On leaving Google on someone else’s accord — preliminary reflections.
Five years ago I boarded an Acela at Boston’s South Station with destination New York City, where on Monday, January 22, 2018, I was set to begin my Noogler orientation. After one year and three months as a TVC, a temporary Google worker, I’d been converted to full-time employee, complete with generous benefits, lavish perks, many special colleagues, and incredibly challenging, rewarding, humbling work. You do need a break from it occasionally, so almost immediately I started looking forward to my five-year “Googleversary” (there are words you can’t pronounce seriously outside of Silicon Valley, and this is one of them), for it would unlock 25 whole days of paid time off a year — a joke, for a European who can’t even contemplate working a single day in August; a mirage, in work-consumed America.
There would be no reaching this milestone. Just two days short of it, I would be among the 12,000 that Google laid off on Friday, January 20, 2023.
To the best of my (informed) speculation, the layoff targeted myself and some brilliant close colleagues of mine not in the least on performance grounds, but because in our org, our jobs were the least technical, least traditionally Google. Ask any of the executives who personally reached out to me after the events (thank you, from the bottom of my heart), and they’ll tell you our jobs were indispensable to the development of a news product. But whatever human being and/or binary computer values were used to inform this decision — they believed or told a different story. The funny thing is, I actually wasn’t doing that job any more. For three months, I had been on a rotation as a program manager, in an attempt to transfer to a more traditional Google ladder matching the skill set I love working with the most. I personally thought I was crushing it in that new position. If I’d completed the transition and made the new job title official, it is possible I would’ve been spared. But as the old Italian saying goes, history isn’t made of ifs.
What turned out to be my last day at Google, Thursday, January 19, was a fantastic work day. My calendar, usually laden with meetings, only announced two for the day — a productivity bliss. I cranked out hours of focused work in the office. I got to use all of my favorite skills, on many of my favorite topics. I organized and brought order to a bunch of stuff — which I just love, love doing so much, and fills me with an extreme sense of calm, clarity, cleanliness. I finished writing a document that was going to inform a presentation to leadership for a critical launch — as non-creative as the writing was, putting words to paper has always elevated my body, mind and heart to a higher, better, more pleasant place. Part of the document involved nerding out on notions of grammar for a number of news headlines in foreign languages — oh man, if you know me, just imagine, just feel the delight! I then focused on a more technical task involving internal coding tools and semi-software-engineering skills that six years ago I didn’t even know existed and I could grasp.
Throughout the day, I had happened to connect with the space around me more intentionally than usual. I moved my body around the plush Google Boulder office with acute awareness of just how amazing it feels to work in an environment like that. There was particular mindfulness in the way I sat down to sip my espresso (albeit a meh one for these Italian tastebuds) while shooting emails and answering chat pings from the barista bar after lunch. I felt so grateful to be rooted in that present moment, in that incredible opportunity to solve problems that I truly cared about — I felt lucky, a phrase often associated with working at Google as a nod to its Search button, although summoning luck does no justice to what truly manifests all these good things for you: a lot of hard work. It was an extremely mindful, grounded, satisfying day. I just felt so content, so filled, so alert. I realize now that the day was uncannily meant to be like that. I left everything in order, exited the building with a clear plan in mind for the next day, and walked home in the icy Boulder evening.
That clear plan for the next day — I never got to execute it.
Only a handful of family, friends and colleagues know that last June I went on a three-month mental health leave because I just couldn’t do it any more. For several months, my work days at Google had been the exact opposite of the last I just described. After a number of re-orgs and changes, I could no longer find a good place for myself in any project. I had lost motivation, interest, and burned myself out to the ground. I was depressed, I lacked direction. My entire life I had been used to receiving a lot in exchange for my dedication — excelled at every stage of my education, studied abroad twice, landed a job in America, uprooting my life in a language I wasn’t born with, and making all my teenage dreams come true. That wasn’t happening any more; I hadn’t felt rewarded at work in a long time, and I couldn’t make sense of it, and I ended up attaching my self-worth to that in a way that completely destroyed me.
