How fired Meta workers are coping

Facebook workers caught up in parent-company Meta’s latest round of job cuts Wednesday wailed about the layoffs on social media, with some drowning their tears with alcohol and one soon-to-be mom fearing for her future.

The pregnant worker, who is in the US on a work visa, said she was laid off just two days before she was set to go on maternity leave, another worker posted an image of an almost-empty whiskey bottle, and a third said she was on her honeymoon when she got the bad news.

Facebook’s parent company dropped the ax on an additional 4,000 jobs — just weeks before it is expected to cull another 6,000 positions from its payroll as part of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s months-long, companywide restructuring aimed at cutting costs.

The news sparked a flurry of social media posts on platforms including LinkedIn, Blind, and Twitter, where “Metamates” bid emotional farewells to colleagues and praised their now-former teams.

The expectant mother aired her dismissal on Blind — the social media platform that affords verified employees the luxury of anonymity so that they can post freely — under a headline titled, “Laid off during maternity leave, on a h1b visa.”

“I was impacted by the layoff at Meta today and was going to start my maternity leave in 2 days,” the anonymous Meta employee wrote.

“My last day of employment will be June 23rd after which I have 60 days to find another job.”

“Given that I will be in recovery for the next 2 months and the current economy I am not confident about finding a job by august,” she wrote.

“What are my options?”

“My husband has an approved i140 (meaning that he has been granted eligibility for permanent residency), is it possible for me to go on a dependent visa and then move back to h1b when I find something?”

Hours before Meta informed employees of the layoffs, Daniel Conrad, who works in product at WhatsApp, the messaging app that is also owned by Facebook’s parent company, posted a photo of an empty bottle of whiskey.

“On the eve of Meta layoffs, my team is focusing on things we can control,” Conrad wrote on LinkedIn.

“Like drinking this bottle of whiskey.”

Vaenessae Fink, who said she was laid off from Meta, posted a photo on LinkedIn of her and her husband on their honeymoon.

“As some of you may know, I recently got laid off from my position at Meta,” Fink wrote.

“But let me tell you, being unemployed has its perks. When life gives you lemons… take some time off and go on a honeymoon!”

“My husband and I had a blast, and I’m now feeling recharged and ready to dive into my next adventure,” Fink wrote.

She wrote that during her tenure at Meta she “developed some serious Jedi-level skills in full life cycle recruitment and client management across global technical teams.”

Several other Meta employees posted their badges to mark the end of their tenures at the company.

Meta told its North America-based employees to work from home Wednesday as it broke the news to employees.

The job cuts will affect positions at the flagship social network, Facebook, as well as Instagram, WhatsApp, and the Reality Labs virtual reality division, according to the report.

“It’s about to be Hunger Games out here,” one Meta employee wrote on the Blind social media app.

Another tech worker fumed on Blind: “Feeling bad for all the people who cannot get a good nights sleep waiting to refresh their logins tomorrow.”