JOB LOSS & JOB LIFE: The Words That Changed Me

One year ago this week, I was handed my walking papers from a job I had worked hard at for 4 years. This article isn’t about that. That doesn’t matter. What matters is what you do after you’ve taken a hit.

Many news managers, anchors, reporters, producers – all risk the moment “your services are no longer needed” without much explanation. The higher up you are, the more “at-risk” you might be. Maybe it was a "change in direction", maybe you "weren't a good fit", maybe you were "too much" of something or "too little" of another.

I’ve talked to several of you the past few weeks about this very topic. I’ve seen the shock in your eyes, I’ve heard the self-doubt in your voice, and most times I’ve seen the spark that is still there, even when buried deep down. You inspired me to write this article.

I’d like to hope my experience can help you pick up after a hit.

First, give yourself the first few weeks if you can, to just process what happened. Either keep yourself busy or do nothing at all – whatever works for YOU. Get your head right. Even if you hated the job, you are still going to have ego kick in. The parts of the job and certain people there you are going to miss in a way that echoes through your being. You will have moments where you want to text someone something you saw, as you had for years, and that line is now cut off. And it’s going to hurt. You are going to question everything you ever knew about yourself, and you are going to have to own up for whatever role you had in the situation before you are going to be good to any other employer.

It was just hours after I was let go that the calls started coming in for jobs. The days that followed were filled with helpful people in my nationwide circle wanting to help. This helped and it hurt. Was I ready to start looking? How do I explain it? Is this a pity call?

Being the person I am, I took every call, heard every job opportunity. I did several interview calls while I was still letting the reality process. I would have preferred to say, “Can we wait a few weeks?” but I know how news hiring works and a few weeks seemed like a few weeks too late. I met some great people and got even more interview experience, but none of it stuck.

God bless the former colleague who talked to me about jobs who said “I’m not going to interview you now, but we always have openings, even in COVID. When you are ready to talk, call me. But not a second before. I just wanted to support you in this time. I know what you are going through.” 

I questioned if News was right for me anymore.

I looked at a life devoted to news and wondered if news left me long before I wanted to leave it.

I know several people in my tribe who have faced this same thing. The relentless demand of working in news, at any and all levels, is a lot to take. Throw in a pandemic and stress and staffing levels and hiring freezes and even more calls at all hours of the day and it seems like news really TRIES to chew you up and spit you out.

Did I want to return the favor?

It’s okay to self-evaluate between each job, or while you are at a current job. We aren’t all cut out for news life in different stages of life. As work/life balance continues to be more of a “thing”, news is a fickle mistress. She’ll send a big storm in the overnight hours. She’ll ruin your Saturday with a shootout in the middle of a highway. She’ll drop a pandemic in your life when you’ve just come off a major project that took what little you felt you had left.

There are people who do move on, whether willingly or not. They decide their life needs a different cadence to it. I consider the friends I've seen leave news some of the bravest people I've ever known. It's a hard thing to walk away from. It's not a job or career, it's a way of life. It's a life with three TV's, two screens, and a habit of always looking for news even when on vacation. You didn't fail if you got out of the business, you just switched courses. You decided we were the majestic Titanic in human form, and you didn't want to hit the upcoming iceberg.

For me, the beckon back was strong. It all came down to one thing – I felt like I had lost a purpose in life. We were in the middle of a news story that would define several generations and their tenacity. An election was coming up that would change the course of the country one way or another. I was sitting on the bench and that’s never been a place I feel comfortable. There wasn’t anything else, barring opening a giant Golden Retriever farm, that was going to give me a purpose. And the Golden Retriever farm was a stretch.

So, I buckled down, got all the supplies I needed to present myself. I hadn’t needed an actual resume in years, so I had to make one. I had to investigate numerous markets to see if that was a place for me. I schedule time for “job search” and “personal life” during this time, because as you know – looking for a job is a full-time job. Maybe that’s the catch? They keep you so busy at work so you don’t have time to look for other jobs!

Then I saw a job that piqued my interest. The first one that was like “Yeah, I want to look into this.” As luck would have it, the person who was interviewing for that position reached out to me before I could even finish my cover letter.

With COVID stopping travel, luck turned in my favor as this person had a house two hours from where I lived, and we met halfway. We sat outside in the July summer heat of Florida, keeping six feet apart and chugging water faster than I could sweat it out. For hours we talked about strategy, missions, goals, the business, and even shared some stories between mutual friends (we are all three degrees, at best, separated in this business.)

During the chat at one point, this person who was just interviewing me for the first time said words that changed me.

“I want you to know I believe in you”, he said while sweat dripped down his brow.

It was the only moment I was so glad we were having this meeting on the surface of the sun because he wouldn’t be able to tell the sweat on my face from the tears in my eyes.

