In its latest wave of layoffs, Amazon let go of 14,000 corporate employees. Many affected individuals took to social media to recount their experiences, revealing a common thread: they received an SMS alert before the official layoff email. The messages urged recipients to check their personal or work emails before coming to the office. One such message read, “From Amazon: Before coming to the office, check personal/work email… including spam, for a message on your role,” with the timestamp showing 3 a.m.
A Reddit user shared the panic triggered by the early-morning notification. They explained that after receiving the text at 3 a.m., they struggled to access Outlook or any work tools, including Slack and email. Eventually, they found the layoff email in their personal inbox, which provided instructions for retrieving necessary documents related to the termination.
Similarly, a LinkedIn post detailed a comparable experience. The employee wrote, “Closing one chapter, opening another. Around 3 a.m., I received the news that my three-year journey with Amazon has come to an end.” Social media reactions highlighted the distress caused by the timing, with one commenter calling it “brutal.”
