Reminding myself...

I'm being laid off. It's effective December 31st. They tearfully, painfully communicated this to me on December 10th. Fuck! MotherFucker! They cannot afford me anymore considering the economy. My active customers are a bit freaked, my sales people are freaked, and I am thoroughly scared and sad and frustrated! Fuck! I'm being laid off AGAIN! Again? Yes, again!

How did I get here? I came to this job from a different layoff in 2001 but to really explain that I need to go back to the start of my work life. It's all connected. I hope it's an interesting read, after all, it IS my adult life. Here goes:

After school, in 1991, I went to work as a peon at a massive insurance company as did many of my peers in the Hartford, CT area. Despite my corporate status of hamster in a wheel, I was the envy of my friends, because I could easily afford a brand new, ultra-sporty, two-seater in Samba Pearl Green and all the clothes I wanted from The Limited. I actually had the store credit card that offered the "gold" feature of being able to call ahead and reserve a dressing room and a store attendant to bring me everything in my size. For reals! Of course, I earned that by spending lots of money there and paying it off in full every month, but I digress...


After a couple of years of being a slave to the grind, a VP visited our department in his effort to better understand all of the minutiae of all of his departments. They seated him with me. He listened to me sell all afternoon.


Two years later, in 1995 - he took me with him when an equally huge competitor insurance company stole him away to pilot a very similar program with their company. So, Yankee be damned, I migrated to the South.

Within a year, the start-up was up and running very well. I met very good friends and the man I would marry (7 years and a cross-country move or two later). I got used to the South and the South got used to me. The company sent me everywhere to do everything. It was a heady love affair for company and employee alike.

The company groomed me with prestigious professional courses and then assigned me related projects CONSTANTLY.

I spent several weeks learning from some super-hip old dudes in Las Vegas, NV how to write content and sequence uber-effective training materials for adult learning. When I returned, I re-constructed our entire new-hire training program. The course was shortened by nearly 3 weeks AND churned out trainees that were so much more confident and prepared for the work. Those hilarious, old farts are still an industry leader in the training arena. People love to see that course on my resume and when they comment on it, I know that I'm talking to someone who totally knows their shit!

I spent 40 hours being coached by an NYC Industrial Psychology firm on Candidate Screening, Interviewing and Selection and was consequently sent to hire 300 positions ranging from entry level to management for a brand new location.

I re-wrote the Quality process which was the grade card for everything we did.

I streamlined policies and procedures constantly.

I was the person they sent to parts of the company that were flailing about miserably to whip them (softly but surely) into shape.

And the doozy: When our insurance company made history in 1999 by being THE very first one to merge with a bank legally for the first time in many, many years, I was the ONE person they sent to oversee the leveraging of one-anothers' products. Huge Deal!

It was INSANE. I did everything. They invested in me with so much professional education and experience and I paid them back by over-delivering at every turn. They knew I took my success very seriously and that meant I took their success very seriously. I was THE golden girl. Even when I was "wrong", I got such meaningful information from being wrong that it was right to be wrong.

I was between the ages of 21 and 27 when all of this happened.

People or departments who I was sent to work my magic on would have the same cartoon bubble thought over their heads saying "Who the hell is this kid? She is a baby! Why did they send her?!". My my magic was all in how I finessed situations. I approached everyone I ever worked with the way my VP approached me that one day he sat with me. I'd say, "Teach me what you do and why..." I never offered criticism, and I never gloated about my position. I was always humble and when my feedback did come across to them, it came across so consultatively that they felt it was their own ideas they were implementing. It has been invaluable in work and life for me to use that as my secret weapon. People generally internalize concepts and ideas much more effectively when they own it. You can't tell anyone anything, don't even waste your time!

Invariably, I left these projects with a new ally in my pocket and I eventually had a proponent in every part of the company that I touched. Thus, my success snowballed. It was no accident.

Just months before my wedding in 2001, I was offered - interview process not necessary - a heavy duty position back in the north. I turned it down. I never even really considered it, but felt so grateful for the compliment of being thought so highly of.

About a month later, along with 90% of the other pilot staff, I was laid off. Fuck! MotherFucker! Fuck me in the Goat Ass!

I'm sorry?!? I had no idea that we were still a pilot?!?!

I was never one for arrogance, but suddenly my professional ego or MOJO went heart first into the nearest toilet and made a comfortable home there in the ice-water. It was like I had vertigo. I felt like a cat with my whiskers cut off.

Most painful was maintaining social friendships with my former peers, but somehow a handful of those relationships have sustained. We don't meet for happy hour every Friday anymore, but we attend annual summer picnics and trade our children's photos at the holidays.

