A fired Google employee’s emotion-wracked “day in the life” video on TikTok went viral as it captured her heartbreak after she found out she was one of 12,000 workers laid off by the tech giant earlier this week.
Nicole Tsai, a Southern California-based TikTok “vlogger,” breaks down in tears in the video as she narrates “a day in my life getting laid off at Google.”
“So I woke up to this really ominous text from my boss and I honestly had no idea what it was going to be about so I called her the minute I woke up and saw this,” Tsai says in the 90-second clip uploaded Sunday, which has been viewed more than 4.6 million times by TikTok users as of Friday.
She posted a screenshot of the text message which read: “Hey Nicole feel free to give me a call.”
Tsai says in the clip that she was told by her boss to “check the news and my email.”
When Tsai tried to log in to her work email and calendar, she was met with a message that read: “You don’t have access.”
Tsai’s clip then posted an image of her wiping away tears as she says: “I called my boss back and we just sobbed over the phone because she was also finding out about my layoff for the first time today, too.”
The video then shows screenshots of text messages that Tsai sent and received to people on her team and others within the company who were also told that they were out of a job.
Tsai echoes a similar complaint made by laid-off employees who have been quoted in media reports as saying that the decision over who to fire was “not performance-based.”
She says she logged on to LinkedIn and noticed that there were others “in the same boat” as her who were also laid off. The experience of logging in to LinkedIn and reading about others being laid off was “not great for my mental health,” she says.
“I spent so much of the day crying that I just felt so tired from being sad,” Tsai says. So she used her annual pass to Disneyland and headed over to the theme park to “eat my feelings.”
Tsai relays how she gorged on two cinnamon churros, a teriyaki turkey leg, a rice crispy, and a corn dog.
“I don’t really know what’s next for me but I’ll be vlogging my journey and posting more content about it,” she says.
Before getting the ax, Tsai had posted regular “day in the life” videos for Google, which have become trendy among tech employees in recent years.
The Post has sought comment from Google.
During a tense all-hands meeting earlier this week, Google CEO Sundar Pichai was bombarded with questions from anxious staffers who feared more layoffs were afoot.
Pichai denied that the layoffs were done randomly and urged his charges to stay focused on their jobs as the company navigates difficult economic terrain that has forced other tech giants to cull workers.
“I understand you are worried about what comes next for your work,” Pichai said.
Pichai acknowled that it was “also very sad for the loss of some really good colleagues across the company.”
“For those of you outside the US, the delay in being able to make and communicate decisions about roles in your region is undoubtedly causing anxiety,” the CEO said.
Other tech giants like Amazon, Microsoft, Twitter, Meta, and Snap have also laid off large numbers of employees in recent months.
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