'Hardest thing for me': Fired Google employee explains why she's at home to 6-yr-old daughter

Google layoffs affected around 12,000 employees across the globe. One such Google India employee shared her story on LinkedIn. She was fired from the search giant soon after completing her fifth year anniversary. 

Aakriti Walia was a program manager at Google Cloud. She was among those affected by the recently announced layoffs at Google. In her post, Walia spoke about the shock of seeing an "access denied" message on her computer just 10 minutes before a meeting.

Walia was initially in denial. However, she claims that she has eventually come to terms with the news and reflected on her time at Google. She claimed that her job at Google was like a dream come true. She praised the company for helping her grow both personally and professionally and expressed gratitude towards her colleagues and leaders who coached her throughout her career. She also acknowledged the difficulty of explaining her job loss to her six-year-old daughter.

In the post she said, "As I plan the road ahead from here, the next hardest thing for me right now is - how do I make my 6 years old daughter understand why mumma's not going to work. Well that will take its own sweet time..."

Google Layoffs

Late last year, Google reportedly tweaked its performance review methodology. This offered the first clue of an upcoming round of layoffs. In January, Google decided to let go of 12,000 employees. However, a new post from one of the fired employees claims that the firings did not entirely happen on the basis of performance. He claimed that even high-performers at the company were offered pink slips.   

Also read: Ex-Googler says Google's culture went from 'paradise' to 'quite grim'