Area Tech Worker Finally Achieves Work-Life Balance After Being Laid Off
Marcus Feld, 36, says he has "never felt more present," which sources attribute to having nowhere to be.
DENVER — Local product manager Marcus Feld, 36, announced on LinkedIn Monday that he has at last found the work-life balance he spent a decade pursuing, an achievement he credits to "boundaries, intentionality, and the elimination of my position on August 29."
"For years I read about protecting your mornings, taking real lunches, being fully present with your family," Feld wrote in a post that has received 4,000 reactions, 300 of which were from recruiters. "I never could. There was always a Slack. Now there is no Slack. There is a lake, and I'm at it."
Feld's former employer, a Series C company that cut 14 percent of staff last month "to sharpen our focus on AI," described the reduction as a difficult but necessary step. Feld described it as "the first day in eleven years I didn't check my phone before my feet touched the floor, because the phone is a personal phone now and nobody texts me."
Since the layoff, Feld has reportedly read two books, cooked a stew, and attended his daughter's soccer game "without a laptop in the trunk in case." He said the transition has been emotionally complex, but that his cortisol is "way down," according to a wearable he no longer has to expense.
Colleagues who remain at the company said they were happy for him, in messages sent from their desks at 8:40 p.m.
Feld, whose severance runs through November, said he plans to enjoy the balance for as long as it lasts and then "find a role at a company that really values balance," at which point sources say the balance will end.