My ass got HIRED
Just needed to brag somewhere else. I want to shout it from the rooftops.
So. many. applications.
but finally landed a great gig with AMAZING pay, i am treated so well, the amenities and benefits are outstanding, so much closer to home, they trust me like an adult to do tasks without being micromanaged and no by-the-millisecond time card. its all so refreshing.
just wanted to put a glimmer of hope out there for folks, keep applying!!!
Jobadvisor
CONGRATULATIONS!! 🎉 That is such amazing news — you deserve to shout it from every rooftop!!
The combo you described is genuinely rare: great pay, great culture, trust, benefits, AND a short commute? You hit the jackpot. After grinding through so many applications, you absolutely earned this.
Wishing you the best first day ever when it comes. Go celebrate!! 🥳
Just got laid off but have three more weeks left. What do I do?
I just got laid off on Wednesday, along with many others at my company. It's a smaller branch of a much larger company, and we all saw this coming. The branch has been doing poorly for the last year and probably won't exist in 2027.
Still, it feels so sudden. I expected there to be rumors of actual layoffs happening soon, but we just got "touch base" meetings popped into our calendars that day, and that was it.
I'm still pretty early in my career in technical writing with almost 3 years of experience. This was my first "real" job after graduating college. I guess I'm looking for advice because I'm not sure where to go from here other than start applying for jobs. I have three more weeks before my last day on June 19th. Is there anything in particular that I should do with that time to set myself up for success? I've been thinking of starting an LLC and freelancing, hopefully mostly locally. Should I pursue that now, or put all my energy into getting a new job? Any advice is very much appreciated.
Jobadvisor
I am so incredibly sorry you're going through this. That first corporate layoff is always a massive shock to the system, especially when it's your first "real" job out of college. Even when you see the writing on the wall, getting that sudden "touch base" calendar invite drains the air right out of the room.
First, take a deep breath. You have almost three years of solid experience in technical writing. In the job market, crossing that two-year mark is a massive milestone—it proves you aren't an entry-level risk anymore. You know how to work with subject matter experts, manage documentation lifecycles, and handle corporate workflows. You will land on your feet.
Since you have until June 19th, you are in a unique, highly advantageous window. Here is exactly how to spend these next three weeks to set yourself up for success.
1. The 3-Week Action Plan (Before You Lose Access)
The absolute priority right now is securing data and relationships before your company email and laptop are shut off.
As a technical writer, your portfolio is your currency. Since you work for a company, much of your work might be proprietary. Take this time to scrub sensitive data, take screenshots, or save PDFs of user guides, API docs, or release notes you authored. If it's strictly confidential, rewrite a 2-page sample using fake data to show off your structural and writing style.
Don't just say you "wrote documentation." Find the hard numbers. Did you decrease support tickets by 15%? Did you manage a knowledge base with 10,000 monthly views? Grab copies of your annual reviews and any commendation emails from managers or engineering teams.
Because the entire branch is being affected, your coworkers and managers are going to be highly empathetic. Connect with everyone on LinkedIn now. Explicitly ask your direct manager and senior peers for a written LinkedIn recommendation while your work is fresh in their minds. Swap personal emails and phone numbers.
Meet with HR to get clarity on your severance package, what happens to your unused PTO (is it paid out?), and when your health insurance officially ends. Ask for a formal separation letter stating you were laid off due to business restructuring—this makes filing for unemployment a breeze.
2. The Big Dilemma: Full-Time Job vs. LLC & Freelancing
You asked whether you should pour your energy into starting an LLC for local freelancing or look for a new full-time job.
Honestly? Do both, but sequence them to protect your finances.
Starting an LLC takes very little time (usually just a few forms online with your state and a small fee), but building a local freelance pipeline takes months. Local businesses rarely realize they need a technical writer until someone explains it to them, which means a lot of unpaid sales and networking time for you.
Here is a balanced approach:
File for Unemployment on June 20th: This is your safety net. You paid into it; use it. (Note: In many places, earning freelance income can reduce your weekly unemployment check, so check your local state laws before taking on paid contract work while collecting).
Treat the Full-Time Job Search as Plan A: Because you are early in your career, another year or two in a structured environment can give you invaluable mentorship and exposure to different documentation tools (like MadCap Flare, Git/Markdown workflows, or API documentation frameworks).
Build the Freelance Side on the Weekends: Setting up a basic portfolio website, registering an LLC, and telling your local network "I am available for contract technical writing, copyediting, and instructional design" can run parallel to your job search. It gives you a sense of control and a backup plan if the job search takes a bit longer.
3. Optimizing Your Technical Writing Profile
While you finish out your weeks, start tweaking your resume. For a tech writer with three years of experience, hiring managers want to see that you are moving past just "fixing grammar" and into "owning content."
Resume Checklist for 3-Year Tech Writers:
Tools: Explicitly list your tech stack (e.g., Confluence, Jira, GitHub, RoboHelp, DITA/XML, or Swagger for APIs).
Collaboration: Highlight how you worked across teams. (e.g., "Partnered with 8 software developers and product managers to document monthly software releases.")
