As many of you may have seen, I was laid off yesterday. And I’m feeling really good about this.
Seriously.
I haven’t seen the world look this bright in a while. Which is a strange thing to say, because I used to be terrified of this exact scenario. The end of the world. A swirling void of unknowns and uncertainty and — the real nightmare — what if nobody ever wants to hire me again?
Turns out the void is pretty well-lit.
Day 0
My boss called me while I was sick in bed and asked for a quick chat. I was a little suspicious — things hadn’t been going well for a while, and she and I have pretty different visions for what data and analytics should look like — but I wasn’t certain. Then I joined the call and saw someone from HR I don’t usually work with. She didn’t really need to start talking before I knew what was happening.
“A business decision has been made to end your employment at Cenovus.”
I didn’t listen closely after that. She handed me off to Erin, who walked me through next steps, then to my assigned career coach. I had a few practical questions, mostly centered on logistics: namely, how exactly are they planning to disassemble my foosball table (yes, I brought a foosball table to the office), transport my jumbo plants, and excavate 16 years of deeply lived-in cubicle? This is going to be a challenge for the movers. I wish them well.
The severance details are confidential, so I won’t share specifics — but 16 years of experience means the package is enough to keep my family comfortable for a while. That’s all you need to know.
I got off the call and immediately went into scramble mode: pulling every appointment from my work calendar, firing off messages to friends at work before my access was cut. I got a flood of shocked and disappointed reactions, and then — severed. I packed up my tablet and badge.
Then I called my wife. Which, in retrospect, was a bit of a grenade to lob at someone mid-shift at a school. Sorry, love.
I’ve seen people post thoughtful LinkedIn messages at the end of their employment, so that was the next move. I wanted to share the news, sneak in a small joke about my new job washing car windows at intersections, and mostly just convey that I am genuinely, actually happy. Because I am.
The response was immediate and completely overwhelming. Well-wishers, kind messages, people I’ve worked with closely, people I’ve only met once, contacts I’ve never met at all. I tried to reach out personally to as many people as I could, but I think I hit maybe 5% of my contact list before the wave became a mountain. To anyone I missed — I’m sorry, and I’m thinking of you.
A few times I broke into big, ugly crying. Always about the people. The colleagues I’m going to miss more than I think even they know. I wrote to my team and told them: if you ever need a few minutes to understand something I worked on, I’m there. My policy has always been that when someone leaves, they’re still on my team until they tell me otherwise. Nobody had ever told me otherwise.
Until yesterday. (No — that came out sad. It wasn’t sad. Moving on.)
I had an appointment scheduled to get my e-bike looked at — I may not need it for the downtown commute right now, but it had picked up a few issues from riding in bitter cold and filth. I bought it at Voltz in Sunridge Mall, and if you’re in the market for an e-bike, I strongly recommend both the store and my guy Sualeh. (Please note I am only two paragraphs into this blog and I’m already plugging local businesses. This is who I am.)
Sualeh took a look at it and will have it back to me by the weekend.
I went home, dealt with more kind messages, had a few more cries, talked to some friends on the phone. Reassured people I was fine. Put in a load of laundry. (Water restrictions start Monday, so I’m treating this as a full wardrobe reset.)
Then I picked up the kids from school. This is usually a low point — no matter what time I show up, it’s wrong. Too early, too late, somehow both. But yesterday? It was fine. They took their time, and so did I. Turns out I’m a much better school pickup when I’m not stressed out of my mind.
After dinner, I sat down with each of them individually to tell them the news. That was tough. They were both sad. What made me laugh — and I mean really laugh — was that both kids, completely separately, had the exact same two first reactions:
- “I’m going to miss Brookfield Place.” (The office tower downtown. They have loved coming to visit.)
- “What about the Christmas party? Can we still go?”
Both of them. First thing. A special shoutout to Lisa Howells and her team — my children are more upset about losing the Christmas party than about anything else. You’ve set a very high bar.
They got to the harder stuff eventually. We don’t want to be homeless. What are we going to do for money? We talked through it calmly, and by the end, they both understood: this isn’t a disaster. It means dad is going to cook stir fry tomorrow night for the first time in ages. It means more school walks. It means more energy, and less of the constantly-stressed, overtime-grinding, barely-holding-it-together dad they’ve been putting up with.
“Yeah,” one of them said. “We hope.”
My general outlook at the end of Day 0: hope, happiness, and genuine relief.
Day 1
Woke the kids up, made their breakfast, and walked them to school. I haven’t been able to do that much, outside of the pandemic years, and it was a small, lovely thing.
Then: a dentist cleaning I’d had on the books. Happy to report zero cavities and what my hygienist described as a “good job” on my flossing routine. I’m choosing to treat this as a win.
Stopped at Safeway for stir fry ingredients. My stir fry, for the record, is exceptional. This is not up for debate.
In the afternoon, I have my first meeting with representatives from Snowflake to learn more about their platform — in case my next role has gone that direction. I know Databricks well (really well, I think), but I’m using this time to upgrade skills that quietly atrophied while I was too busy to breathe. I’ve got a job posting from a friend as a rough roadmap for what tools to prioritize over the next few weeks. The beauty of this moment is simple: I have time now.
I’ll pick the kids up from school, get my son to his appointment, and then check in with a financial planner to migrate my investments out of Cenovus accounts. I’ll be maintaining my famously hyper-high-risk investment approach, in case you were concerned.
Then: stir fry. Both kids are excited. Then: rest.
The Plan
Since you’re apparently reading all of this (thank you, truly), here’s what the next chapter looks like:
Daily blog posts — one every business day that I’m unemployed. Partly to track my own progress, partly so you can follow along, partly so you can make fun of me. And partly because if anyone I know is dreading the possibility of going through something like this, I want to be a living example that it doesn’t have to be the end of the world.
New skills — I want to develop some agentic AI and RAG framework work, and I’ve already got my project case picked out. My plan is to overengineer the absolute crap out of it by piling in unnecessary tools specifically so I have to learn them. This is how I work best.
My novel — I have the plan, the first couple chapters, and the voice. Now I have the time. I intend to power through a lot of it.
My family — the most important item on this list. I have time and energy now, and I want to give my kids and my wife more of the dad and partner they deserve.
My friends — I have, frankly, been a bad friend for a while. Too busy, too tired. That changes. If you want to grab a “coffee” (I’m allergic to caffeine) or a “beer” (even more allergic to alcohol) — reach out. I’ll be downtown plenty, and I genuinely want to see you.
And with that, I’ll sign off on this first post. Thank you for reading the whole thing. Fair warning: I write a lot, and it probably isn’t going to get much more concise from here.
The next book, though? That’s going to be great. Stay tuned.
Brett Wiens 
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