“Thank you, our corporate overlords, for our new annual tradition.”

If you had taken a peek last week at Memegen, Google’s irreverent internal meme board for employees, you’d have seen that quote with thousands of upvotes. Even during a particularly nasty week of tech layoffs, Google led the way by suddenly cutting over 1,000 people with barely any explanation.

Since 12,000 people were axed a year ago, smaller layoffs have continued to roll through the sprawling conglomerate at a steady clip, creating a feeling of unease. Not all of these prior cuts have been covered publically, such as a roughly 10 percent downsizing of the public policy group in mid November.