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Ask HN: Best way to get laid off
10 points by jakamm 48 days ago | hide | past | favorite | 25 comments
I am incredibly burned out and overworked at my current company. So much so that I have no energy to do anything but work and sleep, preparing for interviews is out of the question as I do not have the mental bandwidth to put in a 12 hour day and then come back to study.

What is the best way to either get laid off or force the company into giving me some kind of paid time off so I can figure out what to do next?

I’ve heard that getting fired for performance is not ideal because it may effect future employment opportunities if they find out so the advice I’ve been given of just becoming incompetent and not doing my work for long enough doesn’t seem to be the best way.

I will not be able to get paid time off approved because we are so far behind schedule at said company I work at currently.

Please help me…



I've been through phases of this.

Does your company regularly do layoffs (annually or something)? Are you in the US? A lot depends on local employment law.

I would suggest, just show up at 9, leave at 5, try to get a few things done between those hours, but forget 12 hour days and mental bandwidth and being a star performer, just try to detach, punch in, punch out.

If that's not good enough for them, then they can lay you off, and you are likely to get severance, unemployment benefits, etc., etc., it's a better position for you than just quitting and leaving that stuff on the table.

However, you might actually find that by just punching in / punching out, limiting your hours, you can recover from burnout a bit, gain more balance, have energy for things outside of work (be it interview prep or other things).


Start enforcing your own boundaries. What does the contract say? 40h work weeks? Then start to go home after 8h of work. Simply don't do overtime.


1) Save 6 to 12 months of emergency fund (everyone, always) 2) Start working 8h 0m* (and then just walk out of the office) 3) Depending on the country: Get a doc to write you up for burn-out, (depending on the country) you can get 'easily' 2-3 months leave with reduced pay, that will give you the time to recover, regroup, prep for interviews, etc.

*Once upon a time I was working 12h a day, 5d/w. I had issues with my director. My CAE told me in my face that "nothing will change, he stays there, I stay here, I don't care, work it out". I thanked him and started leaving at 17:00. The first day he stopped me and asked me to do something to which I responded "it's 5pm, I'm leaving, I'll do that first thing tomorrow". I stayed there doing 9-5 and did a great job, but ONLY 9-5. 2-3 years later they had an 'exit plan' in which I happily collected 10x salaries to leave :)

EDIT: the above works if you are a perm. If you are a contractor, find a new contract that pays 'ok' and take it. Give your current 'client' and/or intermediate-consultancy the 1 month, and walk out.


I quit a job I grew to hate. Advice from me is to think more about what you are going to do once you are not employed there. Try not to think as much why you do not want to be there. After all you have made a decision to go.

Save some money for the time between jobs (if there is another in your future) and for a little extra for a short break (a vacation maybe). Enjoy a little planning for the future and I wish you well.


I would hang in there and get in touch with a therapist or a friend that you know to have good judgment before you take action. Hopefully they will be able to assess your thinking and point out any blind spots.

I would advise even more caution when considering actions that are not easily reversed like quitting.

Lastly, I would try to get some distance from your thoughts and feelings, to get out of them temporarily so you can view them with some skepticism. It could help you see other causes that are feeding into your situation. Hard physical exercise might help here.


you are a free man, just leave! imagine you only have 1 month left to live, how would you go about maximizing your life?

and do that


I'm confused, why don't you just quit? You likely won't get any sort of severance if you get fired for cause. Just put in your two weeks notice and move on with your life.


Get out while the water still warm and before it starts to boil.

Life is too short to live like this. Apply for 1 job a day or week - but apply. Once you start getting interview calls, you will find time to prepare and practice. If you fail, use that as impetus - prepare and practice. Use ChatGPT or your favorite LLM to prepare and practice various interview questions, answers and scenarios.

It’s better to land a job while you still have a job. But it’s not the end of the world if you do lose your current job.

Reach out if you want to brainstorm


I don’t get this. How is someone forced to work 12 hour days? I’ve worked for almost 30 years across 10 companies from startups to BigTech and I’ve never put in those hours and I would first try to negotiate between time/cost/requirements and then just refuse.

Just refuse. What are they going to fire you if they are already so short staffed people are working 12 hour days? How much faster are they going to go by firing and replacing you with someone who doesn’t know the business or codebase?


Vocally disagree with the senior managers strategy in all team wide meetings and hint at a lack of competence and confidence.

You will soon be gone.


Why not just ask them to lay you off so you don't have to quit yourself and loose privileges? Just argument that it's exhausting and you can't go this wise anymore and you would like to leave, but would like to cash in the privileges. It's ok. A traveller shouldn't be slowed down.. :)


Depending on where you live there are laws around vacation time. Or perhaps ask for a raise/promotion.


I have been fighting your same battle. Every day I wake up hoping this will be the day I get fired. I cannot bring myself to quit as it would be voluntarily squandering the privilege ($$$) I’m afforded, though my courage is increasing every day.


Start doing 6 hour days instead of 12.

Why would you do 12 hour days if you don't like the job?


Heh, there's no central database. if you want to work for that company again later, there'll be a record but outside of that don't worry about it. Simply stop showing up.


Can’t the next company I work for contact this company to get that record though?


they can only verify employment. they don't really talk shit as that would set them up for a law suit. and also that's only if you give them permission to contact previous employers


I know a different variant of that:

You explicitly tell whom they may contact at the different companies by naming references on your CV/resume as a plus point and advantage.

The references must be asked firstly and give their permission to be contacted, too. One's choice is who is a good reference, of course...

So the HR reading the CV is officially allowed to contact the given references. But, it's not forbidden for him to get in contact with someone other in the former company, too. A possible law suit is clearly a problem, if you do this, hear some shit-talk from bad-tempered previous employer and then decide to disclose this as reason for Rejection. But, why should one disclose such things? Where's no evidence, there's no Plaintiff and there's no Judge.

Even more, the future employer do not contact the former or actual without any references given. The reason is, job applicants may still be on job when doing applications. Contacting the actual employer will disclose that the employee wants to leave. This might be of disadvantage for the employee and may bring him whatever sanctions by actual employer, f.e. checking "to be replaced asap. Not reliable." but, what if the applicant change his mind or is rejected by the future employer? .. so in worst case, on topic call can end up one losing his job.

This also might lead to a lawsuit case. But again, where's no evidence, there's no plaintiff and there's no judge.

In either case, it's better to present some (in best case heavy-weight) references and let the future employer get first hand info on the applicant. It's better for the latter.


sleep with the cleaning lady :)

https://youtu.be/ZB62oaOeqR0?si=uPZ93d8NGkeRB7KP


Use this as a prop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCMJd7KSVcQ


Smoke weed every day before work. Everyone will love you but your work quality will decrease, they’ll notice but they won’t want to just fire you because you’re nice. So they’ll “regrettably have to downsize your position” and give you a couple months pay. That’s the worst case; best case you end up in a Peter Gibbons type scenario and get promoted to management and you can help all the other poor saps like you chillax.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Space


Tried this and now I'm senior dev.


I got fired a couple of times so far:

Once during the first 3 months because I questioned the design of the software I was supposed to develop.. I was told that I was discussing too much.

Another time I started doing exact what was asked of me and did some side projects at the same time...I was so bored. Got fired after some time and told that I was incompetent. The reason for my behaviour was they way management behaved towards me.

I later heard that the company lost millions because of this.

A third time I got unfriendly with a manager who was a nasty human and reported him to HR. This got me fired rather quickly.

Dear OP .. why are you spending so much time at work that you hate?


FMLA is unpaid but federally protected.




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