Go Back to the One Who Dumped You?

Sometimes things happen in the world that astound me. Endless wars, terrorist beheadings,

illness, hysteria over illness, political sniping that accomplishes nothing. And all we seem to care about is the ample, well-oiled rump of a dumb-cluck reality star. Has the entire universe gone bug-eyed crazy?

Things happen closer to home and my reality that make me shake my head in sheer bafflement as well. Like just yesterday I learned through the wonder that is social media (hey, it’s good for some things) that a woman I worked with at my former former company, who’d been laid off nine months before I was, has been hired again…by my former former company, the same one that — let me repeat — laid her off in 2009!

What the what? At times like these I hear the exasperated, plaintive whine of Tim McCarver: “What is going on here?” Has the entire world gone to Hades in a hand basket?

Since I’ve lost all contact with anyone who works at my former former company, I have no way of knowing what machinations went into this bewildering decision. Did she approach her former bosses, or did they approach her? Is my former former company, which has recently been sold, in solid enough financial shape to hire more staff? 

I do know that the laid-off/hired-again woman had fallen on hard times since her termination nearly five years ago. Was she that desperate for a job that she went back to the one who dumped her?

I truly wish her well, and hope my former former bosses treat her properly. She has a heart of gold. Now, I could say some rather unflattering things about her, but…

Oh, what the heck? No names here, right? It’s my blog and I’ll dish if I want to.

My overall impression of her, and I apologize in advance for my sexism here, is that she is, well, a bit of a ditz. She seemed more interested in coming into work and talking with her friends on the phone than in doing her job. She’s a party girl who has yet to realize that her particular party ended in 1983.

I also know that she slept with the sleazy drunk who oversaw the sales department at my former former company as well as another salesman, both married with young children. I know she clashed with the head of the company, a despicable, drunken bully — as most of us did at one time or another while under his nasty siege. She was none too happy the day she was laid off. I was there and overheard her wail to her former lover over her termination. He acted like she wasn’t there. He ignored her. Now, she wants to go back to that place? To work for that same guy? She deserves better than that.

Again, I like this lady. She was always nice to me and I to her. Her personal choices, however misguided, are just that — her personal choices. This is not to judge (too much), but to make an observation.

It also makes me wonder how well she will do in her “new” job, which is essentially the same as the “old” job she had before her layoff. The industry, the players, the entire landscape have shifted immensely in five years. Can she still do the job? A job she wasn’t all that great at five years prior? Has the employment market tightened so much that there wasn’t another, more qualified person to do that job?

I must point here that it's not unheard of that a company rehires a laid-off employee on a freelance or contract basis. Both my former former company and former company did just that. The company lessens the heavy burden (please note touch of sarcasm here) of having to pay that employee a full-time salary plus benefits, while at the same time retaining that person's knowledge and skills. It's pretty diabolical when you think about it.

Heck, even my former former workplace offered me a freelance assignment after my layoff. However, I think it was a one-time peace offering after I reported plagiarism by one of the esteemed (low paid ) editors they kept on staff over me. I also couldn't take it because I was just about to start the job at my former company. Which makes me think: Is this a full-time or contract position this lady is now taking? Of all the former staff members my former former company drop-kicked off a high ledge, they take back her? I can think of at lease half a dozen former co-workers (not including me) more deserving of a second chance than that airhead.

Then the more I thought about this situation, the more it makes perfect sense. It speaks to how personal and professional rejection warps our psyches and leads us into disastrous, incomprehensible decisions.

How many times after a lover has dumped us or a company has terminated us have we thought of only getting that person back, of getting our old job back. We’ve been tossed asunder, unmoored from the life we thought we had, our self-esteem ripped to shards of broken glass, never to be pieced together again. That is until we get that person/job back. “Oh, he/she will come back to me. He/she will realize what a mistake they made.”

Except…they don’t. And it’s good they don’t. That’s because our self-worth is not, or should never be, dependent on another person or a job. That person may leave you. Your company may dismiss you. What then? Does that mean you are a bad person? A bad worker?

Yet we scamper frantically after those shattered pieces of our self-esteem, collecting our sense of self, hoping to put them in our pocket, and with a tap, think, "Ah, it's all better now." Rather we should stand in place and watch those shiny bits undulate away with the capricious breeze. We cannot change what has happened. That part of our life is over. Better to move on and build anew.

Admittedly, I struggle with this on a daily basis. After too numerous-to-count personal and professional rejections, I sometimes feel I have no self-confidence left, that everything I do is horrible, I have no talent, everyone is better than me, that I’m ugly…okay, let’s stop there. Rejection can crush a soul.

Yet I instinctively know that pleading “take me back, please!” smacks of desperation that only reinforces the cruel narcissism of the person/company that dumped me. Getting that lover/job back will not heal the pain or make me whole again. That can only come from me. (On the other hand, believing no one could never not love us or that every piece of work we produce is perfect is another form of narcissism.)

Nevertheless, I can certainly understand why my former co-worker went back to the company that spurned her. She was sinking and grasped at the first rescue rope tossed into the water before her. Will it make her whole again? Will she get back to the life she once had, or hoped to have? I don’t know. She thinks she’s entering familiar territory but is she? So much has changed in five years…The business has changed and so has she.

