Anonymous
“Where is the Choice in all this?
”
I worked as a flight attendant for a luxury airline. It was a start-up airline with only 48 business-class seats flying from Europe to London, and I was proud to be promoted to the training department to lead flight attendant boot camps. While living in Montreal, I had to relocate to New York. On the day I was laid off, I was scheduled to conduct a training flight and needed to leave at 7:00 a.m., so I had to arrive at the airport early. The night before, around 11:00 p.m., my phone started blowing up.
My phone just kept ringing and ringing and ringing, and finally, somebody sent a text that said, “What’s happening?” At 11:30 p.m., I finally spoke to someone who told me, “We’re out of business,” and I replied, “That can’t be right. I’m running this flight tomorrow. There’s no way.” I opened my computer and went to the website, and it said, “We’ve ceased operations.” I just kept thinking, “What the hell?” It was so unexpected. Then, in the middle of the night, I found out I was no longer employed. The official word from the company came the next day, and I didn’t even hear it directly from them.
When this was all happening, disbelief was the first thing that went through my mind. It took me about four or five days to process everything. I showed up to work on Monday and stayed on for almost a week unpaid, helping out because I felt that void and needed to do something. I was also experiencing a deep sense of fear. I had been going through many personal changes, and I faced some significant personal setbacks that were quite severe and stressful. I had just been diagnosed with a condition that made me question my self-worth, resulting in a great deal of mental health distress. While dealing with these challenges, I reminded myself, “Well, at least you’re working at your dream job, so you have that to look forward to,” and that’s what helped me get through the move to New York and everything else. This really clarified how much my self-esteem and identity were intertwined with my work at this company. Several things happened during that time, and the biggest was that I was frantically searching for a job. I was only unemployed for three weeks before I jumped into a role at a hotel. It was an easy hire, and I took it out of fear. It was March or April of 2008, and this hotel job was meant to be a temporary solution to give me some time to figure out what I really wanted to do.
A couple of months later, the recession hit, and the job market deteriorated. I spent three miserable years working at this hotel because there were no alternatives. After being laid off, I knew people who said, “Well, the first thing I’m going to do is take some time off. I’m going to go home and think about things. And I’m going to really take my time before I take the next step and think about things logically.” I kept thinking, “That’s kind of reckless. How can you do that? What about security, and how will you pay the bills?” I had just moved to New York, where the rent was three times as much as I paid in Montreal. I kept thinking, “How can you take time? Time is a luxury you don’t have right now. I need to get working.” In retrospect, that time is something I needed but didn’t take. The lesson learned: if I ever find myself in the same situation—which I hope I don’t—I should take the time and figure things out. If I had taken the time, I might have done things differently, but I can’t say for sure. I was twenty-nine at the time, and self-awareness at that age isn’t necessarily at its peak.
The job market worsened during the three years I was at that job. I kept thinking there was no end in sight, and I needed to start shaking things up. I knew I needed to do some soul-searching, but I also knew I wanted to stay in the training field, which I really enjoyed. Everything in the airline industry was a mess, so I knew I wouldn’t work in that sector again. I applied for hundreds of jobs in training-related positions, and the competition was just ridiculous. I realized I needed to upskill myself and put myself in a different league. The first thing I did was volunteer work, which was training-related. I could list this on my resume, and I was giving back to the community.
I also considered returning to school to bridge the gap. Returning to school felt intimidating as an adult, so I signed up for a Certificate in Training Management. A side story about being laid off from the airlines influenced my next steps. When the airline shut down, we received our last month’s paycheck more than a year later. There was also a settlement involved. There’s something about the WARN Act: when they conduct mass layoffs, they are supposed to provide a ninety-day warning, but they didn’t do that for us. As a result, we received a settlement that paid for school. I took the first class and loved it. I completed the certification in a year, but I wanted to keep learning, so I went to grad school for Industrial Organizational Psychology. I found my passion.
My coach training institution is very important to me, and I’m proud of it. However, it’s not the entirety of who I am, which is something significant to acknowledge. Here are some of the lessons I’ve learned throughout this experience: you can’t tie yourself to just one thing. I’ve learned to differentiate between my identity and my biography. I recognize that while individual performance may fluctuate over time, self-worth remains constant. Performance varies, and things happen, but there’s a core part of me that will stay the same and support me through challenges. I’m not confident in everything I do, and I question many of my actions, and I will always continue to ask questions. That’s the best way we can learn.
If my 2019 self could talk to my 2008 self, there are two messages that I would want to convey. One is, “You’re okay just the way you are.” And two, “Take it easy. Take a pause. Figure yourself out first before you figure out your external circumstances.”
Fast forward a few years—through an acquisition, I found myself back in a corporate job at a large consulting firm. This was the dream job I had always wanted, yet I never thought I would get it. I was so proud of this accomplishment and the big salary that I began to overlook some warning signs. Gradually, I realized that the values in practice at this organization were in direct contrast to my own. I felt stuck and wasn’t sure what to do. The economy was in turmoil again, and I noticed a distinct culture of fear. Rumors of large-scale layoffs became realities. This fear kept my peers from “rocking the boat too much” to preserve a lucrative paycheck.
I remembered how my past experience of fear caused me to take the easy way out and make compromises I otherwise would not be willing to make. But reflecting on my past experiences, I realized that this was a compromise I wasn’t willing to accept for myself. I did not want to be beholden to fear; I wanted my life’s work to be driven by intention and purpose. I took the time to understand that I am okay the way I am, and the disconnect between the organization’s values and my own was important for me to recognize. I paused and figured out what was truly important to me. I decided to give up a high-paying job and focus on new ventures that didn’t promise a big paycheck, but I had the resilience to make that move.
I recognize the difficult trade-offs we need to make as adults. The need for security and personal fulfillment can sometimes conflict with each other. I am not here to say to quit your day job because you dislike it. Nor am I here to claim that being laid off is the best thing that could happen to you. Life will be different either way, and there will be a loss involved. I am here to encourage you to stop, pause, and take stock of who you are as a person. The disruption of being laid off can make you feel like everything is out of your control, as if the universe is acting upon you and you have to cope. But there is always an element of choice—a choice not to be a victim of circumstance but to become the designer of your own life. Designing your own life involves reconciling very real needs (financial, security, social) with very real wants (fulfillment, growth, and balance) and figuring out how you can create your own path forward without waiting for others to do it for you. That choice starts by pausing and prioritizing your well-being first.
Where are they now?
Anonymous is ready to embark on a new chapter in his life. He spent three years at a Big Five consulting firm and realized that he had learned a lot from that organization, but was prepared for a change. He returned to school to earn a doctoral degree in an area he feels passionate about. He began working with private clients as a coach. He is happily married and enjoys the freedom and time to invest in his relationship. None of this would have been possible had he not taken the time to intentionally examine the fears influencing him, his choices, and the actions to take. In short, he stopped being a victim of circumstance and forged his own path forward.
Sometimes jumping into a change or transition is a way to learn how to fly and gain your true wings. Sometimes you leap, and sometimes you are pushed. You are an expert in your life and your needs. What works today may not work tomorrow. So, trust yourself and what aligns with you. Be comfortable being yourself as you explore what comes next, both personally and professionally. Life will continue to unfold. Life isn’t tidy; it’s messy, and messiness can be really good.
