Even if you’re fired for poor performance, Stojkovic said you should still qualify for unemployment benefits.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Pav Stojkovic, formerchief people officer of the sports publication The Athletic, the biotech startup Omeat, and other companies. He’s now taking a career break to care for his newborn son. This story has been edited for length and clarity.
I’ve worked as a chief people officer for over a decade, and I’ve had to lay off hundreds of people. I’ve seen layoffs go well, poorly, and everything in between.
There’s an emotional component that comes with getting let go. Even if the company offers generous severance or pays for COBRA, the initial reaction for a lot of people is, ‘I’ve put so much of myself into this job, and this is how they treat me?’
That feeling is valid. But you can’t let that emotion drive you to do something irrational. I’ve been yelled at point-blank to my face. Doing that just opens you up to all kinds of issues. In that moment, I’m less willing to be flexible and meet you where you are. My job is to get you to sign a piece of paper and get rid of you as fast as possible because you’ve gone from a good actor to a liability to the company.
Don’t bash the company
An example of an irrational move is publicly bashing the company. Your severance agreement might have a non-disparagement clause, so if you speak negatively about the company, you could nullify your cash severance, an acceleration of your stock options, or your health insurance for you and your family.
The same or worse could happen if you take confidential information with you, such as by forwarding an email from your work account to your personal email on your last day.
Say you post bad things about the company on your Facebook page. As a chief people officer, if I see it, I have an obligation to go to my CEO and say, ‘What’s the actual risk to us here?’ Most employers are smart enough to know when employees are just venting. But it’s always on a case-by-case basis.
You can and should negotiate
Don’t sign anything immediately. I’ve seen former employees just sign whatever is given to them on the spot. Instead, say something like, ‘Thank you. I’m going to take these documents, review them, and get back to you.’
You always have the ability to negotiate. As a chief people officer, I’m never going to say, ‘You know what? Because you’re negotiating, now you get nothing.’ That doesn’t make sense, because I want you to sign that document. I want you to release the company from any potential risk and liability. So you have leverage.
If you’re asking for more severance, most of the time it’s going to be a no, and there’s a good reason. The company wants to be consistent across the board. The same can be true if you’re letting one individual go. That’s how I operate. At this seniority level, with this amount of time at the company, you get X amount. It’s a formula. But there’s no downside to negotiating, so you should at least try.
It’s expensive to get on COBRA, especially if your former employer is not contributing toward it. But that is something that you might be able to negotiate. You can always say, ‘What would be nice is if you covered 50% of my COBRA for the next few months,’ or something like that. It doesn’t hurt to ask.
Request your employee file
In many states, companies are legally obligated to allow you to inspect your employee file and make your own copies. Most employers will just send you a digital version and call it a day.
It might not be useful to you, but it’s about you, so you should have it. Maybe you had some really strong performance reviews, and you were laid off as part of a reduction-in-force. It would be great to be able to showcase to a potential future employer that your layoff had nothing to do with your performance.
Having that file could also be important if you need to take legal action against the company for something like missing wages. Having access to all your pay stubs is one way to prove that you weren’t paid properly.
Put your ego aside and get back out there
I think a lot of people don’t bother to apply for unemployment benefits because they feel like that’s not who they are, or that it’s just for people who don’t have any money. Put your ego aside and recognize the situation that you’re in. Take advantage of those benefits.
An employer is only going to contest your unemployment if you were fired for gross misconduct, like stealing or sexual harassment. Not being great at your job is not gross misconduct. I’ve received countless claims for unemployment from former employees, and I’ve never contested a single one.
When we’re let go from a job, we have this tendency to tuck our tail between our legs and feel like we’ve failed. But we’ve all been there. We’ve all experienced some type of traumatic setback in our careers. Don’t feel like you’re alone. Reach out to your network, to people who you think can help you find your next opportunity.
Go on vacation, or just don’t think about anything work-related for some time — but not too much time. Get in the headspace of thinking about what’s next. Then get back out there, and hold your head high.
Meta employees can use Metamate, an internal AI assistant, to help with performance reviews.
Meta product director Joseph Spisak said Metamate aids with feedback and evaluations.
Some staff report mixed results about using Metamate in performance reviews.
