This article originally appeared on Business Insider.
A millennial who worked for a Michigan news station owned by Paramount Global said she was laid off three months after she moved to take the job.
On February 13, Gabrielle Dawson recorded the moment a general manager told her that layoffs were impacting her role. She posted her reaction to TikTok later that day.
“POV: You’re 28 & moved for a job that fired you three months later,” she wrote in the caption of the video, which had over 7.8 million views as of Wednesday.
The clip shows Dawson joining a Zoom call with a general manager and an HR worker. Their faces aren’t visible, but you can hear Dawson being told they’d been asked to take a “closer look at resources to ensure” they are “operating as efficiently as possible.”
@theritzyrie pov: moved for a job only to get fired 3 months later #fired #jobeliminated #fyp #zoom #jobless #unemployed ♬ original sound – Rie
“Unfortunately, this has resulted in your role being impacted,” the manager said. “Please know that this is a difficult decision.”
Later in the call, when asked if she had any questions, Dawson said she was confused about her job being cut so quickly after being hired.
“Why put the listing on if you don’t have the budget for the role? Because I uprooted my life to move over here, and now my job is getting eliminated after three months,” she said.
In response, the general manager said there had been strategy and decision-making changes since she was hired and that it was part of a broader companywide shift.
On February 13, Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish announced that 800 employees would be laid off. The news came just one day after the company shared that the Super Bowl reached record-high viewership across CBS, Paramount+, Nickelodeon, and Univision.
Bakish said in an internal memo that the job cuts would help Paramount Global “build on our momentum and execute our strategic vision for the year ahead,” CNBC reported.
In her video, Dawson also asked if the decision to cut her specific role was performance-based, which the manager said was not the case.
Users flooded the comment section commending Dawson for standing up for herself, criticizing the manager for appearing to read a “script” while letting her go, and questioning how the company could’ve changed its strategy so quickly.
The company was aware Dawson had to relocate, she says
Dawson told Business Insider she was a digital content producer. While some other TikTokers have included the names of their former employers in similar layoff videos, Dawson decided to keep the specific news station she worked for private.
Still, she said she was comfortable saying it was affiliated with Paramount, given Bakish’s statement. BI has verified her former employment.
“Why shouldn’t I be able to share my story and my stance from the other side, from an actual person that decision affected,” Dawson said.
She added that she was hired to work for the company three months ago after undergoing “a long interview process,” during which she was asked if she’d be willing to relocate from Gun Lake, where her family is based, to Detroit, roughly a two-and-a-half-hour drive away.
Dawson said she was offered “some money” to relocate, but it was still a major change for her to move across the state alone.
“I made the leap, and it’s my first time living by myself,” Dawson said. “I’m away from my family. I don’t know a single soul.”
Like those commenting on her video, she’s still questioning the company’s strategy shift.
“Why post a job only to have me come for three months and let me go?” she said. “I think it’s just a little bit ridiculous.”
Paramount Global did not respond to a request for comment about the layoffs.
Recording yourself getting laid off is a new trend, but Dawson never thought she’d be part of it
Dawson said her layoff call took place on her day off.
“I was in the dentist chair waiting for the dentist to come in, and my phone was ringing,” she said.
The calls were from an HR employee asking if she could make herself available for a Zoom call with a general manager, which left Dawson feeling anxious on her drive home.
She said she recorded the call in case anything she was told would be confusing but didn’t go into it thinking she would post it online.
However, it’s recently become a trend for millennial and Gen Z employees to film themselves losing their corporate jobs. As BI previously reported, some of these creators say their videos have helped remove the stigma around being laid off while educating younger workers about how the process works.
“I’m happy that I did in a sense because it just led to an opportunity to share my story,” Dawson said. “You see a lot of stories of people being laid off. I never thought I was going to be one of them.”
Dawson isn’t moving back home after getting laid off. Courtesy of Gabrielle Dawson via BI
Dawson told BI she was slightly nervous to post the video because she didn’t want to cause trouble but ultimately realized she had nothing to lose.
And while she said she would’ve preferred if the layoff news was delivered to her in a “more heartfelt” manner rather than on a Zoom call, where she suspects the manager was reading off a script, she remains positive about future employment prospects.
Some of her family is telling her to move back, but she plans to keep looking for jobs outside her hometown.
“There isn’t anything for me back there. That’s why I made this move because I felt like with this position that I had, there would be opportunity and growth,” she said.
“I’m going to be applying for jobs again,” Dawson added. “I’m just hoping for something bigger and better.”
