| You've probably seen—or heard of—the viral layoff video phenomenon, when someone hits "record" on Zoom while they're being laid off and then shares the moment. As Work Shift reporter Jo Constantz writes, it represents an attempt by some white-collar workers to turn the tables on their employers and reclaim some power. But what happens after internet fame? Plus: A milestone for Palantir, a tough job ahead for election administrators and five reasons to be hopeful about the entertainment industry. In January, 27-year-old account executive Brittany Pietsch, who was about to be fired from network services provider Cloudflare Inc., recorded her termination and posted a video of the contentious nine-minute call online. She told the Wall Street Journal shortly after she posted it that she didn't regret it, even as it amassed millions of views. The clip became a lightning rod. "Not one part of me thought that it was going to blow up in the way it did," Pietsch explained onstage in March to an audience of thousands at an HR conference in Las Vegas. She was suddenly the face of employees everywhere who had a stable job and steady paycheck one day and nothing the next, left to grapple with the callousness of "changing business needs" alone. The day after Pietsch got back from the conference, she broke down, struck by how big the video had become. "I really realized that when I went to that conference: How many people came up to me, asked to speak with me, asked to take pictures with me," she said in a post on TikTok. After that, Pietsch went dark for about three months, taking time away from social media to look for a new job and recover from the spotlight. As the months of unemployment began to lengthen, she returned reluctantly to LinkedIn. "I feel embarrassed to be posting this, but desperate times as they say," she wrote in July. Six months without income, she added, "has now begun to put me in a scary financial situation, and I am asking my network for help." She laid the situation bare. "When the video went viral, I received literally thousands of 'I would hire you in a heartbeat' or 'any company would be lucky to have you' messages. Yet when it comes down to it, it has been the opposite," she said. "The amount of conversations, interviews, presentations, and research I've done for companies I will never work for is beyond what I could have imagined." Her break came as summer drew to a close. Right as my story about layoff influencers was published in Businessweek, Pietsch announced that she had landed the opportunity she had longed for. It was the kind of happy ending that eludes many job seekers. The number of Americans struggling with long-term unemployment (those out of work for more than six months) has crept up since March 2023 to 1.5 million. Pietsch's job came as a result of those LinkedIn posts, the kind of raw self-disclosures many people view as career cyanide. A vice president at Navisite, an IT firm owned by Accenture Plc, saw them and reached out, advocating for her to join his team. While everything worked out for Pietsch, she says she wants to continue to champion others who have lost their jobs. "Though I'm still figuring out how, I am committed to giving back and staying involved in the conversation around unemployment," she said in the post announcing her new role. "It's crucial to speak up for what's right if we want to drive meaningful change." | 
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