A Meta product leader said that employees are turning to the company’s internal AI assistant for performance reviews.
Joseph Spisak, a product director in Meta Superintelligence Labs, said that the company’s internal ChatGPT-style tool, Metamate, can search through employees’ documents and generate summaries of their accomplishments.
“When at the end of the year we do our performance, and I want to summarize my performance or whatever, I call Metamate and it goes and searches all my docs and what I’ve done and summarizes what I’ve done for the year and my accomplishments and feedback on me,” Spisak said onstage at the TechEquity AI Summit in Sunnyvale, California, on Friday. “And it’s great.”
Spisak joked that employees could “reward hack it,” after a moderator asked whether they could bribe the system to boost their evaluations.
Spisak said that in addition to helping employees with performance reviews, Meta’s AI tools are trained on internal data and used for other tasks, such as building applications.
A Meta employee, who wished to remain anonymous, told Business Insider that while some staff members experiment with Metamate for performance reviews, its results can be uneven, and the AI often struggles without detailed context about individual projects. Still, the person said they use it to generate feedback for coworkers by setting up templates and filling in examples.
The negotiations, which had been going on since October, focused on two areas: replacing existing income-driven repayment plans and instituting new borrowing caps on graduate and professional student loans. The negotiating committee reached a consensus on the law’s changes, and the department will begin drafting a rule and publishing it for public comment early next year. The changes are scheduled to take effect in July 2026.
Under the legislation, the Department of Education will eliminate the Grad PLUS program, which allowed graduate students to borrow up to the full cost of attendance for their programs. It also places new caps on graduate and professional borrowing: $20,500 a year for graduate students or $100,000 over a lifetime, and $50,000 for professional students or $200,000 over a lifetime.
In addition to borrowing caps, the department will eliminate existing income-driven repayment plans and replace them with two options: a standard repayment plan and a new Repayment Assistance Plan with loan forgiveness after 30 years.
“The consensus language agreed upon by the negotiators today will help drive a sea change in higher education by holding universities accountable for outcomes and putting significant downward pressure on the cost of tuition,” Undersecretary of Education Nicholas Kent said in a statement. “This will benefit borrowers who will no longer be pushed into insurmountable debt to finance degrees that do not pay off.”
Key repayment and borrowing changes
Negotiators raised concerns with the Department of Education’s proposed definition of a professional student. The department said that to be eligible for the higher student-loan cap available to professional students like those studying law or medicine, the borrower would have to be enrolled in one of 10 programs.
Some advocates raised concerns that the limits on who qualifies for the higher student loan cap could strain participation in healthcare professions. However, the department said that, despite the limited categories, there are over 2,000 doctoral programs that would fall within the new professional degree definition.
“At a time when the need for healthcare services is rapidly expanding, restricting access to financial support for future healthcare providers is a step in the wrong direction,” Todd Pickard, president of the American Academy of Physician Associates, said in a statement. “Without a sustainable pipeline of trained clinicians, patient access to care and health outcomes will continue to decline.”
Undersecretary Kent told negotiators that it’s “by far not the perfect proposal.”
“We have a really challenging job in front of us, but I think what we did in our proposal is to meet you all at least halfway,” Kent said.
Meanwhile, the department said it will phase in changes to the repayment plans for existing borrowers. For example, borrowers who took out loans prior to July 1, 2026, will retain access to income-based repayment, while borrowers who take out loans after that date will be eligible to enroll in the new Repayment Assistance Plan.
We’re well past the peak of “OK, boomer,” the meme, but we’re still in the midst of “OK, boomer,” the sentiment, as in “OK, maybe it’s time for you to give up some of the reins.”
Baby boomers are a giant generation, with some 76 million babies born from 1946 to 1964. Over the course of their lifetimes, they’ve dominated American society— from their 1950s childhoods to the rebellious 1960s and 1970s to the family-oriented 1980s, the country grew up with them. While their influence has started to fade somewhat, the generation is not moving gently into their golden years.
