Most people had no idea I got laid off, so don’t feel out of the loop. But, to be honest, if this is how you found out, I’m a bit unimpressed with your investigation skills. I’ll give credit where credit is due, though. I’m usually an oversharer, and I’m also a writer. So the most unlikely route I could’ve taken to a big life change is the route where I say nothing.
But, there’s two main reasons I didn’t announce it.
The LinkedIn “Open to Work” filter is ugly.
As someone who depended on using their career as part of their personality, not having a job caused a massive identity crisis.
Pause. Let me take you back to June.
JUNE
I got laid off, or my two-week notice that I was getting laid off, rather, 5 days before the Taylor Swift concert. Taylor Swift is important to the timeline because I remember after I got the news my first thought was that I needed to cancel my nail appointment. I very quickly started categorizing my life into things I could do and things that I couldn’t. Spending $80 on Eras nails was definitely on the list of things that were no longer for me.
Work breakups might be the worst kind of breakup you’ll ever have. Imagine the, “it’s not you, it’s me” conversation, but instead of losing date nights you lose your salary. I loved my job, and even though being laid off didn’t completely blindside me, it was still hard to wrap my head around. A lot changed for me in the first couple of years out of college, but my job was flexible and consistent. I went in as a Social Media Coordinator and left as a Content Strategist, which means I was able to grow beyond the path originally intended for me. I was extremely lucky to have a role where I could apply literally everything I learned in undergrad, and even though I wanted to be a Copywriter, I would’ve been able to settle into pretty much any marketing role because of the work I was doing there.
Also, my work breakup was hard, because we still had feelings for each other. I cared about my coworkers and vice versa. They gave me the permission to be my authentic-self, which turns out to be the most annoying person with access to a Slack account. The dynamic at my previous job stirred up a lot of envy in my peers, and when I said, “Yeah, I was FaceTiming my boss about the Kardashians,” it was never a joke. While I knew that it probably wouldn’t be the job I held forever, I wasn’t quite ready to go when I did. I cared about the company, their products, our customer-base, and again, my coworkers.
The thing that I’m most grateful for is the fact that my work breakup was one that gave me closure. I was given endless professional development resources, support, references, and connections. Obviously college shaped me, but that job really tested me and made me grow as a professional in a way that only it could.
So, saying goodbye was tough, but no hard feelings, truly. Plus, I still think the Overnight It Sleeping Mask is the best moisturizer to ever hit the market.
OK, NOW BACK TO ME
One thing about me is that I’ll always try to make things my fault. It’s not a humble thing, it’s more of a control thing, probably. There’s a sense of comfort in knowing what went wrong, even if it was me. Knowing what I did would’ve made it more avoidable going forward, “consequences” for doing nothing are really intimidating.
The hard part about layoffs is there’s really nothing that you could, or couldn’t have done, to avoid it. But, when I heard “unemployed,” that’s all I heard. When I thought about gaps in my resume and having no title to attach to my name panic ensued. If I could take you through my email inbox, you’d see dozens of emails that start with, “Allison, thank you so much for your interest in our company, but unfortunately we will not be moving forward with your application.” This made me want to drive my head into the nearest wall, especially because I had no problem landing jobs for everyone else in my life. When you’re used to having a job, and being promoted at said job, it only takes about 5 denials until you reconsider your life choices.
But, no amount of wishing I was good at science would make me able to go back in-time and choose nursing as a career path, and make this easier for me to deal with. And I didn’t hate my field, I just hated being unemployed. I knew I was insufferable when I was bored, but I’ve never known boredom quite like that. Boredom is fine on Sundays, but boredom was NOT settling well with me when it was indefinite. I couldn’t control the timeline that was at hand, I applied for jobs and networked like they were my job, but of course they weren’t. I’m not sure what my purpose is, or if it’s one-sided, but I’d like to think that I don’t just have ambitious dreams because I haven’t learned to rationalize yet. Most of my dreams, at the time, were career-centric because that’s what I could reach - or, it seemed that way.
