Layoff versus firing—and the role of performance

Before you're fired, you're a ghost. You just don't know it yet.

Suzy Welch calls this phenomenon "dead man walking"—that strange purgatory when your boss has mentally let you go but hasn't said the words yet. You're still showing up, still sending emails, still thinking you have a job. But something has already ended.

In this special "Career Confidential" episode of Becoming You, Suzy and her NYU Stern colleague Dustin Liu pull back the curtain on the part of getting fired no one talks about: what's happening on the other side of the desk. The guilt. The anger. The calculus about when to do it. The weird emotional roller coaster your boss rides before ending your career.

But this isn't just the boss's story. Suzy and Dustin dig into what it feels like to be on the other side—the shock, the shame, the strange grief of a professional death. Suzy has been fired three times herself. Once by Harvard Business Review. Once by a consulting firm. And once—in a story she tells here in full—by her own husband. Dustin watched three friends get let go within ninety minutes of each other. They've seen the drama of career collapse from every angle.

This is a podcast of specifics. The five signs you're about to be fired aren't vague hunches—they're patterns, and Suzy walks through each one with the kind of bluntness that might make you uncomfortable. The meeting invites that dry up. The feedback that stops. The subtle shifts in how people talk to you. By the time you notice, you may already be halfway out the door.

But here's what most career advice won't tell you: sometimes you can climb back. Not always, but sometimes. Suzy breaks down exactly what that looks like—the conversations you need to have, the moves that can reverse your trajectory, and why most people won't do them. It requires honesty most of us would rather avoid.

This isn't a pep talk. It's your boss's diary—and possibly your last chance to rewrite the ending.

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