Not Again

Yes…again.

This Monday, Monday the 13th, I was laid off. Again. For the second time in nearly four years.

I knew something was amiss when the HR lady called me to her office and said she and the head of division wanted to speak to me. So I went to the office, sat down and was given – yet again – the “this has nothing to do with your performance but we can no longer support your position” speech. There was some more mumbo jumbo about needing to redirect resources elsewhere in the company…making more profits…blah blah blah…I’ve heard it all before.

When I actually questioned the head of the division about whether the print magazine I worked for was still in existence, he seemed flustered and impatient. The nerve of me! How dare I question an executive decision! Get thee to the unemployment line!

Having been through this before, I know that resistance is futile. This time around, I managed to stay calm and not snap at any former co-workers. Nor did I try to talk my way out of getting laid off. (Like that always works.) Good for me. After much trial and error I’ve learned it is much better to watch others make fools of themselves than be the one acting a fool.

I took my employee “package” with helpful hints on collecting unemployment benefits and a letter I must sign promising I won’t sue the company before I can get my severance check of two weeks worth of pay and left. Before I did I was told by the HR lady that I could leave at any time. HELL YEAH BITCH! Ya think! You just laid me off! Was I going to stick around to serve tea to my former corporate overlords? Not bloody likely.

Seriously, can these people be so out of touch with reality and human feelings? Just because they may say the layoff had nothing to do with my performance doesn’t make the outcome any easier for me to swallow. I’m the one out of work; he still has a job and probably a very good paying one. It’s hard not to feel like I did something wrong, that I wasn’t good enough to keep employed. (Or maybe it was all those water bottles I stole from upper management.) I also misjudged the scorched earth policy of our new CEO.

And how about a little honesty for once? Yes, the economy has decimated the publishing industry. But that’s only partially the cause of layoffs. Doesn’t upper management deserve some of the blame for not finding ways to boost revenues (other than gutting whole departments?). But yet they are still employed. It’s almost like arresting a witness to a murder for the killing simply because he was a bystander and letting the criminal go free. There is no accountability in corporate America. It’s all about cronyism and saving their skins and those of their sycophants while others pay the price with their livelihoods.

So, once again, I cleaned out my desk. Luckily, I didn’t clutter it up with junk this time, and was able to stash my stuff in a tidy, but surprisingly, heavy two bags. Then, arms loaded with my personal belongings (but no remnants from the job), I took the Walk of Shame all laid-off employees make to the bus, train or car and went home. Jobless in Jersey. Once again the unwanted refuse of an evolving (dying?) industry.

Now, you may ask, were there signs layoffs were coming? Yes, in retrospect, there were definitely signs layoffs were coming in my department and I was a target. Looking back, I feel as delusional as A-Rod not to have seen this coming.

And the timing was about right. Companies routinely do mass layoffs in the fall so they can clear their books for the new year. However, they sometimes do another employee dump in January-February. Well, at least I had a nice holiday and got a big fat bonus check.

What could I have done? These types of situations come about so quickly workers are rarely given enough time to sit back, weigh their options and find another job. And the last two months were extremely busy. I even took work home during the holidays. (Who feels like an idiot now?)

Nevertheless, I wonder if upper management is just as delusional as I was. Do they honestly believe that gutting my former department after previous rounds of numerous layoffs is going to ultimately save the company? In reality, they’ve really only bought themselves a bit more time before they go completely under or are sold to another owner bent on cutting more operations to the bone.

It’s eerily similar to my former former workplace. (From now on, the job I had before this one will be referred to as my former former workplace and the one I was most recently laid off from will be my former workplace. Got it? Good, because I don’t want to go over it again.)

At my former former workplace, they just went through another round of layoffs in August after laying me and many others off in late 2009, and after several rounds of layoffs before that. So I doubt this is the end of layoffs at my former workplace.

So, given what transpired on Monday, do I regret taking this job nearly three years ago? No, I don’t. I had been out of work for 16 months when a former colleague offered me the job. I needed to get back to work, needed a steady paycheck and employer-sponsored health care. I needed a job. It was a tough transition at first, I’m not going to lie. But I learned a whole new industry and a lot of new skills that (I hope) will get me another job sometime soon. I met some really nice people, too.

Above all else, I learned I could learn new skills and be (somewhat) successful. I must be honest...there were several "my bad" blunders in the beginning.

What’s more, none are born with a built-in crystal ball that tells us what will happen a day, a month or a year from now. That tells us on such-and-such a day you will be in a fender-bender, that you will be laid off. How was I to know it would end in this soul-crushing manner when I first took the job a little less than three years earlier? The callous ending doesn’t erase the good motives that pressed me to take the job way back in spring 2011. Wow. Was it that long ago? Seems like yesterday...

