How To Cope with LOSING YOUR JOB

                Remember graduation day, when you set out to conquer the world?  You were going to do great things with your life.  Make a difference.  Be somebody.  Then the years passed, and your noble notions about being a mover and shaker faded.  You were willing to settle for a nice, steady paycheck that provided enough income to support your lifestyle.  You had a family.  You went on vacations to Disney World.  Life was good.

                Then you got pink slipped, and now you’re just another worthless leech sucking the government teat.  Make a difference?  Ha.  Now you’re less than nothing.  You find yourself wishing you had the money from all those vacations to Disney World.  The cost of that week could have kept you afloat for several more months.  You can’t eat those priceless memories.

                No matter how it happens, whether you were downsized, made a huge mistake, or the new boss just didn’t like your face, losing your job ranks up there as one of the most devastating, traumatic events that could happen in your lifetime.  I should know; I lost my job twice in the last three years.  The first one really hurt, and that took me by surprise, since I was expecting it.  Even wanted it, because I’d just received my paralegal certification and the lay off coincided with a career change I was planning on anyway.  It still felt like a huge slap in the face.

                Don’t be surprised to experience any of the following:

1.       A Deep-Seated Feeling of Rejection

Even if you knew you were being downsized for awhile, if members of your department were kept, and you weren’t, it’s going to feel like a punch in the gut.  Especially since, in my case, my company chose to keep mostly new hires who had zero experience doing the job.  The days of “last hired, first hired” are over.  Now companies tend to fire the people who are making the most and keep the ones making the least, which means those eager beaver recent college graduates making peanuts are getting your job, even if they do it badly.  And in case you’re wondering, that feels like shit. 

2.       Resentment

After working eight and a half years at a job, I kind of felt I was owed more.  I was loyal to the company to a fault.  I spouted the company line, recommended our services to anyone I thought could use them, rarely took days off, and basically appreciated the hell out of them.  They let me go without a second thought.  After years of being told we were a family, suddenly my membership was revoked.  To make matters worse, an absolute asshole who tried to get me fired, bad mouthed the company nonstop, and did zero kept her job.

3.       Grief

I liked most of the people I worked with, and I liked the company culture. I still miss it.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had bosses since who have spontaneously taken me to lunch, or sent me home just because it was a beautiful day outside.  But I miss the feeling of unity that prevailed in our little community, the Weight Watchers at work meetings I had once a week, the way there was often cake in the lunch room just when I was in the mood for something sweet.  I miss the birthday celebrations, the way that certain coworkers drove you nuts, and even the little dramas that would pop up here and there.  (But I hated when I had a starring role; I preferred to be an observer).  Oh, and goddamn, do I miss a commute that was 8-15 minutes depending on traffic.  Especially commuting an hour now.  Don’t be surprised to experience a period of mourning, particularly if you liked your job and was there awhile.  You’ve established relationships and a routine, and that was taken away.  Even if you keep in touch with your coworkers, you know from experience most of those relationships won’t survive the transition.  It’s heartwrenching.

4.       Humiliation.  I experienced this even though neither of my job losses were directly my fault.  It’s embarrassing to lose your job, to have everyone know that you were not one of the chosen.  Whether or not your termination was your fault, you will feel humiliated.  In the end, it doesn't matter why you were fired, just that you were.   In many cases, you were even escorted from the building with a box of your belongings like a criminal by someone you waved hello to in the hallway every morning.  (Fortunately, I was not escorted out either time, although HR was escorting people out during my first mass lay off.  They didn’t bother with me, perhaps because I was acting too excited about my severance paycheck).  After you're let go, rumors will be spread about the reasons, even if it was no fault.  This often happens during a layoff.  The people remaining require reassurance their job is safe, so they invent a narrative that makes them feel  in control, ie you were fired because your productivity was lacking.

