Bungie Employee Laid Off Just One Week Before Maternity Leave

The producer at Bungie, Lexuzi, was laid off just a week before her maternity leave was about to start. Read the details below.

American video game company and a subsidiary of Sony Interactive Entertainment, Bungie, on Wednesday announced the layoff of 220 employees and the news has left many in shock. It came as a surprise to employees and they were not prepared for it. Among the laid-off employees was the Producer at Bungie, Lexuzi, who was about to start her maternity leave in less than a week. If a woman becomes pregnant while she is employed at a company then usually she gets a maternity leave and it is covered under the Cost-To-Company (CTC) but it looks like Bungie was in no mood to give its employees what they were entitled to.

Lexuzi while reacting to the news of the layoff said, "I've been impacted by the layoffs announced this morning. It's been a privilege working with everyone at Bungie for the past (almost) 5 years. But it's just really bad timing b/c my maternity leave was supposed to start next Monday and I got laid off today."

She said that she cried for hours after she got this news, partly due to the pregnancy hormones but partly also because this was the first time she got laid off. In a series of tweets, she wrote, "I've contacted HR this morning about my maternity leave benefits. But I will probably not get any of it at this point. Kinda feels bad that they did this the Wednesday before I start maternity leave - even though I told them about things back in Feb and planned everything out."

Bungie Layoff Impact

Layoffs are not easy rather they take a toll on us and sometimes even leave us with a lack of confidence. In this case, Lexuzie said, "I've contacted HR this morning about my maternity leave benefits. But I will probably not get any of it at this point...I will say that I feel like finding another job now is going to be extremely difficult for me. No one is going to want to hire me in the next 6 months (prob) due to me having a newborn. But I will be trying my hardest, regardless!"

She said that there is no ill on her part and she understands that a company needs to do what it needs to do to stay afloat. She added, "But it's also very evident to me that all of us as employees don't matter much when things fall on hard times for the company we work for."

Other Bungie employees also expressed their frustration about the layoff on social media platforms. Former Destiny 2 community manager Liana Rupert called on Bungie CEO Pete Parsons to “step down”. 

Recently it was also alleged that Bungie’s CEO Pete Parsons had purchased 24 cars with their total value going up to $2.5m just before the layoffs.