After 16 years of service, Google fires employee by deactivating his account in the middle of the night

By Ankita Chakravarti: The reports of layoffs have wreaked havoc in the technology industry. Recently, top tech companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google have had to let go of a significant number of employees. Unfortunately, even employees who have been with the company for a long time were not spared. These companies did not take into account the hard work, dedication, and loyalty of some employees who had worked for them for over a decade. For example, an employee who had worked for Microsoft for 21 years was let go, and now a Google employee, who had been working for the company for 16 years, has shared his experience of being let go without any warning or communication.

Justin Moore, who worked as an Engineering Manager at Google, shared that he had not received any prior warning about the layoffs. Moore, who has been a part of Google for more than sixteen years, shares that his account was deactivated suddenly in the middle of the night.

“So after over 16.5 years at Google, I appear to have been let go via an automated account deactivation at 3am this morning as one of the lucky 12,000. I don't have any other information, as I haven't received any of the other communications the boilerplate "you've been let go" website (which I now also can't access) said I should receive,” Moore’s post on LinkedIn reads.

Moore worked as a Senior Software Engineer at Google for 16 years. He expressed pride in the work he and his team accomplished during that time. However, he also shared a valuable life lesson he learned from his layoff: work should not consume your entire life, and employers, even big ones like Google, can be ruthless. He urged others to "live life, not work.”

“This also just drives home that work is not your life, and employers -- especially big, faceless ones like Google -- see you as 100% disposable. Live life, not work,” he said.

Turns out he wasn’t the only long-serving employee who was fired unceremoniously. Another staff engineer at Google, Richard Hay, commented on his post saying that he worked with the company for 15.5 years and he was also fired in the same manner as Moore.

Google’s note to employees

In an email to employees, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that the company will part ways with close to 12,000 employees. “We’ve decided to reduce our workforce by approximately 12,000 roles. We’ve already sent a separate email to employees in the US who are affected. In other countries, this process will take longer due to local laws and practices,” he said. He also said that the impacted employees will be paid a severance package.