The case of the couple who want answers from HR.

Months after Elliot was laid off, he and his husband Miles were still angry — not just about the layoff, but about the way it happened. The smiling HR rep. The severance paperwork no one explained. The desk he wasn’t allowed to pack up. The coffee spilled all over his belongings.

They had questions they couldn’t ask the actual HR person without risking Miles’s job. So Yowei found them a proxy: Catie Maillard, a veteran People Operations professional who has conducted hundreds of layoffs and been laid off herself.

In Proxy’s first-ever proxy conversation, Miles and Elliot ask Catie everything they’ve been carrying about HR, severance, corporate policy, layoff lists, the WARN Act, and why companies can make people feel so disposable. And Catie helps them understand what may have happened behind the scenes — while also giving Elliot something he never got from the company: a real apology.

From the episode:

— Catie Maillard — on LinkedIn — more about her work: www.somehowimanagehr.com

— Yowei's unhinged Gold Star music video

New to Proxy? Try Bisexual Wife Guy for a classic case, or Yowei Can’t Speak Bro for a lighter story about male friendship, bro-speak, and emotional translation. 

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