On January 27, 2009, The Daily Show covered the continuing onslaught of jobs in what would later be called “The Great Recession.” Jon Stewart announced that Pfizer, GE, and other large companies laid off thousands of employees that day. I was one of them, receiving my call from my Fortune 100 company that morning.
Our only son was a freshman at a pricey private university in an expensive East Coast city. He had merit scholarships, but we were on the hook for four years of housing and travel. Still, that was not my career’s worst day, far from it.
I walked away with a year’s Cadillac-plan health insurance, a lump sum, and bonuses I had saved. Our son was deep into his studies and social life and mostly oblivious to what happened at home. My husband was tenured and a full professor.
I survived because of what I learned after another layoff.
I was first laid off when he was a baby
When our son was 11 months old, my position in marketing management was eliminated. My boss and the human resources director invited me to the executive conference room. I learned that five service lines and employees were cut. I could not return to my cubicle, someone fetched my purse, and later, I received my possessions in a cardboard box via the mail.
Mortgage rates were high, and a month before our son was born, we had purchased our first home at an interest above 9%. My husband was still working on tenure; our son needed diapers, day care, and all the costly accouterments of toddlerhood.
Before my layoff, I had been struggling with post-partum depression. I had a miscarriage, my third early pregnancy loss, when our son was 5 months old. When I got home from my layoff meeting, I lay on the couch and barely got up for three months. Losing the job added to my despair, and I felt shame and embarrassment.
Therapy helped me get out
Depressed, I stopped eating and watched 13-inch black-and-white TV all day, enduring Kathie Lee Gifford’s insufferable daily motherhood segment on “Regis and Kathie Lee.”
I didn’t hold the baby for weeks. My husband took him to and from the sitter. In addition to working full-time, he cooked and cleaned. He went through hell, holding all three of us together. He was a rock star.
When my doctor told me, “You are a nervous mother,” and prescribed Valium, my husband suggested a new doctor. My new female doctor sent me to therapy. With help, I pulled myself by my fingernails out of the dark well into the light.
I felt better and took my son to the mall in his stroller. Two former co-workers waved me over to their food court table.
“Is life terrible?” one asked. I felt their pity and contempt as if I wore a huge scarlet A.
I wasn’t dead — I was walking with my beautiful child. Seeing these two men who hadn’t been fired changed something inside me. And what I saw behind their sorrow for me was their fear they could lose their jobs.
I wasn’t afraid to lose a job anymore
I learned that I could control how I felt about myself.
I also lost the fear of losing my job, having learned I could survive. The latter is a huge asset.
As life returned to normal, I enjoyed time with my family. I’ve learned to treasure ordinary days without chaos, illness, and maybe a blue sky and sunshine. Nine months after losing my job, I started a better one.
I still feel guilty about how I ignored my child and left everything to my husband after my first layoff. Our family has experienced difficulties in 40 years and shared memorable times. I no longer feel shame, and those two job losses seem like a blip on a large radar screen. My first firing shaped a healthier attitude about life for me and strengthened our family despite the bad times. That we recover from our struggles is the best lesson we could give our son.
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