Anatomy of a Layoff

It takes almost nothing for life under capitalism to fall apart

I just got laid off. I’m a software engineer and my company was a mature startup whose funders got spooked by the recent economic crash and pulled out and that was it. No severance, no warning, paltry thanks for a job well done and a “we’ll pass on your resume to our contacts” and just like that my life was thrown into utter chaos. I get an email that s…