After more than 21 years with the same company, I was just informed that my services are no longer needed. The other two people in the company who perform the same job were similarly informed.
I'm still in shock.
Follow me over the fold for what may well turn out to be emotional, incoherent rambling. Consider this an apology in advance if it does.
I remember when I got an offer from this company in September of 1987. The pay was an immediate 25% increase over the job I held then, so I obviously took the job and thought "I'll stay there until something better comes along." 21 years later, here I am.
I started out in a clerical position, and gradually over the 21 years I achieved the level of Senior Sales Training Instructor. I frankly never had much of a desire to go into management, and love(d) my job, but the company has decided to go another way and my position has been eliminated. My two counterparts also got the same news today.
For the last almost 15 years in this position, I've loved being able to talk to our new-hires, dealer sales reps and customers about (what I think are) the best products in the industry, and I've seen a lot of the US because of this company. I truly bear them no ill, but I am a bit heartbroken over the loss of what was (for me) the perfect job. Secretly, I knew I might have been making a mistake staying with one employer for so long. Is that a good thing on a resume', or is it a negative?
And now the ringing of the cell phone starts. My well-meaning co-workers (the ones who still have their jobs) are calling one after the other. I know they want to let me know that they're in shock and that they're here for me if there's anything they can do, but I'm letting the phone go to voicemail as I'm really not in the frame of mind to talk to anyone about it right now.
This is not the worst thing I've been through in my life. My mother died of breast cancer when I was eight-years-old, and life didn't get easier after that (suffice it to say that some of the decisions my Dad made were maybe not fully thought out, though we always had a roof over our head, food on the table and clothes on our backs). It made me tougher. If I can survive that, I will survive this. Since this is the first time I've been out of work since I was about 18, I'm in foreign territory and this level of uncertainty is not a state that I'm comfortable with. I am the sole provider for myself (and my two cats), so I cannot afford to be out of work long-term.
I'm very fortunate to have friends who have repeatedly told me (as we watched the economy get worse and worse) that if anything ever happened to my job, I could move in with them. And they mean it. Hopefully I won't have to take them up on that (my two cats could be an issue at one of the houses), but knowing that I will not end up on the street gives me the security that many do not have, and I'm grateful beyond words for that sense of security and wish that everyone who finds themselves in this position had it.
I guess I just don't know what to do now that I find myself out of work, really, for the first time in my adult life. How does one find a job in a tanking economy?
Because I suspect this might come up in comments, yes, I am on the Kossacks Networking for Jobs and Community site.
This just happened today. I'm working through a week from tomorrow and on the payroll for another two weeks after that. After that, it's anybody's guess what happens. When you see April's job-loss numbers, remember me... I'm one of those people.