The Layoff Paradox: A Conversation With a Manager Who's Been on Both Sides of a Layoff

When you've worked in management and have had to be on both sides of a layoff, what's next?


In this episode, I spoke with Loan Huynh, a former Logistics manager who is currently looking for her next opportunity.  Loan  gives us a the perspective of how being a manger and having employees being laid off, and then turning around and being laid off herself.  We also discussed travelling, a hidden gem restaurant , and more!

                                                               
Follow the podcast on Instagram: @rebootloadingpodcast

Interested in becoming a guest? Email me: rebootloading@gmail.com

Get in touch with Loan  here:
Social media:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mountainadventurer/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/loanchuynh/

Transcript

00:04
Hi, welcome to the Reboot Loading Podcast. I'm your host Stephanie. Hello everyone. On today's episode, I am here with Loann Hoen. She is from the Seattle, Washington area. When she was growing up, she wanted to be a rocket scientist, but her most recent career path was as a logistics manager. She's trilingual, speaking Vietnamese, Cantonese, and English.

00:31
And she loves to travel and I'm hoping that I can convince her to become a travel blogger by the end of this podcast. So please welcome Luann to the Reboot Loading Podcast. Thank you. Thank you for having me. So Luann and I, we worked for the same company previously, and we were both laid off. The layoff was unfortunate, but right around.

00:55
of like six, six months beforehand, I had a family member, my aunt who received like a cancer diagnosis and I became her primary caretaker. And so honestly, the layoff kind of came at a great time. Like it ended up being a blessing in disguise because I could focus full time, just taking care of her. And it was literally for like three months every day, there was an appointment.

01:25
And it felt like anybody who's ever had a family member that's ill or, you know, is in like the healthcare industry, I'm sure feels the same way you are doing like a second job on top of your day job. And so it was actually a point where I thought of like, my gosh, maybe I should ask for like a leave of absence because I, there were days that I was in the hospital working.

01:51
It was full eight hour days in the hospital. And I was like trying to find a quiet corner to have a meeting. You know, I was actually in the hospital when we got on, we were on zoom all being laid off. Oh no. Yeah, so I had a, you know, I had a couple of past colleagues who called me just to kind of check in right after like they heard the news and they were like, well, you know, how are you feeling and stuff like that? And I was like, well,

02:20
I'm sitting in the hospital lobby, so I can't really have any feelings right now. I don't want to be like here crying or like being angry. But yeah, in hindsight, the timing was kind of serendipitous. So that was partially why I made the decision to take time off. And you know, some of the other reasons were like, I had been in warehousing, fulfillment and retail.

02:49
for most of my life after college. I have never had a single Black Friday off. Well deserved. You had the opportunity to care for your aunt and that is great. Is she okay? Yeah, she is doing awesome. She is, you know, fortunately probably in the top percentile of like kind of cancer reaction that you would want. Like she,

03:19
barely lost any hair. She never really kind of felt tired through like chemo treatments and she was stage three. Um, so by all accounts, cause you know, there's kind of like that five year mark. They don't like to say that you're a remission or you're quote unquote care until you kind of pass the five years. So, you know, by, by all, by all standards, she's doing really well and she's, she's in other treatments now and it's not every day. It's every two weeks.

03:48
I truly had never fully 100% understood the, when people say like, oh, I should have listened to my mom when she told me this. I appreciated her so much when she told me to just save and save for whatever it is that can happen at any second. I had been at the company for five and a half, almost six years. And it was a small, tight group of people when I started and it grew to almost like 500.

04:18
I think I was employee 60 something when I started. And it was a great small startup environment and it was some of my best years. We had so much fun. So I, in the back of my mind, maybe naively kind of thought like, I don't know, maybe I have a little bit of job security here. And I didn't really have to like worry about this. And my sole job was just to make sure that the people that were laid off found places or that I could connect them to people. There were...

