When job loss is a gain

Losing a job. Yikes. No matter what the circumstances, most people would admit it stings. Whatever the opposite of ‘warms the cockles of your heart’ is, I would feel safe saying that separating from a job would be that feeling.

Let’s face it, even among those of us who do not strongly self-identify with the work we do every day, job loss raises insecurities, heightens irritation, and sometimes even evokes anger. One feeling most people would not associate with job loss, however, is ‘grateful.’

Yes. Grateful. Not at first, and admittedly not for several years afterwards, but eventually, yes.

I am sharing a personal story as job loss is a situation I have supported many of my peers through and navigated myself.

In 2002, after months of extremely emotional circumstances including the 9/11 terrorist attacks (I was living in NYC at that time) and the bursting of the (tech) dot com bubble, there was a collective economic and emotional fragility in NYC. Layoffs abounded, and I found myself as a redundancy ‘survivor’ at the PR agency where I was working at the time.

Though I survived those reductions, I decided I would be ‘safer’ working in-house, in a sector not as frenetic as I had found tech start-ups to be. I moved into a communications role within the insurance sector, securing a position at a well-known reinsurance company. The role included new business lines, products, topics, and exposure to many other areas of a company – compliance and BCM to name a few. It was thrilling.

A year into my role, however, my company acquired another firm which had its own communications department. As I was more junior, hired later than several others, my position was eliminated as part of resizing.

I was devastated. I could not understand. I had worked hard. I had produced excellent work. I had established credibility and dialogue across a company with 20,000 people. How could this happen?

It does happen, though. Every day. To good people. After the initial shock, I decided to apply for other roles, but also concurrently, to apply for part time MBA programs. In short order, I found myself accepted to a new company while embarking on a graduate degree.

Termination from that job felt like tectonic plates shifting so severely, it caused volcanic disruption to my entire sense of self. I felt I had lost something ‘perfect’ for me. I questioned the level of skill I possessed.

Always wiser in hindsight, years later I can fully admit that redundancy was a blessing well disguised. It proved the catalyst for me to begin my MBA program, which has benefitted me throughout my career. It was also an unorthodox choice at the time, and it remains uncommon for communications professionals to pursue that kind of degree. It has become one of my professional USPs, which has served me well.

It also pushed me to always have a "Plan B" and to ensure I remained connected to people within and outside of wherever I was working at the time. Eggs, meet many baskets.

I know many of my colleagues are searching for new roles right now – either due to recent job loss or expected job loss. So mostly I wanted to opine on this topic in compassionate solidarity. But also, to note that sometimes, a loss is eventually a much bigger gain, if you open your mind to new and different possibilities.

Sometimes, it feels you may be taking steps backwards. I encourage you to think of it more like a slingshot. You are pulling back, yes, and it is quite tense. But it is with purpose. Once the right time comes, you are then propelled forward at a much greater speed than you had expected.

Oh and as a fun ending: That reinsurance company called me a year and a half after my departure, asking me to return in a more senior role, which I happily accepted.

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