Funemployment
The last couple of months have felt super long but at the same time they have gone by so quickly. As you know, I was laid off from my job at Morgan Stanley after over 5 years of working there. It broke my heart but I’m in a much better place now (nearly 2 months later). This is happening to a lot of people so I figured I would share my experience with you — how it felt, what I’m doing with my time and what you can do to support me.
Let’s start with the actual layoff. Ah, I still remember it like it was yesterday…I mean it wasn’t that long ago so, not shocking that it feels like yesterday. When I tell you that it caught me completely by surprise I really mean that it caught me by surprise. About a week or two before it happened my friend had told me that he thought layoffs were coming up but we didn’t know for sure. On the day that it happened, I was preparing to be working from Mexico for a week because we had an important launch coming up and I couldn’t take the time off, or so I thought. I had a quarterly one-on-one meeting scheduled with my manager’s manager and it had been rescheduled a couple of times. I didn’t think much of it as he had a busy schedule. When it was almost time for our meeting, he asked to push it 30 more minutes to the later part of the afternoon and I agreed with no hesitation. I saw him in his office with my manager having a conversation, like they always do, but it was serious because there was no laughter or any indication that it wasn’t serious. Still, I didn’t think anything of it. Finally, when it was time for the meeting, I began to walk up to his office and he greeted me at the entrance of his office and asked if I had spoken to my manager.
me: No, I haven’t seen her in a while.
him: Oh, I was hoping she would have talked to you already.
me: Oh?
him: Let’s go find her.
me: Okay. Is everything okay?
him: Let’s just go talk to her.
Still in this moment, I didn’t suspect it. I had been considering a role change and for a second I thought I was getting a different role. I guess in a way, I was. LOL. We started walking and he led me to the elevator bank, which is when I realized that it was very strange.
me: Wait, is this like a layoff walk?
he just looks at me with a sad smile.
me: Wait, really??
him: Yeah…
The rest of it is pretty standard. We walked to a conference room where my manager was and on the polycom was someone from HR. I was shocked, angry, confused, sad, super shocked, super angry, super confused and super devastated. Everything after that felt like a blur. They walked me to the exit and that was that.
Honestly, I have goosebumps reliving that moment as I write it for you now but I have a much different perspective than I did in that moment. I remember feeling super embarrassed because I didn’t see it coming. Also the mass company layoffs, for our team at least, were scheduled for the next day and so for that night, I was the only one and I felt very alone. A lot of my friends and colleagues were shocked too so that made me feel better too. You never want to be the one where people are like “Oh yeah, I’m not surprised.”
I was supposed to go to Mexico the next day to celebrate one of my childhood best friend’s wedding but I had to cancel the trip because I was just so distraught. I didn’t want to be around people and have to explain what just happened or pretend to be happy on the outside when I was really crushed on the inside. I needed time to think about what I wanted to do but also I needed a moment to just grieve. I genuinely love to cry, which sounds weird. I don’t like when something makes me cry like in a bad way but the act of crying feels very therapeutic for me. I’m just a very emotional gal, what can I say? I recorded myself every day and then every few days to remind myself of where I was whenever I was in a better place. I’ll link it so you can see the compilation.
Phew! That was a lot for me to write but it feels so good. Work had been my entire existence. I was so desperate to be successful at work that I had let it consume be and become my personality. Living in New York, and I’m sure in a lot of other places, the first thing I get asked when meeting someone is “what do you do?” rather than tell me about yourself or something like that. There is so much importance and value associated to your title and what you do. I can’t say I don’t do it to other people but because of this, I also trained myself to believe that I was only as important and valuable as my title and job. When I first moved here, I worked my ass off to get hired from a consultant to a full time employee and then to vice president. I let go of everything else that was important to me, like my health, to prioritize getting promoted. It’s what I wanted and I don’t regret it but in the future, I want to make sure that I value myself as a person first, rather than my title and the work that I do. It’s a lot easier said than done, but I’m grateful for this opportunity to reset.
Today, two months after the layoff, I have a great attitude towards it but it has not always been rainbows and butterflies to say the least. Some days were bad and others were even worse. My friends and family have really stepped up and been there for me but in the beginning I was trying very hard to put on a brave face because I didn’t want them to worry about me. I’m a very emotional person and I’m very comfortable with big expressions, both positive and negative, but my friends and family are not as comfortable — and I get that. I didn’t want them to have to feel the impact of this lay off so I tried very hard to keep it together in front of people, but what that means is that when I was alone, it was rough. I have depression and pretty bad anxiety — and a lot of people tell me that they can’t tell I have anxiety. Don’t tell me that please, because it’s not really helpful. Anyway, highs are high and lows are real low with depression and I had some really low days. It was difficult to leave the apartment sometimes. I wouldn’t leave for days at a time. Other days it was even hard to get out of bed in the morning. I didn’t want to eat and then I would be so hungry that I would binge until I felt sick. After a while, I was able to process my feelings and start moving on. I still have moments of sadness but not in the same way.
When I started applying for jobs, I figured it was a numbers game. The more jobs I applied to, the more chances I would have at getting an interview. Some jobs don’t even reject you, so they just let you submit an application and you never hear from them. That’s fine. Others, you get an automatic email right away that they received it and then you never hear from them again. Fine. The ones that trigger me though, are the rejections. Like, no matter how you look at it, getting rejected SUCKS! Even if it’s for jobs I don’t feel strongly about. For what seems like a really long time (10 days), I got endless (a hand full of) rejections. It never gets easier and I still get them all the time. But then, there are the hits — a recruiter reaches out and says they are so excited to meet you and you feel like you’re on top of the world. Like I said, highs are high and lows are low.