04:46
three people on my team that was affected as well as me. And for probably about a month or two afterwards, all I was focused on was like, what can I do for you? Put me down as a reference, who do I need to talk to? How do we get you into a job? You know, like I have people who called me and they were like, this is so tragic. I thought this would never happen. You know, I can't look at my kid right now. I don't know what to do.

05:12
I had someone who lost access to be able to even attend the meeting where they were told that they didn't have a job anymore. So I had the great pleasure of telling them that they didn't have a job anymore. After you were also told that you didn't have a job. That's called a trooper right there because you basically were doing your job even though you were also eliminated. Yeah. Kudos to you on that one.

05:40
It was probably about 12 stages of emotions for me and I'm sure everyone else. Yeah. You cycle through those pretty quick, right? It, some days I was like, okay, everything's going to be fine. And then the next day, maybe in the next hour, I'll be like sobbing and everything's ruined and I don't know what to do with my life. And obviously that's kind of how this podcast came to mind because it started off with what do I want to do?

06:09
which direction do I want to go into? How, where do I see myself? And I found myself as a grown adult, trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. So I've had to rethink a lot of things to see, there's not one singular path that we're going to go. No, career is not linear. And there is really no such thing as like taking a step back, like either.

06:36
I, you know, when I was a hiring manager and I probably interviewed upwards of a hundred or 200 people, um, and in my lifetime at the previous company, it was great, honestly, being able to read through and get like 30 seconds, maybe like, you know, life history, professional life history from, from someone. And I saw plenty of people who have gone on to be like managers and directors. And they're.

07:05
They're taking what somebody would see as like two steps back in their career, but they're just, they realize that they got to wherever they were and they just didn't enjoy the work. They changed their mind and that's okay. Yeah. Being a manager in a company where you've had to do the interviews and now that you're on the other side having to go through interviews, how does that feel after all of that time? Yeah. You know,

07:34
I think it definitely makes me less nervous, um, to go into interviews. And I think it's partially that I've, I've been on quote unquote, the other side of looking for jobs, but also the working from home aspect have gotten me used to talking to people in a square. So it's honestly something about that. It practice makes perfect. I can make a friend out of anybody anywhere.

08:04
So maybe it's a little bit of like me loving to talk to people too. But definitely being on the other side has made me less nervous going into interviews. And I don't know, maybe hopefully put the other side at ease as well, if that makes sense. I always tried to make the interviews that I did pretty casual. I never wanted it to feel like an interrogation.

08:32
because it shouldn't be, you know? It should be a conversation that is both ways. Like you as a candidate is putting your best foot forward, but I as a hiring manager or whoever I am, that's part of your interview loop, is also trying to put my best foot forward to sell you this position or this company. So yeah, I very much try to make the candidates feel pretty at ease.

09:00
I don't know, maybe if you've ever interviewed me, I hope it came through. I think it's very interesting to have both sides of that perspective. On recent interviews that you've been on, and depending on, I guess, how many you've had to go through, do you immediately off the bat, maybe sense from the interviewer, if they're maybe more nervous than you are, just having been on that other side, you get that vibe at all?

09:28
Like that feeling? Sometimes, yeah. What's odd to me is that I kind of get that vibe from the initial recruiter more than whoever it is that I go on to interview with. The next person that I usually talk to after I talk to the recruiter is either like a peer in that role or the hiring manager themselves. Those interviews afterwards are usually a little bit more relaxed. And I noticed that they kind of lay out the context or how I would like to conduct or how I did.

09:58
my interviews. So, so that's great. And, you know, fun fact, by the way, for anybody who's listening, if you've ever had an interview with me, if you were applying for a role that was not directly a part of the logistics org, I was on your interview loop as the culture fit interviewer. You were the spy. People always told me I had a good, like gut feeling about people. So

10:25
They always liked having me on there just to have a casual conversation to see if people would fit into the company. That is fascinating to me because now looking back at the multiple rounds of interviews that I've had at other places where sometimes they're like, Oh yeah, you're going to meet with so-and-so and they have nothing even removed with your job. Yep. This makes sense now. So I see what they were looking for. That's I thank you for that little tidbit of info.