Since I know the players in this rather bizarre re-coupling, I can make a few assumptions about why my former former bosses hired her back as well. It’s not because she was a great salesperson, although I can say with assurance she will not be sleeping (regularly) anymore with her former boss. She has moved to another state to take the job. The position is commission based, so I doubt they are paying her much in the way of a base salary. Always a concern for those cheap bastards.

No, I think they wanted someone they could control, somebody who wouldn’t question or challenge their ginned-up authority, somebody they could use as an easy whipping post. A happy-hour gal they could have drinks with and mistreat with nary a worry about her fighting back. Sounds too cruel to be true? You don’t know those men like I do. Never would those black hearts do anyone a kindness if it didn't benefit them first. At the very least, they are taking advantage of her desperation for a job. And can she ever be sure they won't terminate her job again?

Will this on/off-now-on-again business (personal?) relationship work? For her sake, and only for her sake, I hope it does. Unfortunately, a cursory reading of any pop psychology book on relationships affirms that on again/off-again pairings eventually fail. Oh, sure, the couple gets back together. But after the initial happiness, relief and stupendous makeup sex fades, the couple realizes the reasons for their breakup are still very much duking it out in the messy, overlapping he/she terrain of relationships, waiting to explode again at any minute, like a grenade whose pin has yet to be pulled.  

So if I had to venture a guess, I’m thinking this re-pairing will crater in about six months, after my former former bosses realize this woman cannot reach the impossible revenue goals they set for her. She couldn’t before, so why now? She, meanwhile, will realize she can’t handle the pressure (she couldn’t before), and acting the (aging) good-time girl is no guarantee of job security with those clowns. It wasn't before.

Soon the relationship will dissolve into a bitter game of blame, contempt and abuse. This will not end well.

As for me, I’d never go back to the one who dumped me. Never.

Carpets and Crossroads

It’s the first thing I notice when I go for a job interview (an increasingly rare occurrence lately). The carpet. The thin, industrial weave that covers the floors of nearly every office in the U.S.

It can be tan, light blue or dusky green. It always must be a neutral shade. Nothing too

exciting. Corporations want bland. Bland, bland, bland…

They all look the same whatever the color. All are stained with outside dirt and coffee spills. (Seriously, when was the last time the carpet was cleaned?)

There is something else, something more ominous that gives the carpet its beaten-down appearance. It seems caked over with the deadened career dreams of anyone who works there or has worked there. It’s as if the vapors from the chemicals concocted to make the proudly artificial mat have sucked out the souls of the people who work above it. I wonder how many workers have walked over those carpets as they are led away after a layoff.

Then, I notice the long lines of cubicles. Some have workers hunched over computers. Others are empty. Are they out to lunch, or was the person who once worked there laid off? There's an pervasive, palpable undercurrent of sadness, defeat. The carpet, the floors seem to sag under the weight of dashed hopes, of lives lived only for a paycheck, never questioning...and of corporate oppression. Having a full-time job provides the marshmallow security of a steady paycheck and employer-sponsored health insurance. But that passivity comes at a price—it can be snatched away at any moment.

Each time I step onto that carpet, the same thought swirls in the back of my mind: Do I really want to go back to this? Do I really want to again be a pawn of some Machiavellian managerial maneuvering that throws me out of a job with no warning? If working hard is no guarantee of job security, then, well, why bother?

You see, I’m at a crossroads. I’m not sure I want to take a full-time job again. Admittedly, no company has offered me full-time employment. So, the decision may be forced upon me. Will I ever be hired again? And if not, what will I do? How will I support myself? Which path do I take?

When I first started looking for a job back in January, I got numerous calls for interviews. So my optimism had some solid footing (please indulge me another carpet metaphor). As the months have passed by, as winter stretched into summer and now into late fall and still no job, I’m beginning to wonder if my quest for full-time employment is as much a fantasy as my dream of seeing Giancarlo Stanton in a New York Mets uniform. Was the job I fortunately was offered in 2011 and held for nearly three years a serendipitous happenstance, a momentary blip on my extended road to long-term joblessness?

I also wonder if I was too quick back in January to revamp my resume and immediately get back on the job-hunting trail. To be fair to myself, there were financial imperatives behind that choice. I jumped right into freelancing as well. I don't regret that. It allowed me to do something I love and gave me a chance to evaluate whether it could be a career path. It also earned me extra cash.

Yet perhaps I should have stepped back and taken the time to really think about what I truly wanted to do. Part-time work combined with freelancing? A new career? Should I have gone to the unemployment office for career counseling? Because right now, the path I'm on clearly is leading nowhere.

Most important, should I have realized I was never going to get hired again at my age? Did keeping busy blind me to the reality of my situation? Could it ever compensate for my shame over two layoffs in four years? Why was I so hellbent on speeding back to my old life that I ignored the possibility of building a new one?

Yet as I said, I got interviews, so I had hope. But that hope is rapidly fading, like the worn carpet in so many offices.

Do Laid-Off, Long-Term Unemployed People Have Free Will?

