A Google attorney in Los Angeles received an email at 2:00 a.m. informing him that he was being laid off by the internet giant. whilst he was breastfeeding his newborn daughter.
Nicholas Dufau had been an associate product counsel for the search engine for six months when he was granted paternity leave following the birth of his daughter early on January 17.
Dufau posted a photo of himself holding his newborn child to his chest on Google’s internal Slack channel, where scores of coworkers expressed their congratulations.
While feeding his daughter in the small hours of the morning, the new father had no idea that he would get a message from his employer 72 hours later informing him that he no longer had access to his work email and that he had been sacked.
Google laid off 12,000 employees last week, including him.
“Last Tuesday at 2:00 a.m., I became a father,” Dufau said in a LinkedIn post that went viral on Wednesday.
“The next day, my Google coworkers wished me well on paternity leave by showering me with heart emojis and virtual confetti.”
Dufau said, “On Friday at 2:00 a.m., while I was breastfeeding my infant, I was notified that I had lost access to my Google corporate accounts.”
“I was laid off through an automated email,” he wrote.
Dufau noted that his Google coworkers reassured him that the corporation “valued its employees and urged me to take advantage of my entire parental leave to savor this precious time with my family.”
He added, “I had never been so grateful to find myself on a team that valued me as a person.”
However, 72 hours later, he was notified through automated email that he no longer had access to the computer systems at his
Dufau observed, “Every layoff hurts, but the timing of this experience not only made me feel acutely expendable, but also naive.”
He remarked that his “saintly wife and miraculous daughter” have “lifted my spirits and comforted me.”
Google employees who have been laid off have not hesitated to share their stories on social media.
Nicole Tsai, a “vlogger” from Southern California, uploaded a viral TikTok video depicting the exact moment she was let go.
Google is among a number of major corporations that have shrunk in recent weeks and months due to Silicon Valley’s slow economic climate and high inflation.
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