The Emotions of Being Jobless

For many of us in tech roles (Design, engineering, product, data science, etc), even those who have lost a job before, this is truly the first time we have dealt with joblessness and the emotions that surround it. Yes, the Great Recession was scary for those of us who worked through it or graduated during it, however, it was still fairly easy to put a resume together, get interviews, and wait for the offers to pour in. The last 18 months have been different, very different and it doesn't really show up in the numbers and I'm not sure a lot of people are truly prepared to handle the emotions of being jobless for an extended period of time or going through multiple layoffs. I'm certainly not in any way or capacity able to handle the emotions of it. In fact, my MO is to bury it, and shame all the emotions of being jobless away because "Everyone is going through it" or "Stay positive" or "Something will turn up".

Social media and Linkedin are a treasure trove of people trying to articulate something along the lines of "I'm going on a new adventure", "Taking time to reflect and recharge", and "Looking forward to a new opportunity". While all of those things can be true, the other less talked about side of it is the abject feeling of fear and failure that comes with the open-to-work banner (oh yeah I still have mine up because without it only people using LinkedIn recruiter can see I am open to work which seems like an absolute failure on LinkedIns part). The fear, anger, and frustration are talked about initially but often it gets drowned out in the need to stay "determined, confident, and hopeful". I'm going to take a risk and do something new. Instead of burying my emotions, I am going to bare them in an effort to help me change my own behavior of categorizing my emotions as "bad" or good" and then shaming away the emotions I have deemed not okay to feel for whatever contrived reason in my head.

For better or worse my job has been my identity for years and I have loved that is my identity. Being a product manager, and working with developers, designers, and a lot of other people made me feel like a cool kid, which was something I never was growing up. I grew up in a military family so I was always the new kid and I didn't do well with the new kid tests. Even at that age, I buried my emotions and they usually came out in ways let made me even less cool. Losing my job and dealing with ghosting, rejection and everything that comes with it taps into those middle school and high school years. Just like in high school my emotional state right now can be described as "unsuccessful loser". Instead of denying that feeling, I am embracing it. Last night with my amazing wife I described it. For me it smells like the middle school cafeteria, it's telling me I will never be cool, and I won't be part of the cool kids club. If it was an object it would be a 45 pound weight plate. It's uncomfortable as hell to sit with but I am. In fact last night I gave that feeling a hug and told it, you can stay here as long as you need. Because I just put my daughter down with a warm bottle of milk I gave that emotion a bottle of milk too.

I don't know how long I will carry this emotion, it could be for a while, I may even carry it after finding a job. I'm not sure, but what I don't want to do is shame it away, categorize it as something I am not supposed to feel and continue plugging away at the job search. Even as I write, almost everything in my body is fighting me and telling me that's not okay which is why I am writing it. To all those with the banner (or not displaying it) I bare this in hopes that it might help you make space on your emotional couch for the difficult and uncomfortable thoughts you might be having in your own job search!