Meta employee receives abrupt layoff notice at 4 am, told it is her last day of work

By Divyanshi SharmaMeta announced its decision to lay off another 10,000 employees after eliminating 11,000 job roles in 2022. The company’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, also admitted that the tech giant ‘overhired’ people during the pandemic and is now striving to survive in tough economic conditions. At the same time, a former Meta employee had revealed that she was paid $200,000 (Rs 1.6 crore approx) to practically do nothing as there was not much work in the organisation.

Ever since Meta has announced layoffs, many employees have come forward to tell their layoff story. One such employee is Chell Sterioff, who had been working at Meta since May 2021 and was based out of US. However, her role, like thousands of other employees, was abruptly terminated.

Meta employee receives layoff mail at 4 am

At 4 am one day, Sterioff received the mail that would change her life. The email was from her employer, Meta, and informed her that the day would be her last day at work. Prior to Meta, Sterioff had spent over a decade working at Microsoft.

Narrating her experience on LinkedIn, Sterioff wrote, “After 2+ years at Meta, at 4:06am I was notified that my role has been impacted by #metalayoffs and it would be my last day. As such, I am now #opentowork.”

Thanking Meta for all the opportunities, she added, “I am thankful for the opportunity to experience Meta. I learned a ton during my time there. After 1.5 decades at Microsoft, it was a big cultural and engineering shift for me and I can truly say those I worked with lived the company values – be bold, be open, build awesome stuff, and more. To my FPM Metamates and fellow FB TPMs, I will miss working with you all. I hope our path cross again soon in this big-little tech world and, until then, I hope you each enjoy your adventure.”

Roughly five months ago, when Meta had announced its first round of layoffs, Sterioff had posted about how she woke up ‘in anticipation’ of a possible layoff at 12:51 am.

Her post read at the time, “My day today started at 12:51AM PST. I woke up (unintentionally) in anticipation of a possible layoff announcement at #Meta – which would be the latest across the industry this week. This morning Meta employees across the US woke up to an email that 13 percent of the company would be laid off.”

Talking about how hard it was to see coworkers and friends lose their jobs, she added, “Today was a tough day due to #MetaLayoffs – one in a string of hard days across the industry as we face significant change and many layoffs in the tech world. Even though me and my direct team at Meta were not personally impacted by the layoffs – and despite having experienced layoffs before – it is never easy to see thousands of amazing co-workers and many-a friends laid off. It has absolutely had an impact.

“So… while I’ll get back to working on my craft as a program manager & bringing my best self as a Meta employee and leader soon enough, I do want to pause and take just one breath – or okay, maybe two.”

Meta CEO’s private jet expenses

Meanwhile, as Meta decides to fire employees left, right and center, the travel expenses of CEO Mark Zuckerberg caught attention. As per a Business Insider report, Meta, in a proxy statement filed earlier this week, disclosed that it spent nearly USD 2.3 million in 2022 on Mark Zuckerberg’s private jet travel. The amount is higher than that of the years before the Covid-19 pandemic.

The filing also revealed that in total, Meta has spent more than USD 27.1 million in 2022 on ‘all other compensations’ for the CEO.

Earlier, in February this year, reports had surfaced that Mark Zuckerberg’s security allowance had been increased to USD 14 million. This meant that the company would be paying an additional USD 4 million (around Rs 33 crore) towards Zuckerberg’s security as earlier, his security allowance amounted to USD 10 million.