After the Meeting

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I. Framing: Opening Scene

Narrative about an all-hands meeting with a devastating announcement for the department
Frame layoffs not as an isolated tragedy but as a side effect of organizational design that underestimates resilience, interdependence, and tacit knowledge
Explain how each decision ripples outward through lives, identities, and even in organizational success

Using UX principles, outline 6 user journeys that provide emotional and structural depth and explore the human, systemic, and emotional consequences of mass layoffs
Blend storytelling and ethnography to create user archetypes - each tells a broad truth about labor, identity, and change
1. Loyalist (“I thought I’d retire here”)
2. Overachiever (“my job is my identity”)
3. Specialist (“I am irreplicable”)
4. Manager (“I had to give the news”)
5. Newbie (“I just got here though”)
6. Champion (“the culture lives with me”)

Connect the threads across the stories to summarize the main points and provide more detail about my arguments
Possible themes
- Illusion of replaceability (people are part of the system of work)
- Fragility of knowledge (expertise and memory cannot be restored in hiring)
- Moral complexity (strategic layoffs require human analysis)
- Long-term consequences (work declines subtly until the company prioritizes rebuilding from scratch - mixed context, slower onboarding, fractured morale)
- Change design (transition planning with role analysis and humane restructuring practices)

Narrative in retrospect - what happened at the company after the layoffs and impacts of underestimating the human factors
Explain - mass layoffs without holistic analysis rarely produces long-term gains. Understand the functions, dependencies, and culture of the work.
Design change with care - when analysis stops at headcount instead of human contribution, the efficiency costs excellence.