I THOUGHT I HAD LOST IT ALL.

Whether it’s restructuring, corporate demands, or downsizing… getting laid off sucks. Prior to actually getting laid off I didn’t know the difference between getting laid off and getting fired. I figured they were one in the same. Your job is gone either way… bye Puritie! 

I lost my job last year(2020) around July. I can’t say I was completely surprised since we were constantly being notified of the new changes happening in the company. The work environment had become very unsettling, but why would I lose my job?! “I’m a valuable employee, I went to university, I had friends!(haha), I did my job well.”

Well… the day finally came. I was scheduled for an online call with the HR on this certain morning, since we were working from home at the time due to the ongoing pandemic(corona). The news came to me like a bolt from the blue. “They” babbled on about unemployment benefits, severance pay, career workshops, recommendation letters, networking events, but I was in my own little world. It felt like the apocalypse had just hit me. 

I mean, I had goals to accomplish, a corporate ladder to climb, parents to make proud, bills to pay, vacations to go on, and a superb LinkedIn profile to maintain. 

As the news started sinking in, I felt almost blessed. Not that I wasn’t in love( to be totally honest, I wasn’t) with my job but the environment had started becoming quite depressing. Of course, I didn’t have the balls to leave myself; but, I was finally escaping a place I spent 40+ hours a week doing something I didn’t totally love. While I finally came to terms that maybe getting laid off was a good thing, I still had my doubts. 

I was going to have to make some huge lifestyle changes… aka saying goodbye to online shopping binges, eating out as often as I was, unplanned trips to just anywhere because I could, cutting down on rent expenses which meant moving back home and also getting serious with that baking business I had started a while back.

I know my terms of reality are a little skewed. I also know we as millennials feel a tiny bit more entitled than we should, but being unemployed isn’t an easy adjustment. I had high lifestyle standards and career goals and all of these plans were brought to a screeching halt.

I still get anxiety when I’m asked how is the job hunt going? What are you doing to stay busy? and my go to answer is “Sleep, Eat and more Sleep”; not because that’s what I do all day long, obviously, but to just make things a little bit awkward and move on to the next exciting story. Why haven’t you found a job yet? “Mind your own beeswax! ” my inner voice screams at them. The pressure to find a job comes from all corners of my life.  

Getting laid off sucks. Finding a job sucks even more, but everyone has to stray away from their five year plan eventually, and on the bright side, I have been able to learn more about myself and my interests that I wouldn’t have been able to discover sitting in my desk, glancing at my work laptop all day long. So if you’ve been laid off, quit your job, or have been fired… hang in there, better days are yet to come.