Can we talk about layoffs?

Cat here. Earlier this month, I found out I was getting laid off — again — thanks to company restructuring. This isn’t my first rodeo — I’ve now been laid off twice and have had to lead a layoff once. No matter which side you’re on, it’s never fun and it’s never pretty.

Layoffs can happen for a lot of reasons. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that the signs are often the same — no matter the company. Here are some of the biggest red flags I’ve noticed in my own layoff experiences, both as the person being let go and the person doing the letting go.

🧾 1. Finances Start Looking Sketchy

If you’re lucky enough to get a peek “behind the curtain,” you’ll often see the writing on the wall in the financials. In one case, I watched departments write off huge amounts of billable work — like, hundreds of thousands of dollars — while another department was buying crazy expensive swag and handing out bonuses to folks who weren’t even profitable. I’ve also seen companies borrow money just to make payroll. It doesn’t take a CPA to know that’s not a good look.

🗓️ 2. Meetings Start Disappearing (And So Do You)

One of the biggest signs? Cancelled or “rescheduled” meetings — especially the ones where strategic plans or sensitive info are discussed.

In my first layoff, my C-Suite boss stopped meeting with me about two weeks before the announcement. Most recently, my weekly 1:1s with leadership were suddenly “conflicting” with their schedule. Project meetings disappeared. I was excluded from conversations I’m normally a part of. Turns out, this is pretty standard. When I had to lay people off myself, we cancelled their meetings too. It’s almost like the company is already moving on from you in real time.

💸 3. The “Lottery Curse”

This one's almost cliché at this point, but still very real. A startup gets a huge influx of investor money and thinks they’ve hit the jackpot. Instead of spreading it out over several years and growing smartly, they blow through it in 12 months — hiring too fast, overspending, or trying to innovate everything all at once.

Mass hiring feels exciting. But if there’s no plan (and there often isn’t), the crash comes hard. I’ve seen companies get $25M, $50M, even $75M in funding, only to be laying people off within a year. It's the startup equivalent of winning the lottery and waking up broke.

⚙️ 4. Patterns of Inefficiency

In my first layoff, I wasn’t close enough to leadership to see the operational cracks. The second time, I was — and I tried to fix them. I identified significant inefficiencies, documented the problems, developed a solution, and presented it to leadership. But approval didn’t come until the financial damage was too big to ignore — and by then, all I could do was minimize the fallout.

Fast forward to now: I saw the same issues happening again. I raised the flag. I presented a plan. Leadership stayed silent. Which brings me to…

🚨 5. Leadership Inaction

This one hits the hardest. For months, I flagged recurring inefficiencies that were bleeding tens of thousands of dollars each month. Our finance manager and I brought it straight to the CEO. His response? He trusted the department head to “handle it.” At the end of the year, that inaction added up to over half a million dollars in lost revenue.

At my most recent company, I spent months highlighting similar issues — again, no action taken. It’s frustrating knowing that the layoff could have been avoided. But as someone who’s now seen it from all sides, I’ve learned that sometimes leadership chooses comfort over correction.

And so, while this chapter closes, I’m already looking forward to the next one.