IMHO being laid off is stressful, even if you can logically tell yourself it's not yet time to worry (i.e. you have a good amount of savings). I sincerely doubt

IMHO being laid off is stressful, even if you can logically tell yourself it's not yet time to worry (i.e. you have a good amount of savings). I sincerely doubt these employees felt anything like being on vacation. As to a "less devious narrative," I think all we need to do is remove this idea of planned outcome (lower wages for people working in software) in order to strike the "devious" from this theory. It's clear Wall Street wanted tech companies across the board to shed employees, as others have pointed out that's probably enough to get CEOs to lay people off.