Ep.98 - What Hurts the Most About Being Laid Off is Not Even About the Money
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YOU ARE NOT ALONE RIGHT NOW
Being laid off is one miserable experience that could linger on for months and beyond. I know this because I went through one myself in 2017.
According to the April Unemployment Report from the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are now 23M unemployed people in America, as well as a sudden increase of 6.6M people being “out of the labor force”. If we add those two up, the total amount of people that are not working is approximately ~30M in the U.S right now.
And that’s A LOT!
THE EXPERIENCE OF A LAYOFF IS A MULTI-STAGED MARATHON
Many, perhaps not all, of these 30M people could be experiencing what I had experienced 3 years back when I was laid off. The bad news is, though you may have completely separated from your former employer by now, the psychological toll could take many more months to heal, and during this time you may experience the following 4 stages. The good news is, if managed well, your life may become more fulfilling and balanced after this is all over.
MY OWN LAYOFF STORY
In 2017, I worked in the media arm of a large corporation. The media arm was “cool” to work in, but the business was not growing much, nor profitable. After burning through the cash for a few years, a layoff was looming. Long story short, most departments were completely eliminated, including the Analytics department I was in. As a result, I was laid off, so was my boss, my boss’s boss, and my boss’s boss’s boss. You get the idea. They gutted the whole place.
Economically, a layoff may not always be a bad situation, especially if you receive a decent severance package (and collect unemployment) and get another job quickly. In my case, I landed another job within 2 weeks of being laid off, so I actually made quite a bit more that year than I would’ve. However, the psychological impact still unfolded for me in the following 4 stages.
THE 4 STAGES OF A LAYOFF EXPERIENCE
In my experience, a person can go through a layoff in 4 stages, extending months/years beyond the date you officially sever ties with the former employer.
Low Morale: Before the layoff begins, you probably already sense a buildup of stress, coupled with low morale and lack of motivation.
Self-Doubt: During the layoff, there’s an immediate shock to one’s sense of financial stability, which causes doubt on one’s self-worth, maybe even one’s identity, especially if it’s largely tied to a career.
Fake Confidence: In the next few months, you may experience an immense amount of despair and sadness. However, in the meanwhile, you still try to project confidence to the outside world, or to your inner self.
Self Reflection: During the downtime between jobs, you are likely to self-reflect. You could realize how impersonal a layoff is. Ultimately, a job does not define you, and you get to make the choice for yourself how you’d like to be defined.
STAGE 1 - DAYS/WEEKS BEFORE THE LAYOFF
Usually, a layoff does not come out of the blue. We are aware of a possible layoff, oftentimes days or weeks before it actually happens. However, the issue is, we don’t know if we are impacted personally. When this awareness forms, yet you know there’s almost nothing you can do to influence the outcome, it immediately leads to low morale, which most likely translates to low productivity. The longer the limbo state (between knowing and happening) drags on, the more demoralizing it becomes in the office. At some point, It becomes a terrible environment to be in physically, because everyone is tired of worrying and not knowing.
In my own experience, back in 2017, everyone in the office knew a layoff was bound to happen with almost 100% certainty. Why? The SVP of our whole division, as well as his key lieutenants, were all forced out, leaving the highest-ranking person only a senior manager, in charge of hundreds of people. Soon after, we all received the announcement there would be a mass layoff, leaving behind only a skeleton presence. However, a limbo state was created and it dragged on for a while. For weeks, everyone came into work with the knowledge that any of us could be laid off tomorrow, but yet hopeful that he/she may be the “lucky” one that’s safe.
The immense sorrow filled the whole office for weeks. Many simply stopped showing up, many worked from home more and more. Others left early. For my team, at one point, we just booked a conference room to play Catan during work hours, because no one had the headspace to be productive anymore. We also had a lot of team lunches the last week, expensed, of course.
STAGE 2 - GETTING THE LAYOFF NOTICE
It is a surreal moment to be laid off, I’ve got to tell you. This is likely more intense for those who'd believed they were high performers. This happens because many of us tie so much of our self-worth to our performance at work. It messes with one’s head when that relationship is broken. If you have been told you were so great today, but the next day you were laid off. How do you explain that to yourself?
The answer is simple, it is NOT about you nor your performance. However, when you are the one being laid off, it sure feels personal. It is especially worse when you see another person, for no obvious reason to you, being kept on the job. It could possibly due to another reason, either political or cost. But that’s a whole other story.
When someone is laid off without a fault of his own, it creates a shock, because it contradicts one’s own expectation. For example, if you had studied really hard for a class, and believe you were fully prepared for the final exam. Yet, when the results came in, you saw you only received a C-. When this happens, it casts self-doubt on one’s innate ability. Just like the example of studying for a test, a layoff of a high performer has a similar impact.
STAGE 3 - PROJECTING FAKE CONFIDENCE IN THE MONTHS AFTER
A layoff feels extremely personal, even though it is really not (something we can see only more clearly after the fact).
Since this is a sensitive and private matter, you probably don’t want to broadcast it to the world like you did when you first landed the cool job. As a result, when people ask about your job in a casual chat, you may feel the strong urge to say you are fine even though you are not. As far as I can see, in my own experience, when someone brought up a topic related to jobs, I’d want to cut it short to avoid a prolonged conversation on a sad/awkward topic. Other times, I simply didn’t want people to know I was laid off, to be frank.
In my own experience, I landed another job within two weeks of receiving my layoff notice. In fact, it was the last day I was employed with that previous employer, I received the call about my next offer. Though things had happened as good as possible in my case, I still experienced this damage to my own confidence months into my new job.
STAGE 4 - A MORE BALANCED LIFE
If there’s any silver lining for me, it was that I had the time to pause and reflect on what was important to me. Prior to that layoff, I had worked hard 5 years straight, simply because I thought that was what I was supposed to do, not necessarily what I wanted to do.
Ever since the layoff, instead of purely tieing my entire identity to a job, I broadened my identity to something more complex, making room for my own interest, which is this personal finance blog you are reading, as well as friends and family.
Several times in the past, I had wondered if working all those late nights were worth it, because oftentimes I felt the “urgent” work was not due to its actual need, but a senior person’s arbitrary deadline. For example, during one Christmas in 2016, out of hundreds, my team was the only team that came into the office to work through Christmas, all in a huge empty office, and all for an arbitrary deadline. Long story short, the layoff gave me the time to help me see it clearly. it was not worth it. That leader probably doesn’t even remember the event, and it also didn’t have any meaningful impact on my career growth nor the future of the company.
Having asked myself the hard question of what I wanted in life, I decided to reduce work from 90% of my identity to something more like 50%, while inviting my own hobby, as well as quality time with friends and family to make up the rest. Now, 3 years have passed, it’s because of the experience of my layoff, I was forced to reflect and re-focus, which ultimately led me to deprioritize work slightly while pursuing personal hobbies, such as this blog you are reading.
THE SILVER LINING OF A LAYOFF - YOU WILL COME OUT STRONGER
If you are going through a layoff, I hope you may find some comfort in this article. We all experience it differently. But you should know this, give yourself time to be sad. It could take months or even over a year to move on.
The beauty of this hiccup in life is that it gives you the opportunity to slow down. if you take the time to reflect on what you truly want out of your life, a layoff could provide a good opportunity to help you reach a richer and more balanced life going forward.
A tip. Maybe there’s more to your identity than your work.