It can be easy to start feeling secure in your place at your company. After all, if you're meeting or exceeding your targets, your company has no reason to lay you off, right?
There are different types of employees in a company's structure, and some of them have very good reasons to feel secure in their jobs. If you have been working the same position for 20 years and never ask for more than the slightest raise, if you even ask for a raise at all, you have cause for security. A company isn't going to get rid of a loyal and cheap employee for no reason, unless they suddenly decide to axe the entire department and replace it with AI! But that would never happen to a good old reliable employee, right?
The other type of "secure" employee is the striver. They work hard day in and day out to ensure they do the best work possible and do more than was ever expected of them. They might assume that because they are willing to do everything for their company, their company will be willing to do everything for them, and that's just not true.
The employee in this story, u/rockpaperblr thought he meant more to his company than he did. He seemed to do everything right, but that didn't stop him from losing his job to layoffs. He took to the internet to share the story of his last day at the office and some wisdom he drew from the experience.