Morning Brew - ⚠️Trust your gut

Time-saving tools and products we’re really into rn.

Save yourself from a pukey car, train, boat, or plane with a pair of anti-motion sickness glasses. They claim to stabilize your vision, so you can read or scroll comfortably while in a moving vehicle.

🪴Craving that quiet joy house plants bring? The Planta app identifies plant species, reminds you when to water them, and gives you advice to keep your green friends thriving.

🥅 Find that magical balance between your ambition and your all-around health. This Bustle article will help you set and work toward goals without all the stress.

What’s top of mind at the watercooler.

When Alyson Stemas joined Remote, a unicorn startup that facilitates global hiring for other companies, she thought she had found the perfect job. “I felt really secure in going for [it]. I thought, ‘There’s no way a unicorn startup lays anybody off. They just raised a ton of money,’” Stemas told Sidekick. After a relatively breezy interview process, Stemas joined as senior community program manager but found out fast that there just wasn’t much for her to do. Because her husband had been laid off earlier in the year, Stemas immediately saw this as a warning sign and started to prepare.

“[I began] aggressively job-searching and alerting my network [saying], ‘I’m looking. I’m not desperate. But I think this is where things are heading,’” Stemas said. Then her suspicions were confirmed this past July when she received news that she was part of a 100-employee layoff.

Job security—even at companies that seem successful like Snapchat, Shopify, and Google—is no longer a guarantee, especially with a possible recession looming. Layoffs can happen for a variety of reasons, Dr. Janet Lenaghan, dean of the Zarb School of Business at Hofstra University, told Sidekick. “When we think about reduction in workforce, it has long been a part of organizational life, and many companies engage in such an action solely as a cost-cutting measure,” said Lenaghan.

We asked Dr. Lenaghan and Stemas to share their top red flags. Here’s what they said to watch out for when layoffs seem imminent.

• Reduced workload. If you find yourself with fewer tasks or without long-term projects, that may be a sign of trouble. While at Remote, Stemas met with her HR reps, but no one could give her a clear answer on the goals for her role or the top priorities for the company.
• Budget cuts, low earnings, and other indicators of poor company performance. “If you’re working for a private company [or] a public company, really listen to what’s happening throughout the different levels of the organization. Are you hearing words that would indicate there’s going to be some contraction?” said Lenaghan. Think keywords like cutbacks, restructuring, or downsizing.
• High turnover or restructuring among senior leadership. This is a telltale sign that team-level or organization-level goals are not aligned. This brings to mind the HBO/Discover merger, Netflix’s constant stream of canceled shows, and Spotify’s Joe Rogan meltdown.
• Hiring freezes. While hiring freezes can be viewed as a cost-saving measure, they can also indicate that a company is growing too fast or is reassessing its own goals, which can lead to the elimination of certain positions or teams.

After she was laid off, Stemas opened up to her LinkedIn community to share her experience, hoping she could provide insight for anyone else in the same position. The outpouring of support from her network shocked her, and she even found her next job from someone who saw her viral post.

She now strongly recommends making an exit plan, no matter what. “That’s something I’ve done now [in] the past couple of jobs. I’ve always gone into it with the end in mind, [with the thought that] this does have an expiration date—whether it’s voluntary or involuntary.”—MW

Your punch list for when you punch out.

Read: That rush you get when you see an “omg, I have to tell you what just happened” text is called camaraderie. While it has a reputation for being “immoral” (*cough* misogyny *cough*) gossiping is a legitimate way to bond with others. So when we ask, “What’s the tea?” please spill.

Do: Feed your brain and explore your curiosities at a local museum for Museum Day this Saturday, September 17. Enter your zip code in the search box and find a new place to check out with your funnest plus-one. (And it’s free.99!)

Eat: We want to kiss whoever invented these flavorful, savory, South American-inspired Southwest Stuffed Bell Peppers. BRB, running—not walking—to the kitchen. 🫑

Pearls of career wisdom.

“My biggest [piece of] advice to my younger self and to all new employees that join my team is to find your voice. When I was younger, I often wondered about certain business practices or tools we used but felt shy about speaking up. After all, the senior leaders would know better than me, right? But now that I’m a senior leader, I know how much I need my young workforce to disrupt my thinking and tell me, ‘Did you consider how different marketing strategies can impact our campaign?’ I was reviewing marketing approaches and was surprised by how some tools were so outdated—the action is now on video-forward social platforms like YouTube. So, find your voice and speak your truth. Your company and your leaders need it.”—Shalini Govil-Pai, VP and general manager of Google TV