The first phase of my process to get over being laid off was focused on dealing with the shock of life changing drastically in just minutes. You don’t believe it is really happening, you get mad, sad, deny it, and then mad again, etc. Eventually though, it starts to sink in.

This is where the second phase starts, and it’s arguably worse. This is when realization sets in that it is truly real. It is very real, it has happened, and there is nothing left you can do but get going with life as it is now. Time to pick yourself up and start doing things, maybe even just going through the motions. But without your job, and the possible concerns about money you may have (due to your unplanned for unemployment,) you may not have normal motions to go through.

So while I found this phase of my path the worst part of the process, it at least starts the process to back to normal life.

Depression

At this point it has fully sunk in.Confidence is gone, because (and here comes what is a big ol’ lie your brain will tell you), “you are a failure”. The other thing you may tell yourself is “my career is over.” Intellectually you may be pretty sure these are lies, but you don’t grieve with your intellect. You grieve with your feelings. And I don’t know about you, but my feelings are dumb, and they only barely listen to reason.

Is my career over?

The career is over part may be the worst feeling of them all, because you really don’t know if that is true or not. In some cases, it may be at least partially true. My career in marketing truly was over. I personally worked in a role that didn’t directly entice people to purchase products. When the way Internet content was found by people changed with AI, even if I didn’t see it to start with, I should have known it was going to happen sooner or later.

My problem was exacerbated by being in a type of job where the number of opportunities to find the same job again were small. But I had to remind myself that I was deep down a Data Architect/Technologist while I was managing a website, and I that is what I truly am now.

My new job is in Data Integration and BI Development, which are just aspects of data architecture. I will admit to being concerned I couldn’t do that work again, even going back to the place I have been for 25 years of my life, where I am working with a lot of code I had a hand in.

A few meetings in and I am starting to remember all the things (some things looked completely foreign to me until I get the explanation, and it is like a wakeup slap in the face, but in those times between layoffs and new hire, doubts were all over the place. It is important to keep reminding yourself what you know and what you are capable of. It is amazing how much I didn’t think about it for 3 years, but as I do this work more, it all comes back to me.

Even as I knew I was progressing towards a job where I knew my future coworkers and knew they wouldn’t mess with me like so many stories I read…I still was catatonic worrying over my future.

Am I a failure?

The “you are a failure” is such an effective lie because for the weeks after you are laid off, you don’t have that much evidence to the contrary. Part of my depression was that it must have been my fault this had happened. And even if you were told the contrary, in fact, even if you can reason it out that it wasn’t…your mind is going to keep repeating it over and over. “I am a failure, and it must have been my fault.”

The first thing you can be sure of is that if they had a good reason to blame it on your, they probably wouldn’t arrange that have it to occur with other people. Hang on strong to that notion. It is not your fault. And when you can’t believe that it isn’t your fault, know for certain that this next statement is 100% true. “it is definitely not all your fault.”

Sometimes, people in charge just have to do things to make the entire organization better. Sometime this is a new approach, hiring a firm to manage part of the business, etc. Sometimes it is an external forces like a pandemic, unexpected manufacturing issues, change in direction, monetary deficits or even politics.

So you may be a casualty of this. Honestly the whole thing stinks, but it has to happen, even if it is no fault of yours at all. (And no matter how much you say you would never do it if you were in charge, they all said it themselves at one time too. Something happened, someone made mistakes, and you were caught in the crossfire.

It is a loop after all

These questions, and all the other doubts in the beginning just made me depressed.

And depression didn’t just end as I moved forward. A big part of why this is a phase of all three emotions is that they influence each other. If you can come to grips with why you think it happened to you, it becomes easier to start acceptance. But don’t think you are all better. Just like the grief you feel after a loved one passes, you are going to be back to this phase a few times, and have to work through it again, just hopefully it gets a little better each time. (I am really not 100% over being laid off 25 years ago either. It is still in my mind and makes me keep looking for it to happen. Even if I didn’t see it coming this time.)

