“Turns out the guy hadn’t even told his wife that he had been laid off.”
There are a lot of other cases where the guy accepts that he has been laid off but still puts on the work clothes every morning and then just goes to a local park or something during the “work day” to avoid telling his wife what has happened.
If they can get a new job relatively quickly they might get away with it—and in some cases save their marriage.
I got laid off with 5 minutes notice from a job I had for 20 years. The first person I told was my wife. Hated the place but I cared about my team under me, other wise I would have quit years earlier. Took a few months off and found a better job. They closed the department down a few months later.