I was so devastated that it took me months to see that they tried to salvage me by offering me that position back in the north. It took me years to consider that my project work year in and year out had upped the salary for my official title of Manager of Strategic Distribution so much so that when it came time to reel the pilot waaayy in, I was not cost-effective.

Even still, I had a hard time reconciling the success of all my business building project work with the fact that the pilot inevitably failed.

So following that layoff, in 2001, I accepted a temporary position in telecommunications that became a permanent position. I should say I started another love affair with my work. I love what I do! The company is small (less than 250 employees in 10 locations spread over the south east) but quite nimble and cutting edge. They are innovative but lack the pocketbook for truly riding the rails, so even the most calculated risk is generally discouraged. I've done very meaningful work here. I've polished up what used to be jagged and rough. I've stream lined procedures and workflows that didn't even exist when I arrived. I standardized things and found a cost-effective rhythm. Essentially, I have brought about sophistication. They have always had the talent, the fiber (no - not telecom fiber, like fiber-of-their-being fiber), and the goods to be sophisticated, they just weren't.

My company who is still owned and run by the man who started in his garage 34 years ago. This is very rare for a technology, specifically telecom, company to have never been bought, sold or traded. To say the least, they hold their own in the market! The company is full of super-geeks who LOVE what they do and do it amazingly well! The problem is that they lack(ed) sophistication with their delivery. The sophistication and rhythm that keep your best clients from defecting to a competitor and/or the buyers remorse if a new customer isn't handled exactly right! That sophistication is usually very expensive - so they lucked into me at a very vulnerable time in my career. I needed the jump start and the feel of building something meaningful - I got that along with tons of flexibility and positive feedback.

Sensing the economic downturn, back in spring, I started staking out new challenges, but not with much fervor. I thought I had time. After a few months, my old insurance company had a posting for my old position. I didn't know how I felt, or how they'd feel - maybe once around is enough sometimes.

But fuck it, the daredevil in me went for it.

They all fawned on me and made moony eyes and I interviewed my sweet little ASS off! Turns out, they are finally growing, they've finally nailed down the formula. Every person I met with over the 4 hour process (new face or old) all had positive and specific things to say about my pioneer contributions and how they arrived where they are today.

I didn't get that opening but they had a damn good reason. Most of their growth so far has resulted in internal promotions and this time, they purposely went outside to find fresh meat. As much as they all agreed I would have been a deliciously perfect fit both culturally and experience-wise, the other finalist had just that edge over me. They have strongly encouraged me to come back in for the next opening.

In the process of that interview, I FINALLY reconciled my lingering doubts about my work there and the resulting layoff. I realized that I'd followed their instructions. Very well. To the letter. I slayed every goal they set for me. They told me to build something and hellfire, I built that mother! I was a worker bee, a savvy one, but a worker bee! The kind of worker bee you want buzzing around when you're building a business and a buttload of things need to be accomplished very well. I wasn't designing it, I was carrying out the design of someone else. And hey! Most valuable lesson learned in that reconciliation: I really like being that worker bee.

You couldn't pay me enough to be president of anything, but I do SO enjoy being the right hand man who is trusted to take an obscure, 5 word directive and turn it into a brilliant gem! I don't need much direction, but I do need direction. Oh and semi-regular feedback.

So the epiphany arrives post interview and I feel more confident as I continue my search, all the while plugging along at my current job. Fast forward to December 10th...

Now, the economy has officially shit the bed and my lil' lovely company cannot afford the luxury that is me. I am laid off effective December 31st. Fuck! MotherFucker! NOT A-fucking-GAIN!

As I interview for jobs now, I draw on so much of my amazing experience and it feels like I'm describing a crazy dream I had. I actually feel fraudulent while I talk, but it all really did happen. I embellish nothing, and yet I feel like I'm talking about someone I admire and aspire to be, not myself! Is that because the experience is in my distant past? Is that because I am so different now?

Admittedly, I've been floating along. This happy under-employment came to me just at the right time in my life. My husband has since built his business from the ground up, allowing me to earn less bread and take it easier. I've had two children, and a million other life changes have occurred. Once I slowed down at my sleepy little company, my personal life really took off. Did I finally allow it to come first or did the flexibility I suddenly had afford that?

Oh and SIDEBAR: I totally know you're thinking how much this all fits the mold of my generation of women in the workplace. Experts say nowadays, women make more than men early in their careers and trade that for men making more in the middle of their careers while they go home to have babies. Yeah, yeah - spare me the apron talk.

So, I am whoring my resume about, know any pimps?




O