I don’t do well when I feel like I don’t have a purpose. Thank God I found the Aware and Aggravated podcast when I did, because Leo Skepi famously says, “You don’t have to feel like you have a purpose to matter.” So, even though I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing in the bigger picture, I knew I was supposed to enjoy my life.
In walked the best quarter of my life, ever.
MY BEST QUARTER EVER
When I landed my current job, I was sort of running out of hope for my career as a Copywriter, so it couldn’t have come at a better time. Immediately after getting the offer, I had this odd feeling of gratitude for the time I spent unemployed. I spent a lot of time hating my situation, just for it to end in a peaceful understanding. Like for the first time in a long time, I decided that the world probably wasn’t out to get me, it was just life. I needed the rest. It had been a hard year. It was a year I needed to reflect on and learn from, burying my head in work didn’t help process everything I was carrying as residual.
But of course in retrospect, it’s really never as bad as it felt. So, here’s what happened in-between my first dream job and my second dream job.
Let’s start with this. Lifestyle changes have always been my way of coping. Typically, these are crash diets that end as soon as I start feeling better about my situation. One of the things I knew I needed to tackle was my overall physical health. I could physically feel myself operating at 20 percent, and I knew that the already difficult phase of my life wasn’t going to get easier while I felt like that. I spent a summer in and out of doctors, dentists, endocrinologists, estheticians, therapists - you name it, I had an appointment for it. I spent the summer learning moderation and diving into a lifestyle that worked alongside the PCOS diagnosis I’d just gotten. Ultimately, I started caring about myself in the way I forced others to let me care about them.
To be honest, it sort of made me understand the resistance towards concrete acts of care now, because it was tedious and tiring. I hated bloodwork, I hated sitting through EMDR sessions, I hated weekly weigh-ins. But it’s the same type of hate you feel towards the morning commute, eventually you just see it as a step towards the bigger picture. When I ended up healthier and less tired, the three month commute towards my health didn’t seem to matter because I’d gotten where I needed to be.
It took the free time to learn the truth in friendship being one of the great loves of my life. Having an open schedule had me taking any opportunity to do anything. I had friends that I hadn’t seen since 2022 that I see regularly now because I learned how to prioritize my schedule. Being able to process the year before gave me the ability to be the third, fifth, or even seventh wheel. I found the value in solitude and genuinely became a better and happier person because of it. I even ditched my SSRI.
I was literally so unemployed it was ridiculous, but I was really happy. Happy. Not content. Not indifferent. Happy. But, I believe that finding the time to achieve that was a full-time job.
LOOKING BACK
I never want to be unemployed again, don’t get me wrong. It’s a hustle and it’s really difficult to maneuver. But, if you’re like me, a lot of times I create this story in my head where I’m isolated and have no help, when that isn’t the case, and really has never been. Most people want to help and are waiting for the opportunity for you to let them. Another important thing I learned during this period is that when you never want help, people will not know how to offer you help when you do want it. So you have to ask, and you have to look. Luckily, financial resources and good people exist for situations like these. So the end of the world really never is the end of the world, if anything, it’s just the end of the world as you knew it.
On the other side of everything, I’ll say that I find it really interesting how one of the worst things that ever happened to you can morph into one of the best things that ever happened to you pretty much overnight. I had a pit in my stomach that lingered for days after finding out that I was going to be laid off. I had no idea what I would say in my interviews or what my life would look like as I moved forward. I was extremely confused, embarrassed, and probably a little bit heartbroken over what I’d lost.
Truth be told, I’ve lost all ties to the person I was fresh out of college. There was a point where that would’ve really scared me. I remember telling my best friend the news and saying, “If you would’ve told me my life would look like this now a year ago, I think you would’ve had to put me in a straightjacket.” But now, I can confidently say that the universe has a really interesting, sometimes horrible, way of getting you where you need to be, even if it takes longer than you thought it would.
Where I am now is back in Detroit, at an agency, working on projects that excite me. Which leads me to the fact that I think I would’ve been a really bad nurse, so I’m really grateful to be a Copywriter.