I took this job at my former workplace as a second chance to improve my office behavior. Layoff or no layoff, by any measure, I did just that. And that will help me not only in dealing with any new office mates, but also in dealing with people in my life in general. Whenever someone snapped at me, I never responded in kind. Instead, I remained calm and pleasant ("You're the most polite person here!" one co-worker exclaimed to me) and did what had to be done...even when those people really needed to be bitch-slapped into submission.

Plus, for a short spell, I even got off the commuter-bus-through-the-tunnel grind and got to drive to work like a normal human being.

And I don’t feel as bitter about this layoff as the one from my former former workplace. I’m upset, sad and I’m not looking forward to another long stretch of joblessness, but I don’t feel the same amount of rancor against my former workplace as my former former workplace for several reasons.

First, I had been at my former former workplace for 16 years. I could argue with some credibility that I deserved to stay on, that I had seniority over some of the younger boobs they kept on staff in favor of me. Obviously, I didn’t win that argument, but it was an argument I could make.

At my former workplace, however, I didn’t have that heft of seniority. Others had been there 10 years or more. I was a newbie (something many of them made sure I never forgot). They deserved the consideration to remain employed there.

As is typically the case in layoffs, there was some amount of favoritism in who was chosen to stay and who was shown the door by the managers making those decisions. That’s normal, and as I said, I couldn’t make the seniority argument this time around. In all candor, I must say that all those kept on are top-notch workers. Unlike my former former workplace, I don’t think there was any backstabbing involved in the decision. Or was there? I can never be sure. I’m not privy to decisions made by third parties about my work life.

Contrast that to my former former workplace, where long-time veteran staffers were routinely given the steeled-toed boot while younger, cheaper workers were retained. Not sure which is right or wrong. It would be great if there were room for both young and veteran workers. Guess it's just a business decision, right?

Yet, in true corporate America “screw the workers” style, one of the five of us who had been laid off on Monday had been with the company for 50 years! Who says companies aren’t loyal to their workers anymore? So I can’t whine (too much) about being let go this time around.

Sadly, though, in one respect both my former former workplace and my former workplace were dishearteningly alike in their outright inhumane, shameful treatment of workers: The woman who sat next to me was laid off the same day...her first day back at work after undergoing radiation treatment for breast cancer. Un-freaking-believable! What else can I say?

Because of incidents like that, maybe I’m less bitter because I’ve learned that I cannot get too emotionally involved in any job. After being laid off after 16 years with the same company, I know that being loyal to a company is a losing proposition for any worker. I could go on and on (and I will, in other posts) about staking too much of your self-worth on any job. But I’ll leave that for the therapist I can’t afford to go to now.

I also think I got caught up in a phenomenon I read about last year. It theorized that workers who find a job after being out of work for a long time are more at risk of getting laid off again at their new job. (Last one hired…) How prophetic. And sad. What’s the point of going back to work?

Perhaps I’m less bitter because I’ve been through this crapola before. I know the drill. It’s just a business decision, right?

Or was this second layoff karmic payback? Remember when I reported the plagiarism of my work by a former co-worker who ultimately got fired? Maybe I got just what I deserved for such a mean action. If that former co-worker hears of my second layoff, she would have every reason to gloat. I couldn’t blame her one bit. (More on that in a future post.)

Did my timidity from my first layoff hold me back from doing a better job? Possibly. But I can say this with unfettered conviction: I worked my butt off learning this new job. I pitched in and helped others when asked. I never refused to do an assignment when I was capable of doing it. I met my deadlines and never got a poor performance review. (So why was I laid off? Oy!)

Did my constant worry about getting laid off again (read this blog!) manifest itself in another layoff? Something to ponder in another (spiritual) blog post. Of more immediate concern is getting signed up for unemployment and updating ye ole resume.

As for the new CEO, I have to be fair. The company had been in financial straits for quite some time when he came onboard. He faced a monumental task, one that is not done. For the most part, he has been more open with the staff than ever witnessed at my former former workplace. From what I saw of him, he was definitely not a nasty drunk like the boss I was routinely harassed by at my former former workplace.

In fact, a while back he sent around a rather cryptic note about looking for new investors and a possible change of ownership. If there is a change in ownership, he is likely a goner. But he’s a big boy and he knew what he was getting into. And he’ll probably leave with a fatter severance check than any of us got on Monday.

So what’s next for me? Well, right now I’m applying for unemployment, reaching out to contacts for job leads/freelance gigs, and sprucing up the old resume. I really don’t know what my next step will be. After getting laid off two times in four years, I wonder if I have any career left to pursue in publishing, or any field. I’m a two-time loser to potential employers. (OK, that was self-pitying and self indulgent, but no more than what you hear on an episode of “Girls.”)

I do know this: I’m once again living up to the title of this blog. Any thought of a new apartment or that FIAT 500 I crave has been shelved indefinitely. Sigh

But come along for the ride as I once again traverse the rocky, confusing, frustrating, lonely, depressing, boring, gut wrenching, yet sometimes enlightening emotional roller coaster of unemployment in the USA.

Oh, and it’s back to wearing sweatpants.