Leadership held an all-hands meeting letting people know that layoffs were coming, and the VP of each person's respective area would walk over to their desk to inform them personally.
On the day of the layoffs, you could feel the stress in the air. Not much smiling, except the forced kind after someone tries to break the tension with a joke.
And then, a door at the end of a row of cubes opens and your VP walks into the area. Everyone wonders if they're the one (they've been wondering since they learned of the layoff, but something changes when the agent of termination literally walks through the door). She walks down your row, nearing your desk, and your heart starts pounding. She keeps walking, and you breathe a sigh of relief. You peek over the edge of your cube to see her talking to Joe, and a few minutes later he is escorted from the premises.
A few minutes later, she walks into the area again, and the cycle of stress repeats.
I survived the cut, but the experience still sits with me. I don't remember much about any specific day during my next half-decade there, but I remember that day like it was yesterday.
I know some of the recent layoffs have been handled terribly, but I never again want to be sitting in my cube, wondering if I'm next every time the door down the hallway opens.