Anonymous
“To Be Laid Off Is Not The End”
I was completely surprised when I was laid off, although looking back now, I realize I should have seen some serious warning signs. The day it happened, I had a meeting scheduled at four o'clock with my boss and the other sales director. I walked into my boss’ office, and he shut the door and said, "I am so sorry to have to tell you this, but we are restructuring, and your position has been eliminated." It was a complete surprise. I felt like I'd been hit between the eyes. He was very caring. He deliberately set this time to give me the news because everybody else was still downstairs at an event. He said, "I will answer all your questions that I can right now, but I also want you to realize that you're probably in shock, and I am available for you from here through the foreseeable future. You can choose to leave the office right now and not come back. You can return for as long as you want to clean up your business. I trust you. I believe that you will handle this well. You do need to meet with HR as soon as possible. We can have you meet with them right now, and I am here if you need me further; this doesn't have to be the only time we meet." I was like, "Oh, okay."
The first thing I wanted to do was to find out why, and my boss could not answer that. He said, “It was not performance-related; we value you greatly, we are restructuring. I can't speak to the restructuring right now because not all parties have been notified, but we can do that in the coming days.” So, I got up and went to HR to get my severance package. I've been at this company for about eight, maybe ten years, and I had a pretty good idea of what I would get. But the woman at HR was very thoughtful and, again, very private. She said, "I'm going to give you a bunch of papers, but I would like you to go home and look at them and either come back in person or we can talk on the phone." I said, "Okay, I think you're right about that. I don't want to go through all this detail now, but I want to return in the next few weeks. I have a million projects that I care very much about, and I want to work my way through them. She said, "That's fine. That's been approved by your superiors, so we can meet in person when you're ready."
I was so emotional and quite distraught. I was 63 at the time and concerned about being able to get another job. Also, I was worried about telling my husband. I commute from the city back home, and my husband picks me up. I thought, "I can't tell him while driving because he may run into a telephone pole." So, as soon as we got out, I said, "Look, Richard. We have to talk." We went into the house, and I said, "I've been laid off." He was very concerned and angry at the company but also said, "Look. We're going to be fine. I don't want you to worry financially. We can survive this, even if you never get another job." That was probably a lie, but it was still very comforting and took some of the pressure off. I am the breadwinner in our family, and it was a big concern that we might lose our house. So that was day one.
Moving forward:
I also thought about whom I should tell in my family. My parents were old, and I didn't want to worry them, so I waited a day to let them know. By then, I had a good idea of my severance package, which was generous--more than what was in the employee manual. I started shifting my focus immediately to ensure I had the best package and whether I should go to court or threaten to go to court. I talked to my siblings and parents; my dad was particularly interested in that fight. One of my siblings is a lawyer, and he said, "I'll just tell you. Legally, you have a very tough battle to prove ageism." He said, "If you want to go that route, you will have to be able to prove that several people have been laid off in your age group and nobody else." Guess what? They'd laid off a couple of 25-year-olds, a couple of 40-year-olds, and me. So, I dropped all thoughts of suing, and it actually was good for me. I knew that would probably kill me, to have to threaten my company with legal-- ugh, it would have been too hideous. So, I started looking at the package. Part of the package was to promise you would not contest the layoff.
I also had to sign an NDA right away. I took my sweet time, talked to many people, including some insiders, who gave me really good advice, and said, "I believe you could get a little more if you hold out." So, I held out for a few more days and did get some additional package pieces. I'm in sales and got my bonus for the whole year, even though that year was not over. They rolled it into my severance package, so I got it as a lump sum. And I got a couple of extra weeks, and ultimately, I felt good about bargaining and getting the most out of the situation.
Being laid off was a relief in some way because, as I looked back over the last few years, I had been sidelined from some important accounts, and I felt increasingly marginalized. I should have recognized that those were signs that I was not as valuable as I had thought and that they were trying to make me quit.
Nobody could say that, but they were moving my colleague, who was younger and at a lower salary than me, into a higher position of authority. And they were taking from me to do that. It was a monetary business decision to cut overhead costs. Whom were they going to pick? The younger, cheaper person proving that she could handle it, or the older, more expensive person? I decided not to take it personally. I mean, as much as you could not take it personally.
One of the package benefits was to offer unemployment, reemployment, and training. A couple of my friends who had been laid off from other publishers said, "Do it, do it wholeheartedly; you don't know what you don't know because you've been working for a long time and always got a job through referrals. You must go back to square one and figure out your resume and contacts." Again, I started shifting my focus. As I cleaned my desk, went through my projects, and said goodbye to people, I decided to adjust my thinking to moving forward, not backward.
