Questions
What this is, and what it refuses to be.
What does this site cover?
Two things. What weeks of carrying a redundancy decision, unable to tell anybody, does to the man carrying it — and what the decision looks like from the other end, a year later.
Who is it for?
The man on the deciding side: a managing director, an owner, a head of department, a general manager, a founder who has run out of runway.
Is it for the person being made redundant?
No. The network has separate guides for the man it is happening to and for a man on paid leave, linked in the footer. Nothing here is addressed to them. The safety page says so plainly.
Will it tell me the legal process?
No. No consultation requirements, notice periods, selection criteria, settlement terms or the risk of a claim, in any country, and not if you ask directly. That is an employment lawyer.
Will it write the conversation for me?
No scripts, no opening lines, no meeting structures, no prepared answers. A script is how this ends up done at arm’s length, and that is the thing people never forgave. Why.
Will it explain the terminology?
Yes, and that is the one place the site gets specific. The words in the room starts with what the event is even called where you are — redundancy, layoff, mass layoff, reduction in force, group termination, retrenchment, despido colectivo — then defines the terms inside it, with the source named and linked for every entry. Definitions only: what a word means is not what it requires of you, and a rule from one country is misleading in another.
Will it help me decide who goes?
No. Not the selection, not the justification, and not the timing for effect.
What does it actually offer, then?
What men said afterwards about how it had been done to them, and a place to be accurate about the week you are in. The weeks of knowing.
What do people forgive?
Almost always the decision itself. Being told early, the truth about why, and a man who was visibly affected by doing it.
What do they not forgive?
Finding out from a rumour or a calendar invitation. Being told by a stranger or a screen while the decider stayed in his office. A reason they knew was false. Being managed rather than told. The full list.
Am I the villain here?
No, and this site will not treat you as one. It also will not tell you the weight belongs to somebody above you. Both, at once.
I am on the list myself.
That happens more often than anybody admits. It is two weights rather than an irony, and the second is usually the heavier.
Is there anything on the site I can use before the conversation?
One page of ordinary observations rather than a plan: what is already visible. Twenty-one things to notice about what the room can see, what the silence is doing, and the sentences worth catching. No score, no interpretation, and a private note box that stays on your own device.
What happens after it is done?
That is its own page, because almost nothing written for men in this position covers it: the week after. The relief and what it is not, the building in the first week, which calls come and which never do, and what a recruiter hears about you a year later.
Who is James?
A recruiter who spent more than twenty years headhunting in airline, hospitality and travel, and who rang hundreds of people after their redundancy. Not a employment lawyer, not an HR practitioner, not a clinician. The detail.
Is the chat James?
No. It is an AI guide following instructions James wrote. It can be wrong, it does not know your company or your jurisdiction, and it gives no law, process or wording.
What does the chat cost?
A number of turns are complimentary on each guide in a rolling 24-hour period. Beyond that there is one annual membership covering the whole network, and the price is shown on the membership page.
What happens to what I write?
Conversations live in your browser on your device unless you are a member, in which case they are held against your account and you can export or delete everything. Nothing is visible to your company. The privacy policy is specific about it.
Is there any advertising?
None, anywhere in the network, and nothing is sold on to anybody.