All-American Rejects “Move Along”

As of about 10:30 am tomorrow morning, I will have been unemployed for two weeks.  I know that that is not monumental in the grand scheme of things and that countless people have been unemployed much longer and with worse prospects, but nevertheless, it’ll be two weeks closer to truly running out of money.

I’ve been told to enjoy this time, to really look for something that makes me happy, to see this as a blessing in disguise, etc.  Yes, this COULD be a good thing but no words you can throw at me are going to fix my current situation.  The only thing that can is a new job.  So I’m looking.  And as frustrating as this looking can be/has been, I can’t help but wonder why I hadn’t heeded the advice of others to begin looking months ago.

As I’ve said, this lay off was disappointing but not an overall surprise.  I believe know that I am a quality employee but if the work’s not there, the money’s not there.  My situation is proof that being assigned solely to one team in an agency setting can be a blessing in busy times and nothing short of a curse in slow times.  The saddest part is that I can’t even say that I’ve learned a lesson.  I saw this coming months ago and was terrified  but all I could do was ask for more work.  If it’s not sent my way from above, there’s nothing I can do about it.  Oh well, their lose, whether they know it or not.  At this point, it does me no good to concern myself with such details.

But the question still remains, if I saw this coming, why didn’t I prepare for it?  Why didn’t I get out?  Or at least start looking?  Honestly, I don’t really know.  Starting to look made it feel like I was giving up, giving up on that job, that company, the three years I’d put in.  I wasn’t ready to admit defeat or ,worse, becoming stagnant.

I love(d) the company that hired me.  My first year our office was positively glowing.  Sure, clients were crazy, executives were “interesting”, people left, interns changed, and the like, but we were 40+ strong, young, talented, and driven.  Working 9-10 hour days didn’t seem like a problem.  Chivis and I were excited if we could make the 6:15 pm Body Pump class at Gold’s Gym.  Sometimes the 6:45 class was still a stretch but we were busy and, more importantly, learning.

I’ll never speak ill of my company because I still love it for taking a chance on my, hiring me from a phone interview, embracing me with open arms, throwing me in with guidance when needed, and obviously paying me to learn.  But I will say that the magic started to slowly fade.  As our ranks shrank, so did our obnoxious morale.  Between the near 65% staff decrease, clients leaving, an awkward merger, my entire team leaving at once, my next boss leaving 6 months later, two rounds of lay offs and my obviously questionable billability, I knew it was only a matter of time and I was afraid I didn’t have the heart to really fight to convince myself anymore.

So what kept me from moving on on my own terms, the best way?  I believe I started to confuse (or mask) loyalty with laziness.  It’s very true that I wasn’t ready to “give up” on this company.  But that didn’t mean I believed it felt the same way about me.  Do I believe it was an easy choice to let me go?  I hope not but I can’t really say.  And honestly, it doesn’t matter if it was.  It happened just the same.  I just don’t know if I stayed despite the paranoia, the numbers and the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach becuase I believed it would get better or because I hoped it just wouldn’t get worse (for me).  I think I was just hoping I could close my eyes and it would all go away.  Well, it did all go away, just not the way I was hoping.  My eyes are WIDE OPEN now.

Reminding herself that busy and useful aren’t always the same thing,

Jo’van

July 21, 2009
Categories: Office Appropriate (Work Life), Whole Truth, The . Tags: busy, content, getting out early, job search, laid off, laziness, lazy, loyal, loyalty, office, stagnant, useful . Author: tjovand . Comments: Leave a comment