10:54
I always liked to give about a three minute kind of like intro and context whenever I started interviews and it was always, Hey, my name is this and here's what I do. And we're together for 45 minutes and I'm probably going to spend the majority of that asking you some questions, but I want this to be very casual. So at any time, if you want to ask me anything, just stop me. But no matter what, at the end, you get to ask me whatever you want. Nice.

11:25
I honestly love people who conduct interviews in that way because it helps, especially on the candidate side, it helps with lessening the nerves. If they have a sense of humor, that's a big plus for me because I gotta have a little bit of something thrown in there to kind of just calm me down. Especially if you're going through, you know, five, seven rounds of interviews with a bunch of people, it can get to be a bit much.

11:52
It's exhausting. And I have always subscribed by, you know, if you are hiring for a role that pays like 80, $90,000 or less, you should not be putting candidates through five, six, seven rounds of interviews. You should know pretty early on if they're a good fit. Yeah, or at least start paying them for their interview time. Yeah, like I think on average when...

12:21
we still did interviews or when I was a part of them, standard would be about four weeks. And even that, I had always said was just too long. It is, I mean, compare it to 10 years back, maybe, maybe even less than that. There really wasn't this long drawn out process. The landscape changed so much with a lot of the pandemic time, with a lot of people resigning.

12:50
from positions after just maybe coming into them. So I feel like companies kind of tightened up their process more to really be like, okay, maybe in the long run, it's going to be more beneficial, but right now we are gonna have to put all of this time upfront to make sure we have the perfect, quote unquote, perfect candidate. But we all know that those don't exist. There's not going to be a single person to check every single box that you're looking for.

13:18
With your current job search, what type of roles are you looking for? Are you trying to stay in kind of a similar industry? Are you looking to broaden? Yeah, that's a really good question. Honestly, it depends on the day that question. Sometimes I get really frustrated because sometimes supply chain and logistics can seem very, very specialized and old school.

13:46
And then some days you realize there's still a lot of fun to be had. I would love to possibly get into program management. There is a whole part of like the manufacturing production side of supply chain that I have not really had the pleasure to be a part of, and I would love to explore that honestly. I.

14:08
You know, kind of fell into the logistics industry. And honestly, I don't know when I was going to college, have they offered a supply chain major? I don't know that I would have taken it because it's not really a sexy major. You know, not by any means. Yeah. I, I feel like I kind of fell into the industry. Like a lot of people, there's still a lot to be learned. So I'd love to stay in it and expand.

14:32
I don't feel like I want to work myself up to be like director at this time or anything like that. So just kind of looking at similar industry, but maybe just a different angle of it. Yeah. You know, don't get me wrong. I love people management. I had an incredible team and honestly, if I ever had an opportunity to like be at a company and they said, Hey, you can hire 10 people, do anything with you want you and hire anybody would only to vet them.

15:02
I am calling every single person that was on my previous team to like approach them. But yeah, I love that. And so I have had that experience. So now I want to do something new. I don't necessarily want to say that like I get bored easily, but you know, I kind of do. I kind of always want to be doing something different and I always want to be learning. So what I have noticed about my career trend or record is that I tend to stay in a function or a specific job.

15:31
or about a year or two, and then I try to find something different. I would say that's pretty normal these days because I remember back in my day, it was like, okay, you want to stay in a job forever, right? You want to retire there. That's kind of how when I was growing up, that's what I saw my future as. I have to figure out what I want to be and that's where I'm going to go and that's where we're going to stay.

16:00
And then it slowly changed. I started getting into tech and then it's like, okay, when you, when you're in tech, you don't want to stay more than five years somewhere. Now it's like, don't stay more than two years. So it's that's, that's what I'm hearing from a lot of people. And me being the type of person where, like you, like, I don't want to say I get bored easily, but I kind of thrive in a chaotic environment. So I need to have.

