I Lost My Job!

I’m repurposing this article because much is the same nearly 6 years later.?My hope is that it has the same impact on my friends and colleagues on this platform as it did back then.?You see I received a lot of encouragement and promises to look out for possible jobs I’d be suited for.?IT WORKED!?

A friend, Robert M McCarthy , told me about the job I have just lost. I then reached out, within LinkedIn, to people I knew at Frontier.?I found a job I enjoyed and was challenged by, people I enjoyed working with and a means to support my family, quite literally through 2 kids starting and graduating from college.?So, I’ll repeat with some edits.

I lost my job.?Actually, I was laid off.?We use phrases like that I suppose to lessen the psychological impact of what just happened. It’s tough, no two ways about it.?It’s tough for me, my wife, my boys, my siblings, extended family, friends?and even the poor guy that had to set up a 15-minute meeting with me after a CEO email saying 1500 people were to be let go in the next two days.?You could say I was 99.9% sure what the meeting titled “Organizational Changes” was about the next day.?A tough nights sleep for sure!

?That’s how many are told. Not straight up, “you’re being laid off”, but through that secret code that you immediately start, in a haze, to find to find some meaning other than the obvious. And you are in a haze, no doubt about it.?I’ve been at this company for 5 1/2 years and have seen many friends and colleagues be laid off in that time. Especially in recent years as the company has emerged through bankruptcy and replaced just about all senior leadership. That haze also exists for those with fewer years in and experience in seeing such things.?A new reality is suddenly thrust upon you.?That reality is probably best described as ‘uncertainty’. Scary stuff when you have a family, mortgage, car payments, a shrinking retirement account and a son about to start grad school.

So now what??I immediately found a new job!?No, not a paid position, but one that has me currently balancing my last days at Frontier (June 9th is my last) and trying to reach out to as many people as possible who might “know of something”, and find a new, paid position either somewhere else at Frontier or at another company altogether.?I do have more experience in this new job, having experienced it previously, and that helps, but the fear is still there.?You see a lot is riding on me and my paycheck.?Our way of life quite literally.?My success in this position will have me moving into a new one soon.? I hope.

You reflect a lot in this new world. Many times, at night when you try to sleep, the worst case scenarios rumble through your head.?My advice??Push them aside quickly and focus on the positives.?Severance first, but don’t forget the support of your God, your family, and your friends. All come into play.

I liked the advice I heard from a friend whom I shared my situation with a few years ago now. He said “don’t keep this a secret, let everyone know because you don’t know where help will come from”.?That makes sense to me.?My advice to the hundreds laid off from my company and the thousands recently laid off from other companies across the country??Have faith. Using a phrase heard time and time again since being laid off, ‘God doesn’t close one door without opening another.’?I like that.