Acceptance

For me, accepting it as reality came down to reconciling in my head that all the exciting plans I had been making for months and months were gone. A few of the conferences I was planning I am still going to, just now for different reasons.

The process I have gone through to accept that it is really over seems like the weirdest thing to me. Every experience I had planned has to be “killed off.” That probably isn’t the best term, but for example, I had 8 conferences scheduled, and 3 or so more planned. One of them was the PASS Summit, a conference I have been to every event except the first one (plus a few that I spent recuperating from a surgery!).

These future plans intermingle in my mind with my memories of years past, especially the most recent event like last year’s PASS Summit. It was a very strong emotion (for me) and a highlight of my year. When that first came to mind, it was like a balloon popping, taking it from a happy plan to one that felt said, and had to be removed from active memory. It isn’t even 100% sure that I won’t make it to Seattle this year, but it definitely would be very different compared to what that future plan looked like in my mind.

This leads to mini episodes of bargaining, anger, and denial. And just at the moment my brain knows that I have very little real chance of making it out to Seattle this year… acceptance.

As each of the plans I had slowly died off, I was left with this almost comforting acceptance that it was what it was. I am not dropping out of the SQL community (I am not writing blogs just for myself, even if it does help!), I went to conferences before, and I have a few planned the rest of this year.

As plans are transformed to memories, I start to more and more accept where I am. I am in a job at a place I love in the same way I did Redgate. There was a lot of stuff I am going to miss there, but I felt the same way when I arrived there. Then this almost odd calm that my leaving was the best for me comes over me. It is an incomplete calm of course, because unlike a lot of people, I see and interact with my old coworkers, and I still will be using my old company’s software (I installed SQL Prompt today!). Add to that, the fact that I will be linking back to articles left on the website I managed for years to come.

Heck, for my new job I am reading/rereading a lot of the articles on Simple Talk about Fabric. (And my post that comes out tomorrow about SSMS actually links to a Redgate product I love.) I couldn’t get away from Redgate completely if I wanted!

The Bonus Stage: Fear

I tend to think of fear in this context as the practical, somewhat more rational side of stuff that starts out as depression. Depression and fear are really similar to me, but fear hits the realistic challenges that you aren’t sure you can get past. For me it started when I saw what COBRA insurance costs were. “it costs that to get insurance?” No longer was I thinking “no more going to fun conferences with Grant, Steve and Kellyn” it was “how will I live if…”

Even when I was working directly on getting a job (with people I had worked with before, mind you), fear gripped me… what if they change their mind? What if I don’t pass the security checks? What if… Now mind you, if they changed their minds, they would have told me. These are people who are actual friends of mine and while they could have changed their minds, they would have at least told me.

And I am quite sure that I haven’t been convicted of any crimes, I haven’t even had a speeding ticket in 20 years, so i was confident… but you know… that annoying little phrase seeps in.

“What If?”

“What if” can grip you and keep you in a state of fear and depression, and the kicker… you brain may accept it as real. The worst part of it is that 25 years since my first layoff, I still have that wee bit of paranoia in the back of my head that this could be the day. No matter how comfortable you feel, it could happen.

Hopefully many of you think this as more of a thing that could happen more than fearing that it will happen, but for me it will always be this fear in the back of my mind. And worse yet, sometimes it comes when you have stopped fearing that it will. And that is the worst of it.

Summary

The major part of my journey is complete. I am working now, back in the place I have worked nearly half of my life. Same company, a lot of the same places, but a lot of new challenges.

I still have memories and plans to kill off in my mind, and as I write this, I have to install software from the company I just left to do my new job. Software I had a hand in suggesting they get. And to be quite honest, I would make that suggestion today even if they didn’t have it yet.

I can’t promise that even when I come to the true “end” of this current grieving period that I will ever be able to be 100% over it all. All I will promise that one of my next editorials will be about my love of one or more of my previous company’s products and I am as over it as I am going to get.