So it went with Mike Prinke, a technical writer who worked at Epic for seven years—right up until the studio laid off 1,000 people last week.
Prinke's termination came amid particularly awful circumstances: He's currently undergoing treatment for terminal brain cancer. His wife, Jenni Griffin, posted about their situation on Facebook in a plea to Epic or anyone who could help. Epic's post announcing the layoffs said impacted staff would receive paid healthcare coverage for six months, but the nature of Prinke's illness means medical coverage is not their only hurdle.
"Because of the layoff, we didn’t just lose income—we lost his life insurance. And because his condition is now considered a pre-existing condition, he can't get new coverage," Griffin wrote. "As I face the reality of losing my husband… I'm also facing the reality of what type of funeral/burial I can afford. How I will keep a roof over our heads. How I will protect our son and the life we built together. What will happen to our dogs.
"I truly believe that if the people who made this decision understood the full human impact, they would not have intended this outcome. Mike is not just a number. He is a father. A husband. A person deeply loved."
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney spoke about Prinke's situation on X, replying to a thread from a Fortnite news account which tagged him and asked "ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?" In his reply, Sweeney said "Epic is in contact with the family and will solve the insurance for them.
"There is high confidentiality around medical information and it was not a factor in this layoff decision. Sorry to everyone for not recognizing this terribly painful situation and handling it in advance."
by ControlCAD
8 Comments
The state of tech jobs:
If you’re a manager, you’re getting laid off to flatten the org. (e.g., ASML)
If you’re a worker, you’re automating yourself out of a job with AI. (e.g., Amazon)
🤷🏻♂️🤷🏻♀️🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♀️
What a lovely capitalist hellscape we have for ourselves
>I truly believe that if the people who made this decision understood the full human impact, they would not have intended this outcome.
Oh sweetie, these men would happily sell their employees’ organs if they could make a profit out of it.
The only reson they’re doing anything is because you brought potentially bad press to their door, and that could affect their bottom-line.
I completely feel for this family, especially on the medical insurance.
Do not rely on your company’s life insurance if you have dependents. You need a policy that will cover them that you purchase independently. If something terrible happens to you and your family also collects on the employer coverage then they have a bigger cushion but do not count on that when securing your family’s financial future.
What Sweeney actually thinks: “Shit they caught us. Well, I *guess* we’ll have to keep this guy on our life insurance. Damn it.”
Yeah, tech can be ruthless. I was fired from a tech company right before Christmas, during the pandemic and I was pregnant and the sole income for my family. My boss knew all that but didn’t care. He wanted to hire his friends.
Epic Games is different than Epic but the fake journalists don’t know the difference