The mental health leave (another generous, paid Google benefit) was all I could’ve asked for — an experience that warrants way more than this one line, but it’s a story for another time — and I returned to work in September a new person with a renewed sense of her self-worth, values, interests and personal boundaries both at work and in life. I landed my program management rotation with a portfolio of two projects I absolutely loved, and that were absolutely perfect for my skill set and interests. I had so much fun working on them, and it sucks that I won’t get to see them through. But what wonderful personal growth had occurred — and that part, I wouldn’t change for the world.
Google gave me so much. I had six fabulous years in Boston and Boulder. I met best friends, one of which I’ll have the honor to be a bridesmaid for later this year. I found my partner, a wonderful software engineer who makes me laugh like no one else, and whom I moved across the country into a Colorado apartment with. For years my grandma back in Italy had asked me if I’d found love at Google and I’d reply, nonna, I work with computer developers! There ain’t no personality match within these walls! And yet okay, Google, you helped me meet my personality-match boyfriend. I also built wealth I never thought I would with my humanities background, and was afforded comforts and perks that took so much stress out of my life — a true gift to the anxiety-prone woman that I am. I was able to travel home to Italy multiple times a year, occasionally even for work, a literal dream. I became a permanent resident of the United States, landing a green card and with that, the proverbial American dream.
My privilege, one that I must acknowledge I have carried from birth and my employment status did all but confirm and extend, was never lost on me; the last six years I did my best to stand up for social justice values and the rights of minoritized communities both at work and outside of it. Google gave me the ability to do so, including connecting me to an abundance of like-minded inspiring individuals whom I learned so much from, and who helped me grow as a woman and a human being. As prejudiced as corporate America can be — Google no less — we were given way more leeway in speaking up for what’s right than any other company normally affords its employees.
Yet it had been brewing in my head for a while that Google is just not where I am meant to be in the long run. I was nowhere ready to acknowledge it publicly, let alone leave — no, I had no plans to pull the trigger any time soon. I’m so hurt and disappointed that I didn’t get to do it on my own terms. And — this is important, especially if you’re a spared Googler reading! — if I were offered an option to come back within the next few months, I would jump at it. I wasn’t done. These statements don’t benefit from hindsight, and I still have to understand just how much the way Google terminated my employment will affect my relationship with the company — but for now, I am pretty certain to be looking at whether I can re-enter Google from some backdoor soon.
But I am, fundamentally, a woman of letters. Seventeen-year-old Enrica — half the age I’ll be turning this year — saw herself as someone more akin to a world-wandering writer constantly chasing the next intellectual pursuit, than an office worker in a cubicle. As much as Google isn’t your typical office and corporate culture, and I loved every minute of working there, during my mental health leave I reflected a lot on how, ultimately, I’ve been meant to do something else. Writing, reporting on Italy in the United States and the United States in Italy, unpacking politics and society, riding the waves of my passion for and professional expertise and training with foreign languages… who I really am lies at the intersection of something like that. Which is incredibly unstructured and takes a ton of time and energy to figure out — especially when until mere days ago, I was well compensated in a super fun position that gave me so many perks, alongside the opportunity to help users access critical news to be more informed citizens. But that thing I wrote above — that is deep down who I am.
And that’s why I belonged to Google’s engineering-first culture only to an extent. Maybe the universe is dealing me a hand to fearlessly embrace this truth. Maybe not, and I need more time to get there. But I do know for a fact that this forced time of change will ultimately turn out to be for the better. I’ve been through so many difficult stages of my life — mostly from a mental health perspective — not to know that that’s exactly what’ll happen. So I believe it. I really believe that I will look back and know that the universe meant this for a good reason. As my therapist beautifully put it — and if you were also laid off, please remember this — this did not happen to me; it happened with me, and for me.
I dread the work that I’ll have to put in because it didn’t happen on my own accord. But I also can’t wait to discover what’ll help me get to that place of hindsight, and knowledge of my destiny.
If after reading this post you’ll want to reach out privately (especially via my US or Italian phone numbers), I kindly ask that you do so with care and tact, and not expect a prompt reply, if any at all. But your words will make me feel loved and appreciated, and I will for sure feel much gratitude.