16:28
a lot of things going on. Like, give me a lot of things to fix and I'm happy. So I get what you're saying there. And I do feel like in logistics, you do have a lot of that. There is a lot to be improved on. There's a lot to be, that could be done if you're that type of person where, you know, you're wanting to come up with new ideas and those sorts of things.

16:56
It's definitely a good field to be in. So another question for you is startup versus not. Is your heart with the startup company or are you not jaded from that environment now, or are you willing to maybe go and be a bigger part of a bigger seat? You know, if you had asked me that question in like December or January, I would have been like, no way, no more startups. I don't have that in me. And that was.

17:24
I was just burned out from the previous job and the previous job kind of, it had its quirks. And in the end there, I felt like it just had turned into not what I signed up for. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. You know, I, one of the previous directors that I have worked with and, you know, I love her. She used to always say that every company is a shit show. You just have to find the right shit show for you.

17:55
She's like a pure person, correct. Yeah, I just love that. And I always remember, you know, I always have that in the back of my mind. You know, I am a sucker for a small group of people with a bright idea. So I have always been partial to startups because like you, I do also thrive in the chaos. I don't enjoy the part of waking up and knowing what I will be doing for eight hours, weeks on end.

18:24
I like some different, I like my days to look different from yesterday. Yeah, I think it also allows you to keep growing just as humans. Totally. Looking to move forward, we're always looking to try to learn new things. I love laying out the foundation of work and then quote unquote once my job is done, I kind of move on to the next project. I don't like to stay anywhere too long, but you know that's kind of contradictory because

18:53
You look at my resume, I've only ever been at like two companies that, and that doesn't count the odd jobs that I did like in college or in high school. Right. Um, the full-time jobs I've only ever been at two companies. So I like to stay if, if the company invests in me. Yeah. It has to be a mutually beneficial relationship. Just like a mutual relationship, right? If you're not getting anything out of it, or if it's no longer serving the same purpose for you, you have to move on.

19:23
or you just have to say no. I've been talking to a lot of people who pretty much have left out of just corporate environment and just started to go and find their passion. Speaking of passions, I told you I'm gonna try to convince you to become a travel blogger, but I know that you like to travel and that's kind of one of the outdoors. You wanna be outdoors, you wanna see the stars, you wanna go hiking. I mean, you're one of those people.

19:52
I love doing like day trips and being a tourist around my own city. I recently woke up one morning on a Monday and packed a duffel bag. And I just kind of said, I'm going to get in the car and I'm going to drive south and decide while I'm driving where I want to go. And I ended up in Bend, Oregon. So wow.

20:15
And then I decided I was done there and I drove out to the coast and spent a couple nights there and then went home. So that was a great, it was a great week. That's awesome. And, you know, I had always wanted to do that, right? And I had always wanted to be able to like do a popular hike in the middle of the week or go to my favorite restaurant during the week when I didn't need a reservation. I spend my time wishing that like, you know, whenever

20:44
government interest rates were low, I should have bought a patch of land and like opened an animal sanctuary and rescue like old animals so they can live out their best like last year. You know, that's probably honestly my dream job. I'll do it. Like somehow can make travel blogging happen now. That's also great. But you know, yeah, I haven't been on an international trip in a few years and honestly I'm due for one, but yeah.

21:12
What's your favorite place that you've visited? Probably Thailand. I get anxious about missing out on things. So whenever I put in for a two week vacation and I'm like, I'm going to go somewhere in Asia, we end up going to like three different countries and we just country hop, which is great. Cause then you can, you know, you, you can experience a lot of things, but it's also really exhausting because you're spending half your time on planes flying from one place to another, but. And.

21:41
You know, what an incredible like time. The people were awesome. The food was awesome. I travel to eat. Seeing things is nice. You can do a travel food blog. I could do that. I've never really thought about that, yeah. Where's your favorite spot for food? It could be international or otherwise. In my hometown of Seattle, if anybody ever comes and visits.

