Kari
“Process It and move on”
I was not surprised this was happening. I knew that things weren't going well at our company. I also knew that because there were so many long-timers, I was on the shortlist because they really valued seniority. When I got the email at 8:00 in the morning, "Hey, can you jump on a call at 8:30?" I instantly thought I was getting laid off. I texted my friends, "I'm pretty sure I am getting laid off today." You know, and I had a feeling. I got on the call. It was my boss, and then HR jumped on. I was prepared for this. I knew it was coming; I just didn't know when. My initial response was just relief. I described it to my friends: it was the divorce you knew would happen, and at least I got alimony with it [laughter].
My initial reaction lasted for a couple of weeks. My son was coming home from college for a week, and I decided to spend time with him. I also traveled, and that was great. The first two weeks, I would get up in the morning I didn't know what to do. I had a routine I was used to. I would get up in the morning, turn on my computer, and look at sales numbers. Then, I didn't have that anymore. I realized I enjoyed not working for a while. I really did. And I felt so fortunate that I got a severance and could enjoy it. So, that was my first month of being laid off. It was not the worst thing in the world for me.
My transition and transformation:
I got the call on June 11th, and they kept me on until July 11th. They took all my work away. So, they were basically paying me for a month, and I wasn’t really working. I spent two weeks being angry and realized I wasn't processing the anger piece of it. I think it's a process that someone has to go through. On those days when the anger showed up, I was like, "Why are you showing up now? But then I would just sit down and think about it.
I went through a phase where I would stay up watching TV until 2:00am because I could. I got up until 10am and wore my bathrobe until noon. Establishing a routine was important. I'm a planner. I like Sunday nights to sit down and figure out what I am doing for the week. You have one verse in the morning and one in the afternoon because that keeps you going, and it’s about finding things to do. I had to force myself to leave the house every day, whether going to the nursery, the grocery store, or whatever. I tried to make myself get out every single day. Otherwise, I would putter around and be on my computer.
I reconnected with other parts of my life. At first, it was all about me, and it felt really indulgent. I needed to get back to this. I needed to figure out what I wanted. I didn't like who I had become. It wasn't until I realized what was happening when I was managing my team and asked them to do things I never would have before, and it was out of a sense of urgency. Taking a step back, I knew it was survival, and I still didn't survive. I spent most of my time at work the last three months that I was there, and that's not who I was. That’s not who I want to be.
The first thing I did when I was laid off was create a vision board [laughter]. My first thought was that publishing and all publishing companies suck. Maybe there's something else out there that I can do. I did this whole vision board thing and was trying to see what showed up. What were the patterns, and what could I do with them? Unfortunately, it didn't give me any new career options, but helped me reflect on myself. Through that process, I realized my value is in what I had been doing, but it doesn't have to be through publishing. It could be anything in education. I had to think about what gets me up in the morning. Doing things like a vision board, meditating, and just trying to understand your purpose is very helpful. There were some really down days where I was like, "Ugh, this is awful," especially with everything happening in the world.
I am a single mom, and all my validation was in my job. Everything I had was tied up in my career. The title, not so much, but being in sales was the success, and my reps were like my kids because they were needier than my kids. I am very collaborative, and even though we were remote, it was very important for me to have this sort of relationship with them. It was as if we were in the office. We were really close. So yeah, my validation absolutely came from my job.
Since my layoff happened during COVID, it was easier to tell people and to accept it. All I had to say was that I was laid off because of COVID, and that was it. Because I was so busy when I was working. I thought, how are they even going to survive without me? I did so much. But they're doing fine without me. So that was humbling.
My kids know me so well, and when I told them I was laid off, they both said, ''It's probably a good thing, Mom. You really haven't been happy for a while.'' Even though they are older, they didn’t understand its financial implications. They're still not out in the real world. But people who knew me thought this was a good thing,
Talking about being laid off is still taboo because it all comes down to judgment. You think people are judging you, like you were not good at your job, you were expendable. And nobody wants to feel that way. What did you do wrong? What didn't you do? We have to change how we talk about it, and I think COVID opened up opportunities for that because it was more of a shared experience with people in your social groups and your professional groups, so I think it allowed us to actually do just that and say, "This happened to me. This happened to my friend." Again, for me, it's like a divorce. I would look at people on the other side of their divorce, and they were so happy, and so keeping your eye on the prize and making sure people understand that when they've been laid off. Life happens, and losing a job is part of that, and that's part of growing up, no matter how old you are. This is the first time it's ever happened to me. To me, it felt like part of growing up.
I was relieved when I was laid off. It was a relief, then doubt about myself, trying to accept that, and then doubt again. I mean, it's just fluid. My transition was fluid, and getting to the other side took time. It took time to work through all that muck. There was this transition from knowing what I was doing the minute I woke up, going to work, what my day looked like, and when I was done working. Then, it was the transition of, "Holy crap. Who am I today? What's my purpose today?" I never realized how tired you are when we're constantly on nerves, thinking, "Okay, when's the shoe going to actually drop?" It is that constant state of, "Oh God, it's exhausting." So, we don't realize until after it's done how exhausted we truly are.
What I have learned from this experience:
The first thing that really hit me was that I always thought, what would I do if I didn't do this job? I wouldn’t be in publishing. I've always been in sales. I'm a successful salesperson. I can sell anything. But I realized I didn't want to. I just don't want to anymore. It isn’t what motivates me. It helped me realize that my search was narrower than I thought. I can be a little bit zen about it and live in the moment. I've learned that I can just do what I do every day. I have my plan, and I do it. That's what I can do. That's as far as I can go. The energy of thinking forward about what could happen those were my bad days. When I would go to the worst possible case scenarios, I would sit down and get back in touch with myself and say, "No. That's not happening yet. That's doing no good." It is just like looking backward at, "Oh, my God. I shouldn't have pissed that guy off at work." That doesn't do any good, either.
