Joe Harker
Getting laid off from a job is rarely much fun, and unfortunately, in recent years, more and more people have had some direct experience with being told they're going to have to find somewhere else to work.
Plenty of employers downsized or collapsed altogether during the pandemic and people get laid off from their jobs every day as decisions on who will stay and who will go are made.
It's quite a bummer for the unlucky folks who get called in for a meeting only to be told by their boss that they 'really appreciate everything you've done' - but unfortunately you're on the way out.
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We've already established that it's not much fun getting laid off, but being told to scoot, scram and skedaddle three times in just about three years is even worse.
Sadly, that's what happened to one unlucky woman who has had a frankly torrid time of things on the employment market in recent years.
Speaking to NBC, 27-year-old Rachel Rappaport was one of the first to lose her job during the pandemic as she had been working in the events industry and was laid off for the first time in March 2020.
She explained that she used to lie to her friends and say she'd been furloughed to pretend that she'd be back to work soon enough.
Rachel got back on her feet with a job in tech in October of that same year and things looked to be going well as she got promoted, but by the time mid-2022 was rolling around, there were rumblings of downsizing the staff.
While they'd been planning to lay off staff to avoid other layoffs, in December 2022 Rachel was told in which direction the exit door lay.
Fortunately, her prior experience of suddenly being told to find a new job meant she'd been preparing for the worst and soon found another role at the beginning of 2023.
However, since you've read the headline, you'll know this story is about being laid off three times in just over three years so unfortunately Rachel once again found herself out of a job.
The 27-year-old has been telling NBC how much she's seen the workplace culture change in regards to the risk of being laid off.
She said: "It's kind of crazy how, in just those couple of years, it's gone from something that nobody talks about, to something that everybody has been through or at least knows about."
It's taught her that having a 9-to-5 job can provide a 'false sense of security' because while a regular job is nice the idea that it could all fall apart without warning is an unpleasant but present possibility.
One of her tips to jobseekers who are wondering whether they could be laid off without much warning is to check the company's headcount on LinkedIn to see if there's been any dramatic changes which could indicate they're a place that has to lay off staff.
Rachel also said that those making the big decisions are often not close enough to the day-to-day to know who is worth keeping and who might be the unsung heroes of the team.