22:08
Um, there is a great little homegrown Italian restaurant, um, down at the Pike Place Market, it is, um, in an alley. It is called the pink door. There is no sign whatsoever outside the restaurant. It is literally you walk down the alley and there are like bars and restaurants in the UC of pink door. That is the place that I take everyone when they come to Seattle to visit. And my favorite dish is a clam linguine. I think they do the best ones there.

22:38
but like honestly, any dish of theirs is awesome. And I always like sitting inside and watching the tourists kind of like walk by and you know, they're looking for that restaurant, but they just walk by and they kind of peek in and they're like, is this it? Cause there's no sign outside. They have live music and they do trapeze shows. It is such an incredible spot. You and I are working out a travel food blog plan as we speak. I'm just saying. Okay.

23:07
you know, and then you can be back on the podcast talking about your traveling and how you are now.

23:18
things going on. So I'm manifesting it for you. I'm putting it out there. It's gonna happen. We don't know in what way or form it's gonna happen, but it's gonna happen. Just be on the lookout. And granted, you may want to go back into some sort of management since you did that before, but I would really highly suggest the food route or the travel route. I think maybe some months from now if going back into corporate.

23:48
doesn't work out. Maybe I'll go back to school and finally become a rocket scientist. I'm all for it. I'm all for it. Either that or like you said before, like having the animal sanctuary. So I did want to ask about that. So like if you said, you know, if you could do anything, so let's say you could do anything. Like now you are just somehow independently wealthy or... If I just win the lottery tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. What would you do?

24:18
I honestly, first thing I do, I retire my mom. She's been a single mom most of like my brother and I's lives. And so she's pretty close to retirement, but even if she wasn't, I would love to do that for her. I have just seen her work so hard and she is, I always tell people I'm not scared of anything or anyone except for my mother.

24:45
Oh my gosh, I would love to talk to her. But yeah, I, first thing I would do is that. And then next thing I would buy a huge batch of grass as big as, you know, they will let me have it and I, I would build an animal sanctuary. I've always been pretty partial to just older animals. You know, especially once I've had a rough life, especially farm animals that

25:15
do whatever they do and then once they run out of their value, then they get sent to wherever. So I would just like to adopt a bunch of them. I would love to have about 40 dogs, probably. Yeah. I love cats, but they don't love me. So probably not cats. And honestly, oh my gosh, I love pigs. Love to have a couple of donkeys. I think they're great fun.

25:45
And then like once I kind of get everybody settled and yeah, maybe I'll travel again. Yeah, I can picture it. You're just sitting chilling out on your rocking chair, front porch with the lemonade in your hand and you have just all of these amazing animals.

26:03
surrounding you. I love that Southern vision of just a farmhouse with a wraparound porch and a swing, and you just sit there with your lemonade, and it is a rainy, stormy afternoon. Ugh. Chilling out with your animals. Well, I hope that becomes a reality for you someday. But we gotta get through all the other stuff first. We may have to do the corporate job thing for a little while, but I'm still pushing for the other stuff.

26:32
We got to hustle for a few more years. Yeah. You know, I, a lot of people have dreams about, you know, retiring at the age where you're quote unquote allowed to or retiring early. I honestly at this point in my life don't know that I will ever retire because again, I am who I am. I want to always be doing something. So I don't know that I'll ever retire. I think I would retire from a certain thing, but I don't see myself ever just retiring completely. I cannot.

27:02
Yeah. I will always have to be doing something. Yeah. Would your dream be like podcasting until well into your sixties? Yes. I would love to do this and just meet a ton of different people. I actually, what is so funny is when I was in high school, I was a little bit obsessed with some boy bands back in that time. Who wasn't? Who was your favorite boy band?