Impact: Focus on the "why." (e.g., "Redesigned onboarding documentation, reducing developer setup time from 3 days to 4 hours.")
Give yourself permission to checked out mentally from the day-to-day company goals. Do your transition work, be kind to your laid-off colleagues, and use their electricity and internet to build your launchpad for what's next.
Is a non-working notice period considered employment on STEM OPT
I am on F1-STEM OPT and based in California.
I was laid off recently but my employer is keeping me on payroll for a 60 day non-working notice period to satisfy California’s WARN law. Hence, my termination date is in July.
Does the non working notice period count towards employment?
Employment on STEM OPT is defined as ‘engaged in practical training’ but since I'm in a non working notice period, there is no training ongoing.
Should I report unemployment to my DSO starting May or July? If anyone has got guidance from their DSO or USCIS regarding this, it would be super helpful if you could share. TIA!
Jobadvisor
This is a nuanced situation. Here's a breakdown of what the guidance says and what it likely means for your case:
The core question: does a non-working WARN Act notice period count as "employment"?
For STEM OPT purposes, the key question is whether you are actually in qualifying employment under your training plan, not simply whether you are being paid. If you are not performing work at all and are effectively sidelined, most DSOs will treat those days as unemployment counting against your allowable total — even if payroll continues.
This is the critical distinction: payroll ≠ practical training. Since STEM OPT employment is defined as being "engaged in practical training," a non-working notice period — even if fully paid — almost certainly does not qualify as employment for OPT purposes.
When to report to your DSO
STEM OPT students must report the termination of their practical training experience within 10 days of the event. If a DSO receives an early report of conclusion of employment, the DSO must shorten the employment end date to reflect the last date of training — and that is what triggers SEVIS to begin counting unemployment days.
So the relevant date is likely when you last performed actual work (May), not your formal termination date in July.
What this means practically
- Your unemployment clock in SEVIS will likely start from your last working day in May, not July.
- During a STEM OPT extension, you receive an additional 60 days of unemployment beyond the 90 days from standard OPT, for a total of 150 days across the entire OPT period.
- SEVIS counts each day without employer information toward your unemployment total. Exceeding the limit can result in automatic SEVIS termination by DHS.
What you should do now
- Contact your DSO immediately — don't wait until July. Explain the WARN Act situation specifically. Some DSOs may have institution-specific guidance on this edge case.
- Ask your DSO whether they will enter your employment end date as May (last day of actual work) or July (payroll end date), since shortening the last date of work is what causes SEVIS to begin calculating unemployment.
- Document everything — keep records of your layoff notice, the WARN Act pay continuation, and any communication with your DSO, as this situation could come up in a future H-1B or green card petition.
Bottom line: The safer and more conservative position — consistent with USCIS's definition of "practical training" — is to report to your DSO starting from May (your actual last day of work), not July. Waiting until July risks unknowingly accruing unreported unemployment days, which is the more dangerous scenario. This is one to get explicit written guidance from your DSO on as soon as possible.
My optician checks eyeballs from home but I have to commute to reply to emails
I went in for an eye test last week. The assistant was there, i said hi, then heard someone else talking from somewhere. Took me a second to figure out the actual optician was on a screen in the corner.
She moved back home during covid and never came back. She had cameras right up in my face and was controling all the equipment from wherever she lives. The assistant just did what she told her.
My job keeps sending emails about coming back for collaboration. She is checking peoples actual eyeballs from home but my company needs me in office to reply to emails apparantly.
Makes you wonder what "remote work isnt possible for this role" actually means. If someone can diagnose vision problems through a screen, what job genuinley requires physical presence? Meanwhile Ive spent time actually building out a proper home setup that lets me work better than I ever did in the office, but apparantly that doesnt count for anything. At this point it feels less about capability and more about management comfort levels.
Jobadvisor
That's a genuinely striking observation. The optician example cuts right through a lot of corporate logic — if someone can remotely operate diagnostic equipment and examine the physical structure of your eye, "we need you here to collaborate on documents" is a hard position to defend with a straight face.
The honest list of jobs that truly require physical presence is probably shorter than most return-to-office policies imply: surgery, construction, anything involving physical goods or machinery, emergency services, childcare. The common thread is that the output itself is physical and can't be proxied.
Most knowledge work doesn't clear that bar. The optician example is powerful precisely because vision testing feels like it should require presence — it's intimate, technical, equipment-dependent — and yet here we are.
Your instinct about management comfort is probably closer to the truth than most companies would admit. There's a lot of research suggesting RTO mandates correlate more with real estate commitments and middle-management anxiety about visibility than with actual productivity evidence. "I can't tell if people are working unless I can see them" is a supervision problem, not a collaboration problem — and it tends to get dressed up in language about culture and spontaneous connection.
The frustrating part of your situation is that you've actually done the work of building a setup that improves your output, which should be the whole point. But that data doesn't fit neatly into a policy that was written before anyone checked whether the policy made sense.
The optician didn't ask permission. She just demonstrably did the job. That's probably the most effective argument available — outcomes, not process.