I don’t know what he said for about the next 10 minutes, because I was internalizing that one comment. I didn’t realize how much I needed to hear that. I hadn’t been told that in years. I am not one to need praise, as I feel my paycheck is the reward for a job well done. I do appreciate the support for above and beyond, mind you, but I just don’t want anyone to ever feel they have to say, “thank you for allowing us to pay you to do your job right.”

Or had I just gotten used to not getting praise? Was I just that bad that I hadn’t deserved it? I saw nothing but giving actual blood, sweat, and tears to a job that left me holding a stack of papers one fine morning.

Who was this person? Why did he believe in me? I hadn’t done anything for him, yet!

As I stood up to leave, two things went through my mind. One, thank goodness I wore the flowered dress because I sweated through it so much it weighed 3 times more than when dry, and two, I think this is the place for me.

Through a twist of fate, I didn’t get into the position I was interviewing for and I joke now I am in a job I never actually applied for in the first place. It was within the same company. The same place that believed in me.

I started my new job two months to the day I was let go from the old one.

It’s a place where I can do what I made to do – Journalism. It’s a place filled with people who just want to do better, even when the odds appear to be stacked against us. It’s a place we are tasked with rebuilding something that was neglected – and forming our own future. We don’t have a long, storied history of success to build on, we are doing it brick by brick and idea by idea.

So, what should you do if you find yourself out of a job:

-       Take your time to feel all the emotions. Yes, even the ones you don’t talk about.

-       You don’t have to answer every call and text that comes your way. Or even just a, “I need some time to process this, but thanks for thinking of me.”

-       At the same time, you’ll be surprised who does and doesn’t call you in the aftermath. I got calls from people I never knew really supported me that much, and some people I considered allies fell off my grid. While it can feel personal, it isn’t. They might not know what to say. They might not give a crap about you after all. It doesn’t really matter. You’ll find out who your real tribe is when they no longer have anything to gain from you but are still reaching out.

-       Be careful of what you say if you do talk to people, even those you trust. Words have a habit of being twisted around in normal situations, much less in an emotional and potentially legal situation.

-       Don’t go on social media with passive-aggressive comments or lash out. Can’t resist? Shut down your social media for a week.

-       Don’t get into the gossip from the former workplace that will come your way. My message to anyone who asked anything was “You just keep doing good journalism. I’ll land on my feet.” 

-       Enjoy the break, even if it’s just a short time.

-       Know how you are going to explain this to a potential employer. You are probably going to get asked, so practice ahead of time. Be honest, but not bitter. Decide it you are going to bring it up first, or wait until asked.

-       Don’t waste time questioning “why”. Sometimes the answers aren’t that clear. Rest your mind with the peace that you did some things right and others wrong. Focus on who that makes you in the future and not the past.

-       Don’t go to “worst-case scenario”. You aren’t going to end up living out of your car, homeless, or desolate. You are going to bounce back in some way, some business, or some new adventure. That’s wasted time and energy to look at your cardboard boxes and start thinking of signs to hold at busy intersections. Put that energy into writing your resume and making connections.

One of my mentors once told me, as I dreamed of being a News Director someday, that “You’re not a real News Director until you’ve gotten fired and didn’t see it coming.” But honestly, it can happen at any and all levels of this business. Sometimes you get demoted, which comes with its own sour sting.

There are times people get fired for legal reasons or violation of company codes of conduct. If you’ve gotten a DUI or some other kind of arrest, decide how you are going to explain that. Just don’t hide it. They will find out. It could be their own due diligence or it could come back on a background check. Don’t lie about what happened but find a way to explain it and how it made you better, and why you are worth taking a chance on at this point in your career. Knock on wood, I’m lucky I haven’t had so much as a speeding ticket since 2003, but there are people who have really serious issues in their past. Be prepared to talk about how you have grown since. Be accepting that it might haunt you for a while, but as time goes on, the latitude for forgiveness is wider.

For those who get let go for no real tangible reason, or a reason you can’t talk about, don’t worry that you are now “damaged goods”.

Each hiring manager and company look at candidates with a little more grace than anyone would naturally expect.

Even as the years wear on and life experiences fill the blank lines in my resume, I’m a little more understanding of people who got let go.

Don't just take my word for it, look at the industry trade sites. People are coming and going all the time. People "get resigned" and show up weeks or months later. People don't get fired and vanish into an abyss. They bounce back. You can too.

I had someone say to me during an interview post-June 2020, “I know you think you have to explain what happened, but you don’t. I don’t care. I want to know what you are going to do for me now.”

There might be some people out there who look at a termination, make some calls behind the scenes, and decide you aren’t going to work out for whatever reference-check-that-never-happened reason, you can’t control that. You don’t want to work someplace where they are holding a half-story against you anyway.

Find the place that believes in you. Find the words that change your life. Find the place that breathes a whole new life into you.