I went for a job interview on Thursday. If hired (a pretty big if), it would mean an hour-long

commute by car on one of the state’s busiest roads, and one that is in a perpetual state of repair. So during rush hour, one could expect numerous lane closures and quick maneuvers to dodge traffic cones and barriers. That hour could easily turn into two.

It would further mean learning a whole new industry. That doesn’t bother me as much as the message I got from the managers who interviewed me: I would have to learn the new industry quickly—without much, if any, assistance from management. Oh, what fun! I went down that road (figuratively) at my last job. I managed to do a competent job—despite a notable lack of support—made only a few minor mistakes, and got laid off anyway.

So, you can understand why I would have some reservations about this job. Yet there is a nagging voice in my head (among many) that says, You cannot refuse any job. You are a long-term unemployed worker. You have no free will.

I’m sure you, dear reader, are thinking the same thing. How can someone who is out of work for nearly a year refuse any work?

Any time I think about this question, I can see the wagging finger of judgment pointed at me. I saw it in the stern look a friend (employed) gave me when I mentioned the long commute for this possible job. How dare she not take a job, any job? She’s unemployed! She has no right!

Let’s get something straight: First, I might not get offered the job (a distinct possibility in light of my increasingly rejection-stained job search). Second, I’m a human being and I have free will.

Yes, that’s right. I do have the right to make decisions about where I chose to work or live. It’s easy for someone on the outside to tell a job seeker that he or she must take any job offered or relocate to another area to gain employment. In essence, to insist they give up their basic human right to have a free will.

Not that I haven’t considered the possibility of relocating. I interviewed at one job 90 minutes away along the Jersey Shore. For that job, I would have moved to that area closer to the ocean. (Don’t judge the region by that TV trash fest Jersey Shore. It’s really quite lovely.) Alas, the job was not offered to me.

This most recent job is in an area of the state I have no desire to relocate to. Don’t I have the right to decide where I want to live? What if I simply like, at this point in my life, where I’m living? Just because I was laid off does not mean I have to give up my freedom to choose.

Now, when I was collecting unemployment benefits—well, that was a different story. Every week I was asked if I turned down any viable job offers. (I didn’t. I never received any.) If I had spurned a job offer, I would have lost my benefits for two weeks. So, yeah, during that particular period, I had no free will. Understandably, I have to agree. If you are getting government money while unemployed, you are pretty much obligated to take any job offer that comes your way.

Those benefits ended in August, however. Therefore, in theory, I’m free to appraise any potential job in the context of whether I would be comfortable and successful there; does it match my previous experience; how much I would be paid (I cannot take another salary cut!), and yes, even the commuting distance as well as the ease of that commute.

Or say it's obvious during the interview that my prospective boss is a raging lunatic (been there, done that). Or that the company hasn't a clue what it wants from an incoming employee. Don't I have the right to say thanks, but no thanks? At the very least don't I have the option of evaluating any possible job opportunity and simply expressing any concerns about it? Apparently not. I have no free will.

Don't I have the freedom as well of exploring other work options, such as freelancing? Though I have to say the verdict so far is not too promising. Freelance jobs are out there, but the pay is low—if paid at all! I'm still waiting to get a check from work I did during the summer.

How different my situation would be perceived if I had simply left my job—of my own free will—without another job to slide into immediately. That’s because if someone quits a job, tells the corporate grind to shove it, to find another path in life more aligned with his or her true calling (cue the Enya music), that person is perceived as a risk taker, a rebel, somebody to be celebrated. Our society commends such actions. In reality, their grand scheme may crash and burn into bitter regret or even bankruptcy, yet no one admonishes them for what may have been a poor decision.

Never would I criticize a person for exercising their free will and pursuing a better way of life. That is their right.

Laid-off, unemployed people are given no such approbation. Instead, we are treated like dopes who sacrificed ourselves to the corporate gods and got our just desserts by getting laid off. We were company drones, not risk takers. We are to be disparaged, not applauded. Many HR departments won’t even consider our resumes.

There is some truth in those views. We probably were too trusting of our bosses, and should have scurried out sooner when the signs of imminent layoffs became apparent and the workplace turned into Lord of the Flies. Yet none of us kicked-to-the-curb workers should ever feel bad about doing honest work to earn a paycheck so we could have a roof over our head and food on the table. We may have been misguided in our loyalty, but we are not bad people. We were simply unlucky.

Now, if I don’t get that job or—horrors!—decline an offer (which will probably not be made), I may regret that decision. But that’s what free will is all about: We get to make decisions about how we live our lives, treat other people, where we work or live. The rub is we must also accept the consequences of those decisions—good or bad.

I also think it’s a bit unfair—and cruel—to deny a laid-off worker’s free will. Did we have any free will when we were told our job was eliminated? Were we given any choice in that matter?

Back to my original question: Do laid-off, long-term unemployed workers have free will? My answer is no. As of now, I feel like my free will is being dictated by my savings account, which I have dipped into repeatedly to pay for necessities. Much further depletions and I could end up homeless. So if I do get that job offer, I probably will take it.

What other choice do I have?