In my two years of working for 365 Retail Markets, I never felt a part of a team. My direct manager offered no guidance or direction for our team and I never felt like this company had a bright future. Management would hold monthly “all hands” meetings where they would display confusing slides about quarterly earnings, etc that didn’t mean anything to most of the employees. Early in 2024, it was announced that major team changes were on the horizon but that no one would be laid off, everyone would just be transferred to and absorbed by different teams within the company. As the transition process got started during the last quarter of 2024, leadership held to their original statement that no one would be laid off. So, trusting their word, me and many of my coworkers were not looking for other work. I started work one Monday morning in December with a surprise virtual meeting where I am essentially having to walk through my portion of the code base to a group of about 10 different offshore Indian developers. Management HAD mentioned that an offshore team would be taking over our project but that we would be moved to starting work on an entirely new project from scratch. But still, this surprise meeting was a bit odd. Well, the very next day, I had the dreadful meeting with HR where they announced that they would be letting me go. Me and 40+ other employees were fired that same week. All of our projects were taken over by cheaper, offshore developers. Me and my fellow coworkers all felt betrayed and like fools for trusting the leadership team and not listening to the writing on the wall. I have just had my first baby and was about to go on paid parental leave (I have to admit, the benefits are pretty decent), but they fired me just in time without having to pay for my parental leave. I asked if they would be willing to compensate me for this as my wife and I were really relying on the parental leave for our family and they said that they would not be willing to help us out. Very sad and blindsided by this and still cannot comprehend the dishonestly, disregard, and disrespect shown by leadership toward their employees.
