This isn’t my first time on a “corporate hiatus.” In fact, this is the third time in my career that I was impacted by a layoff. Fourth if we count Midas – although I chose not to take the job offered to me at the company that bought Midas so I don’t really think we can count that as a real layoff.
My first lay off was back in my agency days in the 90s. I was laid off when the agency lost the account I was working on which is fairly typical. I called a headhunter, sent them my resume and less than 2 weeks later I had a new job offer. It felt a little bit like I was just changing schools. No muss, no fuss, just pack up your desk and move to a different office address in Manhattan.
My second layoff was a little more traumatic mostly because the job forced me to move to Chicago and then 88 days later they “reorganized” and eliminated my role. So I was new to a new city and at loose ends. But my network came through and I landed relatively easily at Carat USA – with a lot of thanks to my mentor who was the CEO at Carat at that time.
Being laid off from Comcast in 2016 was just plan rough. My Dad had just been diagnosed with a terminal illness and the layoff was just the bad icing on the bad news cake. The job boards were empty so I did some consulting/project work and made a lot of trips to Ohio to be with my family. It took about 18 months to land into a new corporate gig between personal and professional reasons.
I’m not lying when I say I do NOT want that big of a gap between corporate gigs again. I don’t like not having a corporate job. It isn’t just the salary/benefits – I like the feeling of being needed in a role. And I can’t wait to be needed somewhere again.
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