American business leaders are getting older, with the average CEO being nearly 60 years old (right on the Gen X/boomer line, though plenty are on the elder side). Some baby boomer executives, including Disney’s Bob Iger and Starbucks’ Howard Schultz, boomeranged back into the top job. The median age in the US Senate is 65 years old. The country has yet to have had a Gen X or millennial president — America’s 42nd, 43rd, and current presidents were all born in the same year, 1946. Baby boomers are holding onto their houses, and they control a disproportionate amount of wealth. Even in Hollywood, many older (generally male) stars are still dominating the silver screen — Tom Cruise, George Clooney, and Brad Pitt, who I regret to inform you is, indeed, a boomer.
“Demography is a weird thing, because it unfolds slowly, and then you notice it everywhere,” says Kevin Munger, the author of “Generation Gap: Why the Baby Boomers Still Dominate American Politics and Culture.”
It’s great that people are living longer, healthier lives and staying active for longer. Ageism is real, and efforts to fight it are a positive development. At the same time, the way baby boomers are holding on can feel a bit extra. It fosters a sense of frustration among younger generations looking to carve out their own spaces in boardrooms, legislative bodies, and homes. Baby boomers have a reputation for being a selfish, materialistic generation, and in their golden years, that’s translating to a generation that won’t let go. Before getting too down on the boomers, however, it’s also important to recognize that this is where America is heading: The country’s population is aging, and no matter the generation, time marches on. In 30 years, we’ll likely be hearing, “OK, millennial.”
One of the main reasons baby boomers are sticking around is the simple fact that they’re living for a long time. US life expectancy was 68 in 1950; it’s now 79. Longer life spans have led to people across all age groups living their lives more slowly — they’re getting married later, having children later, and buying homes later. This chronological extension happens for older people, too, who may retire later and stay in their homes longer.
“The timeline for most major life transitions has shifted to the right,” says David Ekerdt, professor emeritus of sociology and gerontology at the University of Kansas.
In American culture, we’re just so tied up with our jobs that it’s just unclear to people what else they would do.
It’s not just longevity that’s a factor. Retirement has become more precarious as workplaces have shifted away from traditional pensions, and some older people have no choice but to continue working. Social Security also incentivizes people to put off hanging up the professional towel because benefits are lower if you retire and start collecting a little early, and higher if you collect later. Outside the financial incentives, many boomers just preferto keep working — they think it keeps them healthy, and their identities are deeply intertwined with it. After all, boomers were the generation that practically invented hustle culture.
“In American culture, we’re just so tied up with our jobs that it’s just unclear to people what else they would do,” Munger says.
Many boomer business owners are holding onto their operations well past typical retirement age, and they’re sticking around in C-suites, too. While CEOs themselves often take the blame for their companies’ age problems, Shawn Cole, the president and founding partner of Cowen Partners Executive Search, says a lot of the issue emanates from their bosses — the board of directors. “Boards are made up of the same age or older people, and so it’s like this ongoing psychosis,” he says. “Especially at the board level, it’s a pretty cush lifestyle, so why would they give that up?”
A lack of succession planning will eventually come back to bite businesses — unfortunately, time comes for us all — at which point, up-and-coming leaders will have to scramble, or companies will have to rely on less-than-conventional setups like the rising tide of co-CEOs. Cole points to the pair of co-leaders of Oracle, one millennial and one Gen X, selected to replace outgoing boomer chief exec Safra Catz. “What even is that?” he says.
As much as business can be a flash point in America’s generational conflict, it tends not to get as much airtime and feels more distant and invisible from people’s day-to-day lives. In terms of teeth gnashing around boomers’ unwillingness to hang up the spikes, there are two areas that draw particular ire among more spry Americans: politics and housing.
Many of America’s most prominent political leaders are in their 60s, 70s, and even 80s, including Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, and Chuck Schumer. It’s not outright bad for a politician to be older, but there are drawbacks. Older people clinging onto political power may also be out of step with new technologies, cultural shifts, or ways of thinking. Succession is also a problem. As much as progressives would like for Bernie Sanders to be immortal, he is not, and they’d best look for a big bench of other figures to continue in his path beyond Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
“Boomers, they’re just more political. They’re more interested in politics, they hold more political offices,” says Jean Twenge, a psychology professor and the author of “Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents — and What They Mean for America’s Future.” Twenge notes that public perceptions of age in politics have also shifted. Ronald Reagan was 69 when he was first elected in 1980, and at the time, that was considered very old. Now, that might seem middle-of-the-pack, even youthful. The incumbency advantage is stronger in America’s political system as opposed to, say, a parliamentary system, where a party may be better able to elevate new leadership on its own. Instead, long-serving members hang on to their seats in no small part due to familiarity. The donor class is also dominated by older, wealthier people. “It’s rare to have a strong youth bias there,” Munger says.
