24-year-old was laid off from her 6-figure tech job — now she shucks oysters for parties: ‘I do feel very happy'

Just a few weeks ago, Hannah Chea spent most of her week sitting in front of a computer for work.

These days, you can find her shucking oysters for partygoers at lavish events and entertaining them with fun facts about the chilled mollusks.

Chea, 24, was let go from her job as a data analytics engineer at Paramount in September after a year of worrying that the layoff was coming.

"I fully expected this layoff," Chea, who lives in San Francisco, tells CNBC Make It. She says she and many colleagues had been on edge since the company began downsizing in late 2023. While losing your job is never a great experience, Chea chooses to focus on the handful of positives that have come from the situation.

For one, she says she's relieved she was let go from her team rather than other colleagues with more financial strains: "I'm glad to hear that it wasn't anyone else on my team who had families or were starting a family or had just bought a house."

Chea had one week to wrap up her work and left with four weeks of severance pay. And she has another fallback to pad her bank accounts: A part-time gig she picked up a year ago as a "mobile oyster shucker."

Becoming a mobile oyster shucker

Chea found the oyster-shucking gig a year ago while scrolling on Instagram, filled out a form, and had a conversation with the owner of Oysters XO, a catering company with outposts around the U.S. Once on-board, she learned how to properly shuck oysters as well as share fun facts about them with party guests. (Her favorite is that oyster farms can help clean the ocean, and that shells can be recycled to help shore up eroding coastlines.)

In the last year, Chea says she's worked one or two events per month, with each gig involving two to three hours of shucking oysters for party guests and entertaining them with lively conversation. One gig took her to Las Vegas for the Super Bowl in February.

"I really like the novelty of it," Chea says. "I think it's crazy to say I only do oyster shucking — in heels. I think I'm a very extroverted person. I really wanted break the monotony of my remote tech job [and] just staring at a computer all day."

Now that she's without a day job, Chea hopes to spend more time shucking for events and helping grow Oyster XO's presence in the Bay Area, especially ahead of the busy holiday season.

Chea declined to share how much she makes shucking oysters, but says that it's generally "more than I thought it would be, and it definitely surprised me, which is also why I keep shucking."

"It is for luxury events" like big corporate parties, weddings and other big gatherings, she adds.

'I'm not in a rush to find a new tech job'

So far, Chea's shucking earnings aren't enough to cover her rent, let alone recover her previous six-figure tech salary. That being said, she feels she's in "a lucky place." In the time she thought a layoff was coming, she lived frugally and saved up roughly a year's worth of living expenses.

As such, "I'm not in a rush to find a new tech job," Chea says. "I've been taking this time to just think about my life and what's next," she says. "I do feel very happy to have relief from the stress and worries about my job. I think that was such a big stressor, working in tech."

Looking ahead, she's happy to explore turning her former part-time job into her full-time pursuit.

"At least right now, I'm very happy to be in the situation to have freedom to explore," she says. "I didn't allow myself the freedom to really explore before."

"I know that it is not necessarily the same for a lot of other folks out there," Chea says of her post-layoff circumstances and optimism.

Ever since she's posted about her experience on social media, "I've seen so many comments of like, 'Oh, she's not crying and sitting at home,'" she says. "I think I just happen to be in a lucky position to [explore] and set myself up for the success of this transition."

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