I was laid-off on Thursday. I’ve decided to write about the experience
of being unintentionally unemployed for a few reasons: to ward off lethargy; to
build routine; to stay sharp and think critically; and so I can look back next
time and perhaps be better at being unemployed. Whatever that means.
I had a bad feeling
about the cuts this time around for three main reasons;
- This was the first time the company seemed an exciting place to be
- I was finally doing something I liked and was pretty good at (if I do say so myself)
- Looking at my team objectively, I would have fired us. Evidently they felt the same way.
I think normally I would have felt self conscious about my
performance (or lack thereof) that led to the separation. But I am proud of the
work I was doing, and among those who also found themselves on the business end
of a severance package were some of the more talented and charismatic folks I’ve
been around at work. So I’m not taking it personally.
However, I am beginning to realize how closely connected I
have allowed my identity to become to my job title. “I am a Program Manager” is no longer an applicable phrase. So what
is left? Well, the need to decouple myself from my title, for starters.
The actual experience of being separated was pretty good,
all things considered. The director who did the dirty work was appropriately –
if not unnecessarily – macabre. I’m sure there were others in much tougher
positions than my own, so his air of seriousness was mostly lost on me. Also, the
lump-sum payout was nearly three times higher than I was expecting, which will
lighten pretty much any mood.
I walked out of my meeting and back down to my desk feeling a
slight sense of excitement at finding myself in a situation I’ve never faced
before; being handed a puzzle with some weight that needs solving and a timeline to solve it in.
I grabbed a few things from my desk I didn’t want to lose, wrote the obligatory
“so long and thanks for all the fish” email to my coworkers (come to think of
it, why the fuck didn’t I put that as
the subject line?!), hugged a few folks who had gathered around my cube to say
their goodbyes, and headed home. I had a soccer game at 8 pm, and no amount of
firing was going to wreck a day that ends like that.
So that was day-of.
Day one, today, is Friday. I suspect that I would have been precisely
as productive at work as I have been so far, had I retained employment. The
biggest challenge I have right now is trying to understand what kind of
progress I should expect to have made and by when. I don’t want to panic and go
find just any job. But I also don’t want to hold out forever and pass up
acceptable opportunities. How to strike that balance is something I’m looking
for more clarity around.
They say you should switch companies every 5 – 7 years to
expand breadth as well as depth of experience. Three months shy of six years into T-Mobile, I'm now I’m forced to do that. The
other thing I’m forced to do is better define (or rather, begin to define) what
it is that I want to do. This may be an opportunity to align work with personal
interests and passions. This also may be an exercise in naïveté. We shall see.
