Don’t Take it Personally

5 minute read time

Very often, the first thing people say to someone who has been made redundant is: “Don’t take it personally”. But as Erin Brokovich so succinctly put it in the movie of the same name. “Not personal? That is my work! My sweat! My time away from my kids! If that’s not personal, I don’t know what is.” It’s said that moving house is one of the most stressful life events. I’ve moved house on 15 different occasions since leaving my family home in my early 20s and I’d move 15 more rather than suffer another redundancy, of which I’ve had two in the past eight years.

The first time I was made redundant was in 2012, the second in 2019, and both times I felt exactly as Carrie Bradshaw did when Berger broke up with her by means of a Post-it note – bewildered and betrayed. Like being dumped by a lover you’ve invested time and emotional energy in and visualised a future with, losing a job you love is equally crushing and inspires a similar pattern of emotions: devastation, anger, resignation, bitterness and nostalgia. In relationships, there’s a fine line between love and hate, and this applies as much to professional as romantic.

When I was very young and insecure, my confidence rose and fell depending on who I was going out with. If my boyfriend was attractive and fun and charming, then surely there must be more to me than what I saw, which was a shy, plain teenager without much confidence or charisma. But as an adult, my job, rather than my partner, became the benchmark by which I measured my self-esteem. One external barometer of self-worth was replaced by another.

I’m not alone in this. According to Psychology Today, “When you casually say I’m an accountant or I’m a bartender or I’m in sales, you aren’t just explaining what you do. You’re explaining who you are. It is...a justification for your existence. I work, therefore I am.” The article continues, explaining that, “Individuals who take pride in their work and find their work purposeful and meaningful are often hit the hardest when they are out of a job, as their job provided a sense of accomplishment, self-efficacy, and hope…”

Although “a crude socioeconomic measuring stick”, it’s the only one we’ve got or at least the only one I’ve got. I am neither a wife nor a mother, so without a job, what is my purpose? What is the point of me? What am I good for?

These are the existential questions that ran through my head after both redundancies and they were only compounded by the financial consequences of a job loss as well as the social side-effects – without warning, you lose the community with which you’ve worked, played, bickered and belly-laughed with every day for several years.

After my first redundancy, I drifted into a stupor of self-recrimination. Should I have worked harder, longer, smarter? Could I have added more value to the company? Why didn’t I make myself indispensable? (I’ve since learned it’s because there’s no such thing.) I promised myself that it would never happen again and in every subsequent role – with the exception of one which was such a negative experience it left me mentally and emotionally debilitated most days – I didn’t just work my ass off, I diversified my skills across several other areas of the business wherever possible, took on additional projects though there was no tangible reward, and invested myself wholeheartedly in the success of not just my position but the company itself.

This seemed like a positive, proactive way to deal with the defeat of that first redundancy: look back, learn lessons and apply them in the future. But I’ve since learned that retracing my steps and searching for a reason why I was made redundant rather than someone else is not the most fruitful approach. Psychology Today explains that in several studies conducted over the past few decades, “consistently one-in-three trauma victims [do] not search for a reason to explain why they are experiencing misfortune. And it is this one-third who turn out to be the best adjusted – weeks, months, and years later.”

But redundancy leaves people wrestling with feelings of self-doubt, fear and inadequacy. To not try and figure out why this has happened goes against the grain, especially for women in midlife who, according to a study published in the Academy of Management Perspectives Journal, “provide a model of high-level performance”. The article goes on to explain that, “These women bring to organisations personal maturity, significant professional experience, and a desire for new challenges.” With this in mind, redundancy in midlife seems simply too unfair.

Perhaps this is why my second redundancy hit me just as hard as the first. I was that stereotypical midlife woman who didn’t just love her job but really valued it and everything it provided, financially, emotionally and intellectually.

I understood that, rightly or wrongly, the older a woman becomes, the more difficult it is for her to beat the plethora of fresh-faced millennials to the professional finish line. So like many of my peers, I worked doubly hard.

Growing up, we’re taught that if we want something badly enough and work hard for it, we can have it. But this grounding principle has fractured like ice beneath the weight of a recession and a pandemic. Many of us are splashing around desperately searching for a bit of dry land on which we can begin to build something new. Although article after article will provide practical tips on how to “bounce back” from redundancy, the truth is it’s the emotional fallout that needs to be managed before those practical next steps can be taken.

According to an article in The Guardian, there's a “growing body of academic research suggesting unemployment should be treated as a full-on psychological crisis.” As such it needs to be met with a solution that’s more profound than those blithe career tips like ‘broaden your network’ or ‘improve your CV’. Psychology Today suggests drawing on our “existential courage”. It explains that “Instead of asking why bad things happen to good people, existential courage turns that timeless riddle on its head and inspires us to ask: what can good people do when bad things happen?” In other words, we must accept the reality, refuse to be defeated by it and move forward rather than look back.

I’ve heard redundancy described as identity theft, and that’s the most astute of interpretations in my mind. But perhaps post-pandemic, it will feel less so, as the paradigm for work-life balance shifts significantly. In the meantime, I’ll take small comfort in the fact that, despite two redundancies, nobody has ever broken up with me on a Post-it note. It would be impossible not to take that personally.