A gift for being laid off during the holidays

Laid off for the holidays?? May you find this unexpected gift~

Corporations have a knack for layoffs right before the holidays.? Whether you’ve invested 40 years or 40 weeks of your life working for Corporation X, receiving a layoff notice shifts what should be the most joyous and peaceful season into the most jittery and panicky season.? Instead of planning for ugly sweater parties and trimming the tree, you’re scrambling to calculate Cobra coverage and trimming your monthly budget. Receiving a layoff notice sucks~ there’s no pretty way to frame it.? There’s also no good time of the year to get one.? But perhaps having the work door slam shut for the holidays opens some space in your mind to pause, reflect and recover your time.

Thinking back on 35 Decembers working in the banking industry, the peace and joy of the holiday season didn’t come until mid January. In a Scrooge parody, working in December summons the ghosts of past, present and future.

Ghost of the Past: Arrives with annual performance self assessment, consolidating 11 months of production to plan, professional development, credit quality, community involvement, client advocacy, core values and compliance into some cohesive narrative that will hopefully tell a story supporting an Exceeds Expectations rating and a decent bonus. I have an MA in creative writing and kid-you-not, the performance self assessment was one of the most tedious writing projects I endeavored. The kicker is that my bosses rarely read what I wrote and plopped a few bullet points in the overall comments box to validate their rating.

Ghost of the Present: Reinforces the corporations’ need to meet or exceed Q4 and full year financial targets: Revenue growth, EPS, Efficiency Ratios, Pre Provision Income among other targets.? Unfortunately, many employees feel targets on their backs rolling into the holiday season. When I was working in the retail branches, the bank had the brilliant idea of launching a sales campaign that ran from November through New Year’s Eve.? The reward was an all expenses paid trip to Cabo for the top 1% of branches in each Division. Dangling this carrot got us all working early and late through Thanksgiving, Black Friday,? Christmas Eve and the week leading up to New Years selling deposit accounts, money markets, equity loans and credit cards. Sure the kids were out of school and the slopes looked epic, but there’s a competition to win. It took a few years to recognize that all this “fun” (read pressure) made a meaningful dent in the Q4 numbers without any consolation prize for the 99% of branch employees who put in all the extra effort and didn’t win.

Ghost of the Future: December kicks off goal setting for the upcoming year, including BHAG (Big, Hairy, Ass-pirational, Goals) expense reductions, reassessment of staffing needs, shifting strategic priorities from the most recent cadre of Productivity Consultants, employee performance calibration, succession planning and allocating bonus pools to each business line, division, region, and team down to each individual employee.? December through January 3rd was a flurry of activity deeper than the snow drifts gathering on the mountains. Thinking back, I missed being fully present with family, friends, and even myself for 35 Holiday Seasons because the ghosts of business past, present and future were an ear worm worse than the Chipmunk’s Christmas Song.

This year is different.? Letting the door shut on work opens up the wonders of the present and a transformed relationship with time.? No deadlines, no sense of urgency, no spreadsheets or accounting for your contributions to the company.? Maybe this lay off time is a pause between what was past and what you decide is your future.? You now have this present: it gives you permission to wake up on your own clock, take a walk in the brisk air, notice the frost on the ground and the smell of coffee in your own home with the people you love. Work on a thousand piece puzzle.? Binge watch all of your favorite Christmas movies while wearing PJs. Play Cards against Humanity with your neighbors over a bottle (or two?) of wine. Read for your pleasure, not for your professional development. Use this present to do what you haven’t for so many years.

Maybe this lay off time prompts you to assess what work gave you and what work demanded.? Maybe you take this time to breathe, pause and be present in this holiday season with what matters most to you.?

Then after the holidays, you can choose where you will share your many, many skills and talents while maintaining a space for you to be present.? ?