5.       Panic.  You have a car payment, a house payment, and people who rely on you.  Back when you never thought it would happen to you, you would shrug off losing your job as something of little consequence.  “I’ll just go on unemployment, it'll be like a paid vacation."  Now reality is setting in, as you realize unemployment is nowhere near what you were making a week.  Yeah, and if you’re like most Americans, you don’t have much in the way of savings put by, either. 

6.       Fear. What if this is it for you and you never get another job?  You know it happens.  There are plenty of Americans out there who wound up in the streets when they lost their jobs.  You always thought you were different than the people who lined up at soup kitchens; now the day when you become one of them may not be so very far off.  You always thought you had control over your destiny; losing your job just taught you that hey, not so much.  You don’t know what’s lurking around the corner, what you’ll be doing a month from now, or a year from now.  What happens when unemployment runs out?  Can you move back in with your parents, crash on a friend’s couch?

7.       Depression. No matter how confident you are, it’s hard not to feel like the world’s biggest loser when you’re unemployed.  A man’s identity has always been entwined with his job, and increasingly that is the case with women, too, especially if you’re single.  Now you have no identity.  You’re no one.  When I was unemployed, I started looking forward to cleaning the house, a chore I despise.  Cleaning gave me a feeling of purpose I was lacking.

                How can you bounce back from such a devastating blow?  Here are some tips:

1.       Allow Yourself to Express Your Feelings. We’ve inexplicably developed a stigma against people who express emotion.  We’ve even come up with derogative nicknames for them.  Guess what.  The healthiest thing for you to do is cry, smash a plate, call a friend.  You know why?  That will help you move onto the next thing quicker.  You know what won’t help?  Drinking, doing drugs, binge eating, refusing to get out of bed and wallowing in misery.  For some reason, those behaviors are prized and encouraged as “normal reactions,” while releasing a few tears and letting yourself go through the stages of grief is condemned as a sign of weakness.  Kind of counter-productive not to do what will help, right?  Society loves miserable people.  They’d rather have you drown your sorrows in a bottle of wine then air your issues and move on.

2.       Start Looking for Another Job. Trust me, you’re not going to want to, because the last thing you’re going to feel like doing is hauling your loser ass out of bed and going on an interview to try to sell yourself when you were just fired.  You are not going to feel confident.  Fake it.  Even worse, applying for job after job and not even scoring an interview is demoralizing.  Yes.  It sucks.  Everyone unemployed goes through it, you're not alone.   Remember, you only need one job to click.  Hang in there.  The sooner you get through this, the faster you’ll be back on your feet.

3.       Explore Creative Ways of Making Money. I looked into freelance writing as an option.  I prefer a steady paycheck, which was why I took a new job, but had I not found one, I would have written for my supper.  But freelance writing isn’t the only thing that’s out there that you can do under your own power.  Uber is always looking for drivers.  And there are now shopping apps where users order groceries, and people like you drive to the supermarket, pick them up, and deliver them to their doorstep for a fee.  Believe it or not, I know people who have made eight hundred dollars in a single day with a little hustle.  Don’t turn your nose up at odd jobs.  Be creative.  See what is out there.

4.       Go Back to School. New York, the state I’m in, now offers free undergraduate tuition to residents who make under a certain income.  If you’re not in state, there are always student loans.  In my case, I’d heard whispers that eventually my department was being eliminated, and I returned to school to train for another career just in time.  If you’re like me, your college major was something totally random and lacking in real life application such as philosophy.  This time around you need to train for a specific career, and I suggest you do your research to discover what 1. You’d like to do and 2. What job positions are currently in high demand.  You need to train quickly for a career that almost guarantees you a job.  Keep that in mind.  Philosophize in your free time, it won’t put food on your table.

There is no denying that losing your job is a traumatic experience, and one many people share.  It’s not something you can just snap out of or get over, it’s a profound loss, a death of self.  But like any tragedy, you can emerge from it stronger.  It’s the end of a world, but not the world.