Well, I’m unemployed

Hi Friends. My name is Nicole and I am going through a midlife crisis.

Actually, I’m calling it a forced mid life crisis. How do I know this? What does a midlife crisis look like? When did it start? What am I doing with my life?

All very good questions, all will be answered in time. I think that the one to address first is, what triggered it?

I had worked for the same company for thirty years. You read that right, 30. Right out of high school. I wasn’t even looking for a job. My mother had gone to school with the hiring manager so, I was basically told to go to work. Gap year wasn’t a thing back then, at least not that I knew ab out. I started part time and honestly never thought that it would lead to a career, never mind one of thirty years. I worked my way through various positions, in multiple locations and for the last twenty years with the company, I was in management. The company that I worked for gave me a lot of opportunities and promotions throughout the years. I had a great salary, good bonus, benefits, stock options. I was content in my position. I had kind of settled in to cruise control. Another ten or so years until retirement.

One morning, about a month ago, I walked in to work like it was any other day. There was no reason for me to believe otherwise so, you can imagine my surprise when my boss and his HR counterpart showed up in my office. It was extremely rare for the two of them to be together, so I felt a bit unnerved. But they put me at ease. We had a fairly normal conversation - some niceties, small talk and a few jokes. Ha ha ha…

Then the door was closed. My stomach sank a bit but, I still was unaware as to how the conversation was about to turn. Looking back, along with about a hundred other emotions and thoughts, my naivety is one of the points that I feel the worst about.

My boss swiftly changed the direction of the conversation and informed me that they were there to talk to me about a corporate restructuring. Now, as I mentioned, I had been in management for two decades, and had been on his side of this conversation many times. I knew exactly what that meant.

I stopped the conversation and told them I needed a minute. I grabbed my phone (tired to grab some composure) and left the office. I immediately dialed my husband who, thankfully answered. “I’m getting fired” I told him, choking back some tears.

The first words out of his mouth… you’ll be ok. We will be ok. You are strong, and you will get through this.

I can not tell you how much I appreciate this man for giving me the strength I needed to get my shit together and walk back into that meeting.

So, I mustered up enough nerve to go back in and finish the conversation. My boss read me the document. Honestly I was just waiting for a pause in his speech to let me know it was my turn. I don’t remember much of what he said, still reeling from the thought of being out of a job. At the end of it I handed in my keys, my corporate phone, took my envelope of documents and left.

There is a lesson to be had. Companies are not loyal to their people. What’s ironic is that when I was working in my management role, loyalty of the employees was high on my list of metrics to achieve. We would conduct surveys and make action plans to measure and increase engagement. It is common knowledge that the higher the engagement and more loyal people are to a company, the more productive they are likely to be. In fact, if you do a quick search for companies and loyalty, the articles you will find are almost exclusively about employee loyalty to their work, virtually nothing about companies being loyal to their staff.

If you think that years with a company, hitting metrics, even good performance reviews are enough to keep you employed, I am here to tell you – they aren’t.

So, here we are. I am out of work, I am about to turn 49 and I have one job on my resume. Yikes.

Let me tell you, the rollercoaster of emotions I went through in the weeks following my dismissal, were exhausting. There was denial and embarrassment, disappointment and fear, anger and depression. It was pretty messy for a while. If you ever find yourself in this situation, know that you are going to feel all the emotions. Take some time to let them through you.

Aside from all of the emotions, there are also questions floating around my mind about what am I going to do with my life now. Fortunately, I have some time to figure out my path forward as I dive headfirst into phase one of my midlife crisis 

Next time in The Art Of a Midlife Crisis, figuring out the next steps