I’ve learned to give myself a few moments to feel whatever it is that I need to feel and then go back to what I was doing. I don’t lean in too far on the happiness of hearing back for an interview but I also don’t let myself go into a downward spiral from receiving a rejection. It’s hard, but I’m getting better at it.
While I still receive far more rejections than I do interview requests, I’ve had some amazing interviews. I’ve been very fortunate to have had several rounds with multiple companies and they haven’t worked out for a variety of reasons. When I first graduated and started looking for a job, I accepted a position that paid virtually no money, meaning it was very hard to survive on that salary. Despite my parents being incredibly hard workers, I never really appreciated the value of money because I always got whatever I wanted from either my mom’s side or my dad’s side #SpoiledPrincess. Accepting this job at this unreasonable salary set the tone for my future jobs because anything more than what I was making was good enough for me. It wasn’t until my last role where I was within the range of market rate for my role, and even then it was on the lower end of the spectrum. Because I have so much more knowledge and experience, here are the things that I’m focusing on in my job search:
Know Your Worth — I am lucky that in New York the job postings have to have the salary ranges and that has been helpful to know what I can ask for. I have a range in mind where the high end is where I want to be, the middle is where I’ll be comfortable accepting and the low end being the absolute minimum I can accept. I’ve had to turn down a fantastic role because the pay was just not anywhere near my range and the responsibilities were quite extensive. It’s not that I couldn’t do it but I knew I shouldn’t.
“Take this opportunity to do exactly what you want to do instead of settling for something you can do” — One of my friends and former colleagues texted me this today and it really resonates with me. While there are a lot of jobs I can do, I don’t want to rush to those. I don’t want to wait forever but right now, in the beginning of my job search, I have the luxury of being able to look for something that excites me and that I’m passionate about. I had this great role that I had multiple rounds of interviews for but I just had a feeling that it wasn’t the best fit for me. I’m not sure that I’ll find a role that I’ll love so much and it won’t feel like a job but I want to make sure that I give myself the best chance at being happy and excited at work.
Ask Questions — In the past, I would ask some forced, bullshit question at the end of the interviews because I knew I was supposed to but I didn’t know much about anything then. Now, I take at least 15-30 minutes before the interview to review the job description again, look up the company and jot down types of questions that I may have. I also highlight the parts of the job description that I can associate previous experience to and make note of that too so I can leverage it in the interviews. Interviewers love examples. In the past, I have been afraid to sound stupid by asking questions that weren’t “good” or relevant but in my recent interviews, I have gotten really positive feedback. In my latest one, the interviewer said he felt like he got a really good sense of how I think because of the questions that I was asking. It’s okay to ask questions about the role because as much as they are interviewing me for the position, I’m interviewing them to be my employer.
Overall, I’ve really enjoyed the various interviews because I’ve gotten the opportunity to meet so many new people and learn about their companies. Because of the nature of the roles that I apply for, I’m usually learning how companies are leveraging technology to provide elevated products and services, which has always been my interest. While I don’t have a job secured at this very moment, I am confident based on the conversations that I’ve had that the right role will find its way to me.
One of my close friends, Jeff, has been keeping me grounded and positive about the whole situation. Today, in fact, I received a rejection for a role that had put me through five interviews! I was bummed but I called my friend and I could just feel his optimism and positivity through the phone. He and his family have been so supportive of me ever since they met me but specifically during difficult times.
Lastly, to wrap this bad boy up, I want to talk about how you can support people that have been laid off. I am so lucky to have people in my life who truly care about me. When this all happened, I posted about it because I knew that an application through a referral would be much stronger than cold-applying on my own. I had spent a lot of time and effort in building my network over the years and let me tell you, it has paid off. More often than not, I hear back from recruiters when a friend has referred me, so that would be my first piece of advice. When something like this happens, there’s very little you can say or do to make the person feel better but it doesn’t cost anything to refer someone to a position.
The other thing that my friends have been great with is connecting me to people in the industry. For example, one of my friends from the tennis club connected me to two of his friends and former classmates who worked in the sports industry. The sports industry is one that I have always wanted to break into and I had a lot of questions about it and setting up these coffee chats were invaluable. Both individuals gave me great advice and connected me to other people that could help. Maybe they didn’t turn into jobs right away but they are new connections that I can tap into in the future.
The best thing that my friends have done for me in this time has been to distract me. At first, it was so weird waking up and not having responsibilities and it kind of made me feel like I was wasting my time and talent. A couple of my friends who have their own businesses invited me to come in and spend the day with them. I helped brainstorm ideas at my friends diamond company and helped another with their brand strategy and online presence. Others have reached out to send me some of their data to build them dashboards to see how their listening habits have changed year over year with their entire spotify listening history and I’m even analyzing some cool tennis data captured from an app that uses AI to tag the type of shot the players hit. It’s helped keep me distracted but also has given me purpose. Sure, my daily purpose has shifted but just because I don’t have a job doesn’t mean that I can’t add value.
Well, this was a lot longer than I thought it would be and honestly I didn’t know if I would ever really write about this but it has been a big part of my life and definitely changed my future. I tell you guys everything and so many of you said you were so happy to read last week’s post. It was really therapeutic to write this and I hope that nobody reading this has to ever go through a layoff and that if you know someone going through it, that you find ideas on how to support them. Thank you to everyone who has been there for me — love you all so much. Talk to you next week. xxx
Marn
Oh, also - follow me on the hangrymarn instagram to see how I’m doing on my resolutions from last week.
