Amazon employees are channeling their anxiety over impending layoffs into humor, creating a variety of memes amidst rumors of significant job cuts. Reports indicate that the tech giant may announce the elimination of thousands of corporate positions as soon as next week, following a previous reduction of around 14,000 jobs in October. This latest round of layoffs marks another chapter in Amazon’s ongoing adjustments to its workforce amid a challenging economic climate.
With a lack of official communication from leadership, workers have turned to an internal Slack channel, boasting over 26,000 members, to share memes and jokes as a coping mechanism. Many of these humorous posts revolve around Jeff Bezos’ well-known “two-pizza rule,” which suggests keeping meetings small enough that they can be fed by just two pizzas—a metaphor employees are now applying to their shrinking teams.
One meme humorously depicted a single sliver of pizza alongside the phrase, “how we feed two pizza teams,” illustrating the drastic changes in team sizes. Another featured two AWS-branded pizza boxes, tapping into the anticipation of cuts within Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud division. Employees shared their thoughts, with one noting the irony of never having been part of a team small enough for that rule to apply.
In addition to pizza-themed humor, the memes varied in focus. One particularly dark joke referenced the expected layoff announcement with a take on a famous scene from “The Shining,” while others employed corporate jargon to express their anxieties about job security and future workplace dynamics.
The practice of using humor to deflect stress has also been evident in other tech companies facing similar situations. Earlier this year, Google employees engaged in a similar trend on internal platforms, mocking corporate culture after substantial layoffs.
This trend highlights employees’ attempts to navigate uncertainty in a challenging environment through camaraderie and creativity, reflecting a shared understanding of their precarious situations. While the situation is undoubtedly serious, the use of humor may help provide some relief amidst the tension surrounding workforce reductions.