Hey friends, Welcome back to Life Between Titles. I'm your host, Savan. It's been a strange few weeks. I'm watching the headlines about big layoffs at Amazon. At the same time, I'm seeing reports of RIFs and shutdown related to terminations in government. Two very different worlds, and I've lived both. I worked at Amazon and I served in the federal space. So here's the question on my mind. When these institutions we count on to anchor our careers and our identities start to wobble, what happens to us? What happens when the job title is no longer a safety net? What happens when that structure you trusted starts to shake? And that's what I want to talk about today. Let's start with right now. In the federal world, are seeing terminations tied to shutdown planning and budget pauses. A federal judge recently extended a halt on termination notices for employees who were flagged as at-risk during a shutdown. In plain English, people were being told their jobs might end not because of performance, but because of policy moves and budget mechanics. And then on the tech side, Amazon confirmed about 14,000 corporate job cuts and said the efficiency push continues into 2026. Other reports say the total could reach up to 30,000 corporate roles. The rationale is familiar, more automated, and AI, less tolerance for non-core job roles, a need to reshape the future. So here we are. Public sector trimming because of policy and budget risks, private sector trimming because of structural and technology shifts. Both are huge and both are very human. And the through line is simple. Whether you work in a so-called secure federal job or a high-growth tech role, nothing is guaranteed. I've been on both sides of the fence. At Amazon, I saw how fast a company can reinvent itself. Speed and scale start to feel like a belief system, like a religion. We measured everything, output, metrics, performance. Then when I moved to government with the Department of Defense, the pace was slower, but the mission was deeper. People were there to serve something larger than themselves. And still the work was vulnerable to politics, budgets, and reorganization. Across both, the human thread is identity. When a role ends, it's not just a paycheck. It's a community. It's belonging. It's the story you told yourself about who you are. Guests on this show have said it in different ways. 30 years in and separated with a memo. A top performing team lead told their role is now redundant. Same fear, same loss, same question. Who am I without my job? When big systems contract either public or private, the impact is more than just a number on the spreadsheet. In the public sector, RIFs tie to shutdowns, slow programs, erase institutional memory, and break networks that took decades to build. People get swept into policy whether they create it or not. In tech? The message sounds like this. We're shifting to AI, we are reducing costs, and we're getting lean. But when you remove 15 to 30,000 corporate roles, you also remove relationships, mentorship pipelines, cross-team trust, and space to innovate. People start to think, what is next? Will I be next? From the conversations on this show, the biggest losses are invisible. The hallway chats that never happen. the mentorship that disappears overnight, the project that stalls because nobody's left to remember why a decision was made. So here's how I see it right now. institutional memory is fragile. When the people who hold the context leaves, chaos fills that gap. In government, it means rewriting policy from scratch because the why has vanished. In tech, it means a product breaks because no one knows how the system was built. out. The short-term savings of a layoff can become a long-term bill for relearning the basics. Working in both government tech taught me something simple. It is not either or. It is learning from both. When the world around us feels uncertain, when layoffs and rifts hit at the same time, we have a choice. We can react or we can reimagine. So here are three lessons that I've Lesson one, build for change before it happens. Change is not coming, it's already here. that agility has limits. Amazon cut 14,000 corporate jobs, maybe more because the ground shifts underneath them. Automation, AI, new business models, tighter margins. The future showed up early. And the same thing is happening in government, where a single memo or a budget vote can erase an entire program overnight. So the work for all of us is to get ready before the storm. Keep your skills alive. Keep your network warm. Know that what you bring is portable. Empathy, clarity, problem solving, leadership. Ask yourself, if my title disappeared tomorrow, how else could I show up? Because the people who are moving forward are not the ones with the best resume. They're the ones who are already practiced being adaptable before they had to be. Lesson two, efficiency can't replace humanity. In both tech and government, we love the word efficiency. Move fast, spend less, cut layers. But efficiency without empathy is just extraction. I've watched programs collapse because people who knew how to make them work were cut in the name of speed. I've watched teams and tech lose trust because leadership stopped talking about people. and started talking about numbers. Every organization, every leader has to decide what story they're telling when things get hard. Do they choose empathy or do they choose efficiency? If you're interviewing for your next role or building your next company, ask them and ask yourself, how do we treat people when plans change? How do we preserve knowledge, the relationship, the experience that makes this place worth belonging to? Because efficiency is a strategy and humanity is a choice. And finally, lesson three. Identity comes before the title. One guest on this show said something that I keep coming back to. It wasn't the job I missed. It was the version of myself that I carried inside that job. That line hits home because most of us build our identity around work. And when that work changes, it can feel like we disappeared with it. But here's the truth, you are not that title. You are the person that built that title. You are the skills, the values, the persistence, the care, the curiosity that made that work meaningful in the first place. So the next time you feel lost, do the identity work before the job work. Ask. What story am I a part of now? What difference do I want to make? Let those answers shape your next chapter instead of letting the next chapter define you. Because the titles will always change. Who you are beneath them, that is the part that lasts. These three lessons, being ready for change, leading with humanity, and remembering who you are beyond the title, that is what bridges both the tech and government world. They're the foundation for whatever comes next. If you've been hit by a RIF or laid off by a place like Amazon or you're just watching the ground under you move, I want to hear from you. This show works because people are brave enough to share the real story. When we speak honestly, we make space for others to heal. Reach out. Let's talk. Let's build something new together in this space between titles.
