A laid-off Googler says colleagues should 'find perspective' about the recent layoffs: 'No one died. Seriously'
- A laid-off Googler said colleagues should 'find perspective' about the recent layoffs.
- In a LinkedIn post, Mallika Iyer said of the cuts: "No one died. Seriously."
A Google employee of more than five years who succumbed to the recent layoffs has said colleagues should "find perspective" about the cuts.
"I see a lot of 'deeply saddened' and all that stuff," Mallika Iyer, who worked as head of product for translation of artificial intelligence at Google, wrote in a LinkedIn post, adding: "No one died. Seriously."
Iyer said "perspective is if something happened to my dogs or kid I'd be a blubbering mess. I felt physically ill when my shepherd almost died of bloat 2 years ago. This is not that."
Iyer said there was "always a silver lining" and "if there isn't one, you can damn well draw it," adding: "Now let's quit whining and get to work."
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google parent Alphabet, emailed staff on January 20 to say the company was cutting about 12,000 jobs and that he took "full responsibility for the decisions that led us here."
Since then, laid-off Googlers have shared their stories about being cut. A husband said he and his and wife stared at each other in "disbelief" the moment they discovered they'd both been laid off. And a former Google employee told Insider's Grace Dean he lost his job while on carers' leave looking after his terminally-ill mom.
A Googler who survived the cuts told Insider that some others who kept their jobs cried during meetings the day the layoffs were announced.
Iyer said in the LinkedIn post, published on January 20, that it was a "privilege" to work at Google, adding: "Google rocks, it always will, it's one of my happy places and has the best co-workers."
Google didn't immediately respond to a request for comment by Insider, made outside normal working hours.