Surviving A Lay Off

What to do when lay offs occur in a struggling company and instead of being pushed out of the lifeboat, you are one of the survivors? This is what happened to me last week.

1. Let it sink in.

You will be left feeling stunned, confused and angry at what has just happened at work. Take a deep breath and let all these wildly crazed emotions sink in and take their rightful places in your head and heart. The people who were "let go" were probably some of your favorite water cooler buddies who you've been used to seeing and talking to every day -- maybe for years -- and now they've just been escorted by Security to the door. This is quite a big change to have to process in a very short period of time so give yourself a gift of kindness and let yourself grieve in your own way.   

2. Talk it out.

People with no souls and the odd Human Resource person love to tell lay off survivors, "You shouldn't take it so hard; it was just business, not personal." Arrrrggh... Unless you've been working in a factory with robots, it's ALL personal. 

So take all those personal feelings and coordinate a weekly/monthly lunch with your fellow survivors to talk about things. Layoffs usually mean new job responsibilities which usually breeds more stress and strain on everyone. Talking about what's going on with the changes at work is one way to help unknot those kinks of stress that are building up in your body right now.

3. If you get the immediate urge to scarf down Twinkies, beer and nachos to ease the pain, don't fight the feeling... for a day or two.

This coping idea probably isn't covered in any management textbooks, but let's be honest here, after the lay off dust has cleared, you are achingly in need of some junk food gratification -- NOW! and it doesn't hurt to moderately indulge in a food vice or two for a short period of time -- like a few days. (Myself, nothing says lovin' like a big chocolate chip cookie from the oven. )

But once you've indulged, time to put on your best Nancy Reagan game face and just say no to those Twinkies, Ding Dongs, mini-beer kegs and nachos. Yessss. Painful but true.  Eating more and junk food will keep your internal hamster wheel spinning round in round in a whirl of low sugar-high sugar craziness which isn't going to help the stress ball you've got going on right now. (Here's a story in the Washington Post about some new scientific research on why we reach for comfort food during stress. Apparently, we can't help ourselves due to biology!)

4. Take a hard look at your life.

One of the weird things about being a survivor is that in a way you are now living in a kind of Work LimboLand. The poor folks who were let go know now -- for better or worse -- what their immediate work future looks like. But survivors are still out there -- twisting slowly in the wind while they wait for another possible layoff shoe to drop.  Gulp.

So maybe now is the time to take a hard look at your own life and take over the controls. Are you heading where you want to go or just drifting along with the status quo tide? Can you see yourself being happy in your same job next year, next month, next week? We've all been given only one shot at this life, so for god's sake, make the most of it and be ruthlessly honest with yourself as you take stock of where you are and where you want to go right now. 

1:44:38 PM    comment []

My husband, Pat, and I were wandering around our local summer agricultural fair on a beautiful August evening, and while we were checking out the winning contest entries in the art exhibit hall, he turned to me and said with a deep sigh, "I really wish I could draw."

Just six simple words. Stopped me in my tracks.

Now Pat is truly what I'd call a Renaissance Guy. Incredibly creative photographer, artist, musician, lighting designer; Pat is a can-do guy who can just about do it all. But hearing his desire to draw was a new one for me, and really, given all his other creative talents, it would of been easy to blow it off with a "Yeah, that would be nice wouldn't it?" and then head off for the nearest corn dog vendor.

But... I'm a coach, and I just couldn't let that desire go unanswered.

So I asked him the obvious question: "So, have you ever tried to draw?" He told me that he had tried years ago, but that his drawings were "no good" and "really I don't see the point in even trying again. "

But that is the point and it brings up an idea that has become one of my favorite words-to-live-by rule :

Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.

Even if you absolutely stink as compared to Van Gogh, your old art teacher or the three year-old kid next door, if you want to put a drawing pencil to pad, go ahead and do it. Take joy in how it feels to be letting your brain take a stroll down a new road -- no judgements on the outcome -- just let the activity be its own reward.

And Confession Time here... I am by any kind measure of ability, a rotten artist. Awful.. stink up the room. Once in grade school art class, I had my art teacher hold up a painful looking multi-colored watercolor painting of flowers I had done and asked the class, "WHO did this one?" with a look on her face like she had just smelled a rotting flounder. Paralyzed with shame and having forgotten to scribble my name on the back of the watercolor, I remained silent.  She finally gave up when no one came forth claiming to be the artist, but I think she finally figured out it was me. I received a "B" grade for that class and I think to this day that the poor woman did it out of pity for my lack of any artistic ability.

And as bad as I am when it comes to drawing anything, I still own a big oversized sketchpad, a box of pastels and a 64-crayon box of Crayola crayons. Because every now and then, I get this frantic urge to just scribble something on paper and it feels so goood when I do it. And my drawings are baaad!

So if your soul is calling you to paint, write, learn Swahili or play the tuba in a marching band, don't sit in nasty pre-judgment of yourself that it's a waste of time to try because you'd be no good at it; give yourself permission to have some fun, dive right in, and be the worst at it you could possibly be!

And that's good.

1:39:27 PM    comment []

I've been working on an article dealing with the idea that we spend an inordinate amount of time trying to change ourselves into something we're truly not instead of just going with the flow of who we are. Article to follow later but in the meantime, I came across an article in Fast Company magazine that gives an interesting Hollywood spin on this idea. Written by Harriet Rubin, one of my fave columnists, it describes how the "hot go-to guy" these days in Hollywood is former casting director, Sam Christensen. Christensen teaches celebrities and businesspeople how to "look the part of the leading man or leading lady" but his success strategy is based on "...people who say, 'I'm willing to take the risk of being entirely myself in front of you.'

1:37:32 PM    comment []