I’ve survived layoffs at companies where we were told that following the cuts, we were going to get leaner and more agile and more efficient.

I’m sure you’ll be just shocked to learn that what actually happened is I ended up doing twice as much work to pick up the laid off people’s slack, and at the end of the year got a smaller bonus than the previous year, along with a raise that didn’t cover inflation. Overall company profits, of course, hit a record high.