Stay prepared for what's next. The job market doesn't wait.
A solo episode on the parallel waves of layoffs hitting Amazon and the federal government simultaneously—and what they reveal about the fragile relationship between workers and institutions.
Key Takeaways
- →Corporate and government layoffs are happening in the same moment: Savan noticed something most commentators missed: the Amazon layoffs and federal government RIFs were occurring simultaneously, affecting very different people with strikingly similar emotional experiences.
- →Institutions don't grieve workers—workers grieve institutions: One of the most disorienting aspects of layoffs is the asymmetry: organizations move on quickly while employees carry the loss for months or years. Understanding this asymmetry changes how you process and respond to it.
- →A RIF is not a performance review: Reduction in Force decisions are structural, not personal. But they feel personal because they happen to individual human beings. Savan argues that separating those two facts is essential to processing them without internalizing false judgments about your worth.
- →Economic disruption hits identity before it hits the bank account: The financial stress of job loss is real but often arrives later. The immediate blow is to identity—the daily routines, collegial relationships, and sense of professional self that disappear on day one.
- →Two very different worlds, one very similar wound: Government workers and Amazon employees live in entirely different professional cultures. But in the moment of job loss, the emotional terrain is nearly identical: disbelief, grief, uncertainty, and the question of what comes next.
- →The headlines don't capture the human stories: News coverage of layoffs focuses on numbers and corporate narratives. Savan argues that the actual experience of individual workers—the identity loss, the financial stress, the reinvention—is where the real story lives.
- →This is the moment for honest conversations about work: Savan uses these parallel events as a call to get real about work: what it means, what we've built around it, and what we need to build that isn't contingent on any single employer's decisions.
Q&A
Questions answered in this episode
What is a RIF and how is it different from being fired?
A Reduction in Force is a structural workforce reduction—jobs are eliminated based on organizational needs, not individual performance. Unlike being fired, a RIF carries no performance implication, though it often feels just as personal because it happens to specific people who then have to figure out what's next.
What do Amazon layoffs and government RIFs have in common?
Despite very different organizational cultures, both produce the same human experience: sudden loss of professional identity, disrupted routines, financial uncertainty, and the overwhelming question of reinvention. Savan argues the emotional work of recovery is identical regardless of which sector you came from.
How do you process a layoff when it wasn't about your performance?
Rationally separating the structural decision from personal worth is the first step—and it's harder than it sounds. The practical help is connecting with others who've been through it, because collective experience normalizes the grief and accelerates the reinvention.
Why are so many people being laid off right now?
The simultaneous waves of corporate AI-driven restructuring and government workforce reduction are compressing what might have been a years-long adjustment into months. The common thread is institutional pressure to reduce headcount, which is being executed without adequate support for the individuals affected.
How do you explain a government RIF to a future employer?
Straightforwardly and without shame: your position was eliminated in a workforce reduction. Most hiring managers understand what a RIF is, and the stigma is far less than being fired for cause. The harder part is articulating what you learned and where you're headed, which requires doing the identity work first.
What should you do in the first week after a layoff?
Savan's advice: don't apply for anything yet. The first week is for processing—talking to people, letting the shock pass, and beginning to separate your identity from the role you just lost. Rushed applications from a place of panic lead to bad decisions.
Is it easier to recover from a corporate layoff or a government RIF?
Savan argues the recovery difficulty is about the same—it's driven by how deeply your identity was tied to the role, how strong your network is, and how honestly you're willing to confront the question of what you actually want next. The sector doesn't change those fundamentals.
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