That worked for me because I am a positive person. Yes, I was angry. Yes, it was unfair. On the other hand, it was business. A business will always decide based on what's good for the company. And sadly enough, our business would have needed to grow more to warrant keeping me.
After the layoff, ironically, the boss who laid me off stuck by me for the next couple of weeks. I worked there for two more weeks. He hinted that I might get a better package and arranged for me to meet with our president. That was meaningful because I had always felt like she had it in for me. As we talked, she had genuine tears in her eyes and spoke about the need to trim staff in the least disruptive way. It helped to hear that. My boss and the president told me that they would give me a good job reference, and they wanted to do that, which made me feel better. By staying there for those two weeks, I could say goodbye to everybody, for which I was thankful. And my reports came in and were truly crying on my shoulder, "We're going to miss you." Sometimes, people leave a company immediately because they can't stand the humiliation of being laid off. I am glad I had the time to wrap things up and say my goodbyes.
But for me, I didn't feel humiliated. I was like, "Hey, this is just bad luck." I am well paid; I am old, and they only need one director. I don't see that as me. I don't think that's humiliating. I chose not to define it that way. It was helpful because it was reinforced by everyone I knew. And a lot of them came in and said, "Oh, those bastards," and "They really screwed you," all of which validated how I was feeling.
Part of what helped me was trust. We negotiated contracts with accounts, and I cared a lot about those. And so, I was like, "Well, I suppose you don't want me to sit in on those meetings next week?" They were like, "No, come on. We want you." So that was very affirming, and that helped a lot. In the meantime, my husband said, "They're using you. Don't do a single bit more work." And we didn't finalize the package for probably a week, and during that time, he was like, "They're sitting on it. You should sue them." But I'd already done my homework. I knew that wasn't where I wanted to go, and it was probably a fruitless path. And to me, keeping those relationships was very important. These people promised to help me in the future, and they did.
I got excellent job references from my boss and others, and they were really pivotal because when you're laid off and pursuing a new job, you have your story about why you left your job, but why would they necessarily believe you if they don't get a chance to talk to your former employer? So, I had that in my pocket, which was great. If I'd made a big stink and had gone into a long, evolved legal process, all that would have done was hurt those relationships. And I wouldn't get another penny. Ultimately, my boss wanted to set me up for success.
I have always loved my work. I've been in the same business for 40 years and want to be in it for another 40 years. I didn't have to think about what I wanted to do next. I didn’t have to think about it to see if I was missing something. I knew it still was what I wanted to do, so I didn't have to really take a break.
Before I left my job, I was taking ballet lessons. It has been something that I integrated into my life. I started as an adult and found that it is my physical exercise and spiritual connection. There's something magical about moving the body to live music and trying to achieve something increasingly unachievable as I get older, but it is still very meaningful. It's like meditation, my happy place. There are different components to this whole thing. There is the transition that we go through, which is, obviously, transitioning from the job and separating from the company. Still, there is also consistency in our everyday lives that we want to keep untouched. Doing ballet and those types of things helped me transition through this process.
It was tempting to go home and have a martini, but instead, it was so much better to go to a class, be with people, and hear music and feel-- to work your body and get those endorphins working. Ballet classes cost money, but Richard and I agreed that that was worth that money and probably a lot cheaper than therapy.
Advice I would give someone who has been laid off:
When someone goes through a layoff, holding up, being ashamed, and not telling people what happened is tempting. I went the other way. I told people as soon as I went to church the next week. And they were so kind and so caring. And they all said I didn't deserve it and so on. But I have seen others who shrink back from the world. They've been wounded and don't have the energy or trust to go out. And it's really important to be kind to yourself, and if you need that hunkering-down time, you should do it. But for me, I needed people. I needed affirmation. I needed exercise. I needed to be active. And I needed to feel like I was doing something. I'm the kind of person who, when I'm depressed, cleans my house.
That makes me feel better. That doesn't work for everybody, and there's no shame for those who don't. But if you could get yourself up and out, it's a better path. It's really hard to break negativity when you're all by yourself.
If you stay in that negative place and talk about all its negative parts, that's how people will respond. But if you do it in a way where you're even talking about it, the positive, upbeat piece of this, understanding this is a business transaction, that type of thing, it does change how the conversation goes from there.
