It’s okay to cry: An insider’s perspective on surviving sudden paycheck detachment syndrome

“Kevin, sorry but you’re a cost center, we’re going to have to let you go.”

The words struck me first like a punch to the solar plexus knocking the wind out of me, followed by an uppercut to the jaw sending tears streaming down my face.

I wondered how I was going to put food on the table with a newborn at home, and what the hell a cost center was.

Over the next five years, I’d hear similar words four more times as I was alternately deselected, downsized and pushed out the door at a variety of companies due to a wide variety of factors.

It got so bad, that if I ever showed up early at home, that my wife would assume I’d been laid off.

The last job of that era involved me spending three years being mentally abused by my boss, where “success” required me to do whatever was the opposite of what I thought should be done. She was finally fired and I was sent packing as well since I was considered her “boy”.

Wanting to take control of my life and escape from corporate America, I joined a startup, that wound up being more of start-sideways and then downward, until I wound up @FedEx, where I’ve been the last 13 years. Making the transition from garage-startup to 400K+ person firm wasn’t exactly easy either, but over the years I’ve learned to survive and thrive.

While it’s been awhile since I’ve dealt with unemployment, having suffered sudden paycheck detachment syndrome multiple times and helped many other people search for work I’m somewhat of an expert in being unemployed and searching for work so I’ll share a few hard-earned learnings over the next few days.

Part 1: Tips on embracing reality and yourself so that you’re mentally, financially and physically able to survive, and even thrive.

1. First it’s okay to cry, and cry a lot. Emotions are part of the human experience. I regularly found myself breaking down sobbing, feeling hurt, sad, anxious, worried, you name it, wondering when it would all end, and how long could I hold on through it.
2. As Hemingway wrote, “Ask not for whom shit happens, it happens to thee” so accept that no matter how hard you worked, that shit happens and IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT! Learn from the past, but do not dwell on it, and certainly don’t blame yourself.
3. No matter how bad your situation is, remember it can always be worse, so try to focus on the positives in your life. Remember, everything is relative, so appreciate the little things.
4. Fill today’s empty cup with your dreams for the future to help you stay focused on creating the future you want, versus the crap you’re dealing with today, as that helps avoid drowning in despair.
5. Embrace the fact that you could be unemployed for a long time, especially given the fact that we’re facing nearly 20% unemployment, so plan for the long term, and manage your search and finances appropriately.
6. Knowing it could be a long time before your next paycheck, make hard choices now! Renegotiate your rent with your landlord. If you can, get a loan to provide a cash cushion. Eliminate unneeded expenses. Don’t be afraid to leverage what there is of the safety net for you and your family to get insurance, and avoid unneeded expenses if the government will provide them for you.
7. Just because you’re unemployed, doesn’t mean you’re not working, as searching for work/income is a full-time job, so treat it like it like work. Set relatively strict schedules and timebox activities so you don’t just spend hours scrolling through help-wanted ads, applying to random jobs, and wondering where all your time went.
8. Take care of you! Remember you’re running a marathon where you really have no clue when the finish line will appear, so you need to invest in taking care of yourself, so you don’t burn out. Do things that completely take your mind off of your current situation, e.g. intense exercise, timed crossword puzzles, or other things that force you to focus on being completely in the moment and push out all the noise eating away at you.
9. Laugh and have fun whenever possible. I find whenever I’m depressed, scrolling through #dadjokes on Twitter almost always helps brighten my day.
10. Do things for you that give you a sense of accomplishment, where you can generate wins that are largely controllable by you, instead of others. Searching for jobs is a largely binary process where there is usually only one winner, and that winner is determined by others, and rarely has anything to do with your actual ability to do the job.

If all you focus on is searching for a job, you could find yourself with virtually nothing to show for your time despite months of work, which may decrease your employability, self-confidence and mental health. Do things that at the end of each day, week and month that bring you joy and pride in your accomplishments, e.g. learning new skills, gardening, baking, improving your sex life with your significant other, running, writing, etc.

Finding a job won’t be easy in this economy, so do your best to take care of you. Hang in there, and hugs from someone who’s been there, more times than I care to remember.

Part 2: How to improve your story and storytelling

Part 3: The similarities between finding a mate and a job

Part 4: The math behind luck and why persistence is so important

Part 5: Structuring your search for maximal long-term success