But perhaps the most fraught intergenerational issue of the day is the one that hits closest to home, literally. Many boomers have been resistant to selling their homes and downsizing for a variety of reasons — they’re still confident they can stay in their family homes, health-wise; they’ve invested a lot of money and time in their abodes; and they don’t want to take on a new, higher-interest mortgage. But even when they are moving, they’re not really moving down the housing ladder — they’re moving laterally.
Families, political parties, businesses, teams, organizations, they all need to devise ways for the young to succeed the old.
Jessica Lautz, the deputy chief economist at the National Association of Realtors, tells me that boomers are the biggest share of homebuyers today. They move to be closer to friends and family and to enjoy their retirement, but they’re not seeking out smaller places. “They suggest that they’re moving for downsizing, but when we look at the data, they don’t by much,” Lautz says. That means they’re competing with younger homebuyers, but have a significant financial advantage — half of homebuyers in their 70s pay cash, as do 40% of people in their 60s. By comparison, 5% of millennials and 15% of Gen Xers pay cash. “If they are financing, they are financing a smaller share of that purchase than other buyers are,” Lautz says.
Some level of generational conflict is a fact of humanity. The olds feeling like the youngs don’t know what they’re doing, and the youngs feeling like the olds are out of touch, is an eternal battle. A 20-something may envy a 70-something for their accumulated wealth, while that 70-something wishes they had the 20-something’s energy. And they’ve just got to figure out how to get along and move forward.
“Families, political parties, businesses, teams, organizations, they all need to devise ways for the young to succeed the old,” Ekerdt says. “This is a constant throughout history, and it requires some orderly resolution of the opposed interests of the young when they want or desire the resources and power that their elders are reluctant to relinquish.”
There are elements that are unique to the modern moment. In entertainment, part of the reason it doesn’t feel like there are as many young, huge stars is the decline of monoculture. The internet and modern media have us so siloed that we rarely consume the same things (beyond Taylor Swift and the NFL), making it harder for new actors to supplant their older, already-established peers. Part of the reason boomers have been able to accumulate so much wealth is that they’ve had generally favorable economic conditions throughout their lifetimes, and were able to save up a lot of money and buy a lot of stuff. Despite their collective financial comfort, living longer means they might want to work longer to make sure they don’t run out of money in retirement.
Jennifer Sciubba, a political demographer, says baby boomers staying in the mix longer should be seen as a good thing and an indicator of where the country’s headed. The American population is aging, and the median age in the US is expected to surpass 40 by 2040.
“It’s great to see more of an emphasis on older people in a positive light, because all of the ageism is really out of touch with where America is now and where it’s headed demographically,” she says.
Boomers may be a generation that can’t let go now, but some of the same characteristics may come to define Gen X, millennials, and even Gen Z. (Yes, friends, someday you too will be old.) What that means is that younger people could stand to be a little more understanding of their older counterparts — and take away some lessons from it, too. The same goes for boomers, eh — that work-life balance thing the kids enjoy these days is actually pretty great.
Emily Stewart is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, writing about business and the economy.
‘Even one is too many,’ culture secretary Lisa Nandy tells Sky News
In her interview with Sky News, Lisa Nandy rejected suggestions that the under-pressure justice secretary David Lammy had been “evasive” in his handling of the news a prisoner was wrongly released from HMP Wandsworth, saying he had been “weighing up in his mind” what information to share.
Asked whether his evasiveness made it more difficult to trust ministers on the issue, the culture secretary said:
I don’t accept that he was being evasive. I was in the House of Commons chamber, I was there, I was sitting next to the home secretary, and I could see that he was weighing up in his mind what information to release.
He was asked about an asylum seeker. The case in question was not an asylum seeker.
What I can tell you is that under the last government, for quite some time, there were, on average, 17 wrong releases.
Under this government that has risen. It’s 22 – that is completely unacceptable. It was unacceptable before, it’s unacceptable now.