And the more you say it, the more you believe it yourself. It's interesting because part of this is that other people don't know how to talk about it, and other people don't know how to-- because they're so worried about what other people will think or what the person hearing it is concerned about saying the wrong thing. Talking about a big negative change in your life can burden the other person. And many times, you might say, “How are you? I'm fine. Good, you? Yeah, good.” You walk off. You can't do that when someone says, "Well, I got laid off." You must stop.
You must be empathetic. And I recognize that when you tell people bad news, you're trusting that they will accept that burden of showing they care and maybe even help you. And that's an implied transactional thing. You're asking them for something implicitly. Of course, we all struggle with our egos, and while I sound really confident, I wasn't. Many mornings, I'd get up and think, it doesn't matter what I do. I'm old. I'm not going to get a job. But then I know the tricks that should've jump-kicked my positivity, and one of them is getting that cup of coffee and getting out. Get out of the house. I tried to counter that chain of thought because it was there. It is there for everybody.
My transformation:
It was scary to be at home. I was very worried about my husband micromanaging my life because he's like that, and I had always been out all day at work. I had my world. I love him dearly, but I didn't want it to come between us that he was like, "What are you doing, and why are you doing this? Maybe you should be doing that." But he carved out space and left me alone unless I wanted to. That was a big relief to me. I decided that I would keep coming to the city often. That was part of my routine; my ballet classes and publishing friends were there. Amazingly, people reached out to me and said, "Come into the city. Let's have lunch. I have some ideas. I have some contacts to give you." I was energized and charged to reach out to this larger group. I was very fortunate. I've been in the business a long time. I have a million contacts, and publishing is a very generous world. We always reach out to each other and try to find the right job for somebody, even a college intern. We all do it.
There are many turnovers in business these days. My transition ended up being two or three times a week, going in for my coaching, meetings, and coffee. I probably had a million coffees over the next eight months while I was job hunting. Some of them were with people I hadn't seen for 35 years. I had to look them up on LinkedIn to figure out where I knew them, but they were willing to meet with me. And again, you try not to be a burden; you try not to give them a sob story, "Hey, this is business. I'm moving on. I'm ready to get something else. I'm looking for something much less pay." They were generous to open the door and relieved I wouldn’t be sobbing on their sleeve.
What did I learn about myself during that transition?
I realized that I am really strong, but I'm also strong because of my relationships. I'm not strong in isolation. I need to be with people. I like to be with people, and it’s important for how I live. The strength is there, and I was glad to have it, but I am also grateful for all the great relationships, especially with my family and husband. I have a community. I knew it was there, but it was really apparent during this time.
My husband and family were eager to join the fight and were disappointed that I didn't want to fight. Ironically, they may have been less trusting of my ability to get another job. They were more concerned and did not believe this would be possible at my age. But they also listened carefully and supported me whenever I got a bite or an interview. And so they were always in my corner, but sometimes it was actually not in the way I wanted. The love was and will always be there. Everybody was 100% for me, and that was great. Sometimes, we had different paths and different opinions.
It's important to figure out what you need when something like this happens. Do you need a shoulder to cry on or somebody to say, "You know, you told me you would feel better if you got up, so maybe you want to get up? " Sometimes nagging is helpful, and you must honestly signal what you need with family and friends. Sometimes, I'd complain to my husband and say, "You're so negative about my chances. That really bothers me,” He would say, "Well, I'm just trying to make sure you're realistic. You know there are challenges." He learned to temper his doubts and be more overtly supportive, no matter what he thought inside.
Final thoughts:
I hope that the stigma of being laid off goes away. That would be a silver lining to a very difficult time for so many people. Being laid off is a journey. To be laid off is not an end; it is the start of something else. And even though I ended up back in my business, I've learned so much, and I'm in a completely different kind of selling. Like most hardships (other than dying), you can make something good out of it, and you will if you persist and try. You may get something different from what you had before. People who get divorced don't find the woman they married 20 years ago. But they find another companion. They find another way of finding community in love. And I think the same thing about losing a job. You must have faith that you can make something good out of it. It might not be the same, but that's okay. Life is change. And we can make positive changes from these things.
Where are they now?
She found a good job eight months after being laid off, thanks to one of her connections who recommended her. It wasn’t a great fit, but she learned a lot and then moved to an excellent sales position at a smaller house, where she found daily support and challenges. This position is more satisfying and meaningful than the last years at the position she was laid off from. She had to take dramatic cuts in pay for both jobs but appreciated that the combination of good work and benefits outweighed the lower salary.
