Emotional Preparation for Job Loss and Career Change

Who knows how long they will be employed in these troubled times?

Should you prepare in case you lose your job?  There’s a book of Chinese curses.  One of the curses says, “May you live in interesting times.”  One interpretation of this curse is, “May you experience much upheaval and trouble in your life.” The clear implication is that “uninteresting times,” those of peace and tranquility, are more life-enhancing.

Well, we’ve got the curse.

There are probably more descriptive words for our times than “interesting,” but we won’t print them here.

What’s actually going on?
Initial thoughts are:

• No one really knows.
• Everyone thinks they know exactly what’s going on.
• Everyone thinks they know exactly how to fix it.
• So far, no one’s made a dent in it.
• It’s only going to get worse.

My job … and yours

I still have mine but it’s hanging on a very thin thread that could snap at any moment.
Is your job secure? Will you still be employed in a week or month or a year? Companies are cutting back. They call it by different names, such as enforced shedding of jobs and retrenching of staff.

Besides learning about Chinese curses, I’ve been learning about the emotions of job loss and career change.

The emotions of being fired

The emotions that are evoked in being fired are:

• Manager guilt.
• Employee “survivor guilt.”
• Employee fear of “Am I next?”
• Loss of trust.
• Loss and grief.

Retrenchment involves a bereavement process. Do management and employees honor or even notice their “departed” colleagues?

The 5 stages of grief

For the retrenched employee, all psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s “five stages of grief” are present:

• Denial – “This can’t be happening to me.”
• Anger – “Why is this happening after all I have done for this company?”
• Bargaining – “Can’t I perhaps work part time?”
• Depression – “I’m too sad to do anything” or “There’s no point.”
• Acceptance – “I’m at peace with what happened and I’m moving on.”

The new challenges

The retrenched employee’s reality faces many challenges:

• How to deal with the loss of one’s job,
• how to keep energies up,
• how to remain positive and motivated, and
• how to begin the job-seeking process all over again, sometimes from way behind square one and often at a much later stage in one’s career.

If you are over 40, you will be facing a whole new generation of job seekers who, while they may not have your experience and background, will certainly have some new skills that they can offer.

For the survivors – management and staff left behind, there are feelings of guilt. Trust in the company has been shaken and yet business continues. Survivors can’t dwell on their “departed” colleagues and have to move on. Retrenchments motivate some to work harder, while others could not care or give-up. The solution to the retrenchment process is to acknowledge – but not over-react.

Don’t wait

I am most certainly not waiting. I am rushing down to the bookstore on the corner to buy all the works I can find on the psychology of retrenchment and on the subject of mid-life career change. I am going to lick this one!