Amazon employees have turned to humor as a means of coping with looming job cuts expected next week. A report from Business Insider reveals that the company is likely to eliminate thousands of corporate positions, following a previous round of layoffs in October that saw approximately 14,000 workers let go. Amid this uncertainty, employees in an internal Slack channel—home to over 26,000 members—are sharing memes to relieve tension surrounding the anticipated downsizing.
Central to the meme culture is a riff on Jeff Bezos’ well-known “two-pizza rule.” This principle was originally established to keep meetings small and efficient, suggesting that a gathering should never be so large that two pizzas would not suffice to feed everyone. As layoffs loom, employees are using this concept humorously to highlight how their teams may be drastically reduced.
One meme humorously depicted a minimal pizza slice with the caption, “how we feed two pizza teams,” while another featured two Amazon Web Services-branded boxes with the text, “did someone say 2 pizza team?” Such jokes particularly resonate in the context of the upcoming layoffs that are rumored to focus heavily on the cloud division.
In the Slack discussions, employees expressed skepticism about the practicality of the two-pizza rule in their current work environment. One remarked that they had never been on a team that could adequately be fed by just two pizzas, signifying concerns about managerial efficiency amidst the layoffs. The playful debate even extended to whether pizzas from larger chains like Costco or Domino’s could be deemed “reasonably sized.”
Beyond pizza-themed humor, employees shared a variety of other memes to express their anxiety. One meme, featuring a scene from “The Shining,” showcased an image of Jack Nicholson, with “JANUARY 27TH” superimposed—a date tied to the expected layoffs. Another created a comedic “panik/kalm” template, juxtaposing corporate jargon against a typical employee’s email notification about their potential job loss.
With dread of the upcoming announcements palpable, one meme captured the apprehension employees feel, laying out a checklist of expectations for January 27: “able to login,” “mail and Slack works,” and “no random HR meeting in calendar.” The sentiment was succinctly summed up in another meme that stated in all caps, “I don’t know what will happen on 27 Jan and at this point I’m too afraid to ask.”
The climate at Amazon reflects a broader trend seen across the tech industry, where workers at companies like Google have similarly utilized humor to address their own anxieties in the wake of significant layoffs. As such, the sharing of memes has emerged as a coping mechanism, giving employees an outlet to alleviate their stress during these uncertain times.
