'I lost my job... Here's what happened next'

The Covid-19 pandemic, in addition to causing a global economic meltdown of epic proportions, has also led to employees across industries being laid off, put on furloughs, and truncated salaries. Below is the first-person account of a young media professional who was laid off, hit rock-bottom but found his mojo back. It started like a normal day. Colleagues exchanging pleasantries, water-cooler chit-chats, gup-shup near the coffee machine and business as usual. I clocked in and sat at my desk. The day was not very hectic, yet, till my colleague who happened to be at the senior-most position in the team got a call from the HR. 76352983‘HR has called me on the fourth floor for a meeting.’‘Ugh, God no! Did we get into trouble for a story we did?’, I asked. ‘Could be’, responded the colleague. That’s how clueless we were. We had no idea what lay in store. Ten minutes later, the colleague came back with a grim look on his face. ‘It’s over. We are shutting down. I was just told to put in my resignation. The company cannot sustain us any more.’‘What?’ I responded. I was aghast, and shaken. When the news about a possible layoff hits you, you never process it in one go. Especially, when it hits you out of nowhere.That is when our boss came to our desk and asked us to gather around. We formed a circle around her and sat on our chairs. Our boss assured us that the move ‘isn’t personal’ and that the company ‘doesn’t hate us all of a sudden’ and will be willing to consider some of us for some openings in other departments. An internal transfer seemed like the only hope that we were left with. I got a call from the HR. I was told that the company was offering us two months of severance pay. I was relieved. Two months seemed like a good amount of time to find a new job. ‘It isn’t going to be as bad,’ I reassured myself. 76353058I came back to my desk, switched on the system only to find that the company had revoked our rights and privileges, from the CMS to the social media handles... As the day went on, we handed in our resignations, completed all formalities and gave up our access cards. The news of the website shutting down spread like wildfire across the newsroom, despite all the efforts by the HR and the management to keep it under the wraps. Several people, distant friends from other departments came to offer their commiserations and told us ‘it is going to be okay’ and ‘arre bahut openings hai (there are plenty job openings), you’ll find one easily.’As I stepped out of the office for the last time, I couldn’t help but tear up. Sure, I was relatively new and had spent only four months at the company but there were so many things I wanted to achieve. I remember walking in for the first time with hope, aspirations and dreams - all of which now remained shattered. The Covid-19 pandemic, apart from bringing an economic slowdown and a 2008-esque economic crisis, has also led to a bloodbath in the media and the corporate world in terms of lay-offs. Uber, Zomato, Swiggy are just some of the many mega-successful start-ups that have laid off thousands of employees. Every day there comes in news about furloughs, pay-cuts and lay-offs taking place in reputed MNCs, with some of them even shutting off operations. Layoffs and furloughs across sectors have rendered thousands helpless and struggling to find their footing. 76353079The hard part, however, is not the day when you find out that you are getting laid off. It’s spending the next day at home, without work and struggling to search the Internet for job openings. Your mind can’t help but wonder ‘why me?’ and of course, the pertinent thought, ‘I wish I never would have joined this company in the first place.’What you feel is a whirlwind of powerful emotions - hopelessness, angst, anger, frustration and truth be told, it does seem like the end of the world. You struggle to find someone to talk to as all your friends are busy at work. You find it hard to explain to your parents, wife and kids as to why you are not going to work any more. The worst part is the uncertainty surrounding the whole situation - how long will it take me to find my next job? Will I be able to draw as much salary as I did in my last workplace? How will I support myself financially? How will I explain to my future employers why I left a company after just four months? Which e-Mail ID should I shoot my CV to? How should I get noticed on LinkedIn?And just when you think that things couldn’t get worse, they do. In the days that follow, you become used to spending time at home, bingeing on Netflix, doing household chores but when you go to sleep at night, you see flashes of that fateful day when you were laid off before your eyes. It is hard to come to terms with what happened. It really is. 76353133Nevertheless, you continue looking for jobs, sending CVs, appearing for interviews. You get some offers which aren’t lucrative enough and some rejections. Rejections can be a bitter pill to swallow. You can’t help but feel demotivated and to some extent, be filled with self-doubts. I, for one, appeared for five interviews and got rejected five times consecutively. Five two-hour-long copy tests, five gruelling interviews and five rejections later, I found myself feeling dejected, hopeless and a waste of space. Five rejections are enough to make a person seriously doubt their capabilities. Soon, I reached a stage where I was so desperate for a job, that I would have accepted an offer irrespective of the pay and the designation that I was being offered - a sorry state to be in, indeed. The times were so challenging that I even considered giving up on media houses and going for advertising, which, in retrospect, I am glad I did not do. Five weeks. Five weeks of sitting at home, searching for jobs endlessly and feeling hopeless. I had two interviews lined up the following week. I had lost all hope and attempted both half-heartedly. I ended up clearing them both. 76353144After spending eight months full of ups and downs at my current organisation, when I see people getting laid off across sectors, it breaks my heart. If you are someone who has recently been laid off and are struggling to deal with its aftermath, I wish I could tell you things like ‘it will get better’ and ‘you’ll survive this’. The truth is, things will get a lot worse before they get better. But, you have to prepare yourself mentally and physically for what’s coming - hopelessness.You will feel hopeless and dejected. These feelings will overpower you at times. But the silver lining in all of this is that when you land your next job, you will never take it for granted. You would take each day as it comes, live it to the fullest because you know, somewhere, there is a possibility of it all coming to an end in a giffy. If you are someone who has been laid off, firstly, as difficult as it sounds - don’t take it personally. The company couldn’t sustain you.. 76353160What you can do though, is try to find a stable job elsewhere. For that, you need to stay focussed and apply for jobs actively. Reach out to that distant cousin, talk to that long-lost friend and ask your professional contacts if they can help you land interviews. If you are financially privileged and don’t have to necessarily take up a job, use this time to explore yourself. Read a book, go watch movies and use this time to unwind. Whatever you do, always believe in your abilities. If you are qualified enough to get a job at a particular designation in a particular company, you are qualified to get another job at the same designation at some other place. Bottomline: There is a place meant for you that is just as fun as your last workplace. You just have to find it. Above all, don’t lose hope. Things will get a lot worse, but they will get better eventually. Besides, if I can survive a lay-off after being jobless for two months and getting rejected by five companies straight, so can you. Just hang in there! (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column are that of the writer. The facts and opinions expressed here do not reflect the views of https://ift.tt/30zugc5

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/2Yy97vZ