It's practice. I don't think I've mastered it by any means. But I've learned that I have to keep practicing at just being right here, right now. This is what I can do. I really need to spend the time. I also need to spend that time with myself. You have to know yourself. The first thing I wanted to do was run away. I wanted to do something to get my mind off of being laid off. One of the important parts about this is to really spend that time every day just thinking through things and looking at this stuff. It is like journaling. It's a guided journal. It is really important to go back and look at that stuff and what you're thinking and get in touch with all of it. Get in touch with what motivates me and what doesn't.
At my next job, I want to stay connected with those other parts of my life, not just my job. It will be something that I will have to practice because it's so easy for me to get right back into it and fall into bad habits. After all, like I said, that's how I value myself. It's what I do. It will be a concerted effort to stay connected with what I have been doing and developing for myself. I want to make sure I pick a day that is truly a day that's committed to me. No texting with friends, and I don't want to talk on the phone. I need that one day to just completely let go and do that. It is going to be about boundaries.
In my old job, I wasn't good at setting boundaries. When you sit at your computer, you must set a time limit. One of my favorite bosses once said, "I come home from work and still have some stuff to do. I take my computer to the backyard without a cord, and I'm done the minute it runs out of battery. That's the world telling me I'm done for the day." I have always remembered that." It's a really good plan if you still have stuff to do. You're not going to settle down until you get it done, but you have till your battery runs out, and you're done. It is also important, and I still need to work on this, but getting up and moving. That's part of it, too. Part of putting yourself first is doing yoga, taking a walk, or an exercise class. When I worked from home, I would take a break. I would go to the gym and had a specific time to be there because I would do classes. But when you’re laid off, it’s harder to motivate yourself. But my kids motivated me because they were working out and doing their stuff. So, I needed to do it, too.
I learned quickly that I would have good days and I would have bad days. I was open with my friends, who were my support group. I have shelter-in-place friends. I did that in the very beginning when I was laid off. I was open with them. I would tell them when I was having one of those days when I needed the distraction of hanging out. I didn’t want to talk about it, and I didn’t need to talk about it. But I needed the distraction of getting out of my house and hanging out with them. It's hard to ask for help because my personality type is that I am the solid one. So, it took a long time for me to be able to say, "I just need some support today. I just need someone to hang out with for a little while. And with my kids, too. I was good at asking my kids if they could watch a movie with me.
It is how we show up every day. Are you showing up for the ones that you love? Are they showing up? Now that I am on this new journey, it is about breaking down that wall I had built up, that armor I had around me, and being okay. I was a very judge-y human being. It took me many years to stop doing that. To talk about the stigma of being laid off and allowing yourself to be vulnerable and accept other's vulnerabilities, too, without seeing it as a weakness. And it's impossible to do. Who are we to judge?
I know it’s about our own survival, especially at the moment. But maybe it is taking out the judgment of it. It's taking out the judgment of that stigma of being laid off. It is how we talk about it and look at ourselves, and we're taking a big, long, hard look at ourselves now because we're around ourselves a lot more. Everyone has their version of how they show up every day.
My advice to others:
My advice for people who have been through a layoff is to accept it without judging yourself, acceptance without judgment. That's really important. And I think compassion for yourself. I think it’s really important to find some kind of support group and have somebody who's going to be on your side to talk to. Also, stay active, and each day, do something so that you can say, "I worked towards this today. I didn't just take the day off and save it for another time. I did this today."
My advice to those who haven’t been laid off but know someone who has been laid off. The whole non-judgment piece is really important. I don't think it's the judgment about getting laid off, but the judgment for how the person who has been laid off spends their time after the layoff. I couldn't imagine having someone watch me every day, not working. Or constantly asking, "What are you doing? Have you been job searching today?" Give the person space to figure out what they need for themselves and what comes next.
It is also about being available to the person going through this experience to talk or, even better, listen. We forget to check in with people. Sometimes, someone gives you a genuine "How are you?" And you are thankful for them asking. Stay away from being a fixer. Even your network. They want to fix it all for you. It's your journey. When we go through this, we also learn a new language for ourselves. We have to talk about ourselves with this new label of “unemployed.” How we identify with ourselves, how we show up every day.
This is about accepting what has happened, getting rid of that internal conflict, and stop reliving it. Stop it. Just stop it. It's not doing you any good. Stop reliving it and move forward. Your headspace is precious, don't let the old crap get in there. Process it and move along. Being laid off is not because you did anything wrong; you were not fired because you did something wrong. Once you go through something like this, you realize this is about something other than finding the job, your skill set, the resumes, and all that. It's about how we change as a person.
Where are they now?
Kari landed at a company where she was able to create and design a customer success and onboarding team, which has been a fabulous experience. She has been able to stretch herself and learn new things—she is constantly learning! Her sales and sales management experience has helped her in this role. Her measure of success is different for the first time in forever. It is her team's job to ensure customers are happy and successful; what a dream!
Since her team is divided between US and Colombia members, the international experience has been fantastic. She has been exposed to a different culture and is fortunate to be surrounded by truly lovely humans!
Kari said that losing her job was the best thing that could have happened. She made it to the other side and said it was wonderful!
