Author: Mat Elfring

For the past eight years, I worked as an editor for GameSpot and Comic Vine–and I was a freelance writer prior to that. During this time, I wrote and published thousands of news pieces, editorials, features, reviews, and listicle galleries that I often called, “Fun toilet reads.” Additionally, I had the role of host/producer/editor of a wrestling podcast called Wrestle Buddies. I had what many considered to be the dream job. Then, one day, it was taken all away, as I was part of a group of people that were laid off by our parent company.

This isn’t something new. Throughout my years working at GameSpot through various parent companies, I saw this happen a few times. It was never easy. You lose people you talk to every single day, as they’re no longer in your work Slack. And from there, you grow apart from many of them. But after surviving numerous rounds of layoffs and seeing people move on, I was brought into a meeting on a Thursday morning and told I no longer had the gig of a lifetime. It still stings. It still hurts. And it’s hard to pick yourself up.