money.

This blog Post is a Job application. A very good one.

If you worked for Meta you probably have some money left over.

The theme, being retrenched by Meta and the comment from the OP [1] makes me think they may not be that chill about the whole situation.

I think they're subtly taking a stab and AI motivated retrenchments while showing off some hard skills that could potentially get them gainful employment.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47145647

ps. @OP, sorry to hear about the retrenchment, I can't imagine it being pleasant. Good luck with whatever comes next!

> Don't people have rent/mortgages to pay anymore?

Are you too early in your working life to have catastrophe savings [0]? If you're not, is it seriously going to be a four-alarm fire if you suddenly got fired?

Related, like, do you have a plan for what happens if unexpected injury prevents you from doing the work you're doing ever again?

[0] let alone "fuck you" savings