Debbie had only been at Block for a few weeks when it happened. She was in a company training session when someone burst into the room and told everyone to stop — immediately check your email.
Slack notifications started pouring in. Colleagues were posting: "I got cut." "Me too." Debbie scrolled and scrolled, but couldn't find her own layoff notice. She also couldn't find confirmation that she was staying. For hours, she was in limbo.
It was already 9:30-10:30 PM when she finally got word that everyone would know by end of day. She went home, lay in bed, and couldn't sleep. Her body was shaking so badly she could barely control it. She ran to the garage with her laptop and kept refreshing her email. She showered to try to calm down.
At 12:30 AM, it arrived: the official layoff notice with a termination agreement to sign.
In a way, she felt relief. "The worst part isn't being laid off," she said. "It's not knowing. Once you know, at least you can start moving."
But the sting was real — and sharpened by the irony. Debbie was on a team working on AI automation. On her own time, she'd built a tool that automatically read GitHub release notes, extracted key features, generated blog posts, and even created explainer videos using ElevenLabs with a clone of her voice — all in 40 minutes.
She was using AI. She was good at it. She was making things faster and more efficient. And she was still laid off.
Complicating everything: Debbie is a mother of twins. Under Spanish labor law, she was within her 6-month probation period, meaning the company could terminate her without cause and without any severance pay. No compensation, no extended benefits — just salary up to March 14, then nothing.
She understood the law and didn't blame the company for following it. But the reality of suddenly having zero income with two children to support? That hit hard.
"You say I wasn't using AI? Of course I was," she said later, with a mix of bitterness and dark humor. "I was very efficient. But I still got laid off."