Great list of learnings. I have to say, I’ll take the angry over the criers any day. The one that hit me the hardest though was the one that said “it’s okay, you did everything you could”.

The only one I’d add to this is that there’s never a good time. Yes, letting someone go just before Christmas is crazy bad. Or at the very end of the month so they don’t have time to figure out health insurance (most companies let you keep yours through the end of the month). But I used to worry about all the holidays or birthdays or whether it was a Monday or a Friday. There is no good time.