27:31
At the time it was Nsync. So I- Backstreet Boys for me. Oh no. But I've been to a lot of Backstreet Boys concerts as well. So I'm not saying anything was wrong with them. It's just, I fell in love with Nsync and I had the opportunity to meet them on- Incredible. Back in the day, it was the Rosie O'Donnell show. And so I-

27:59
After that, I was like, sitting with my friends and we're like, I was like, I would really love to be a talk show host. Interview people and talk to people and just get to know people. Like it didn't, it didn't even have to be necessarily celebrities, but it was something that I wanted to do. And we sat down and we made a list and I still have that list somewhere. I still have to find it to make sure, you know, who, who was on that list. Yeah.

28:27
Some of them might not even be around anymore. I don't know. It's just been so long, but yeah. And it's just, when I came up with this idea, I was just like, eh, I don't know what I'm doing, but we're gonna try it out and- And look what you're doing. I absolutely love it. And it's been such a joy for me to do this, but if I could just retire and do anything, I probably would do this. Just sit, chat with people, get to know them.

28:58
kind of bring their stories out and get, allow other people to get to know them as well. So having that platform to let people speak and talk about rare stuff, uncertain things, whatever. So. I love that. Okay, who, Dead or Alive, who would be your, like, does anyone have to be the top one? Maybe within the top three people.

29:27
that you would love to chat with. Let's see. And maybe it's on that list that you need to dig in. Probably. I know at one point I did want, I don't even know if you know who this is, but Boy George from an 80s, you know, just saw him in concert last year here. And I did want him to do my makeup. Like I really wanted him to just, especially my eye makeup.

29:56
And I tweeted that out one day years ago and he actually retweeted it and followed me on Twitter. And I was just, oh my gosh. It was just the best day ever. This is like being asked on the spot, you know, during onboarding, tell us a fun fact about yourself. And everybody's mind goes blank immediately. What? And you just immediately become the most uninteresting person in the room. It's so true. So true.

30:26
Really, honestly, Betty White was someone that I really wanted to meet. My grandmother loved the Golden Girls. So I grew up watching Golden Girls. I've actually gotten my kids into Golden Girls now and my teenagers and they liked the show. I mean, it's hilarious. But Betty White was always one of my favorites. And as she got older and

30:53
she would be in some movies like The Proposal. Mm-hmm. Hilarious. But yeah, when she passed, I was like, no. Yeah. So I name all of the cars that I have ever driven. My current car is a white 4Runner and I named her Betty White. Oh, that's so cute. Because you know, kind of wild and like me and Betty White is such a...

31:23
Like I want to be her when I grow up. I think my top would probably be Anthony of Warding. Oh yes. Yeah. He, he actually kind of majority, if not all of it, he kind of inspired all of my travel and eating, meeting. Yeah. There, there was this, you know, kind of a.

31:53
famous quote of his and I'm totally gonna butcher it, but basically he talked about just kind of like the heart and soul of traveling and humanity is being able to share a plate of food with anybody anywhere. And then all of a sudden, no matter what, like cultural, political.

32:19
background you are, no matter how different you are, all of a sudden you have something in common. And something as fundamental as food. So true. But yeah, so that was devastating for me.

32:36
Lohian, thank you so much for joining me for this episode. I've really enjoyed talking with you and getting to know more about your passions and things that you would love to do. I do wish you the best of luck in your next job, your next career path, all of those things. And I do wanna ask you if you would be interested in rejoining me at any point in time, coming back on, talking about maybe your next.

33:06
new adventure or just any topics that. Of course, absolutely. Maybe I'll have a new project. I'm certain something that will maybe bring us some income next time I'm back. Well, good luck to both of us. We're gonna go on to do great things. Yes, yes. We're putting it out there, so we're gonna make it happen. So awesome. I'm looking forward to speaking with you again. And again, thank you so much for joining me.

33:34
If you're interested in becoming a guest on my show, all the information on how to contact me is available in the show notes. Would love to speak with other laid off individuals, mental health professionals, recruiters, business and career coaches, and resume writers. Also, if you're enjoying the content and would like a shout out in an upcoming episode, a link in how you can support this podcast is available in the show notes.

33:57
Thank you so much for listening and until next time.