Fired? Terminated? Laid Off?

FIRED…TERMINATED…LET GO….doesn’t matter what you call it but each word stings.  It stings to those of us proud of our work and work ethic.  It stings to those of us who care and get personally invested in the job and clients. 

Just like with all life events, the action of being fired sends you through cycles…

My first was shock.  Literally my brain tried to listen but kept saying “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME”. 

My second reaction was anger.  Oh really, well, let’s see how well this goes without me.  THEN…

I couldn’t breathe.   How was I going to pay the light bill? How was I going to eat?  I have 5 kids worth of student loans to pay for and a new car I bought.  I had been at this job for 7 months after a 15 year hiatus to raise my kids, who was going to hire me.  I was going to be the little gray haired woman at McDonalds asking if anyone wanted a coffee refill. 

Bitterness and revenge…oh the stories I could tell.  The things I could dish on.  The clients I could “let in on things”.  The toe stepped over the line issues that would take everyone down.  How about the person who got several reprimands and write ups and produced no income or very little but didn’t lose her job?

Humiliation set in almost immediately.  How do I tell everyone?  How do I tell everyone what happened to a job I loved; clients I loved; an area of law that moved me and I got fired because my boss couldn’t be professional? 

Then calm.  So I got fired for no reason, no explanation, no severance and cannot get unemployment because I didn’t make enough during two quarters.   The calm of update the resume, prioritize your bills, suck it up and ask for help, send out the resumes and apply for any job.  Any job is better than none and could provide a learning experience to add to my life. 

So, except for demanding I had a right to remove my personal browser history with passwords stored (which by the way DO NOT DO ON YOUR WORK COMPUTER), I left with as much dignity as I could.  I posted on Facebook what happened but blocked anyone who could see or know my old office and office mates.  I’m trying to see this as a learning experience but will readily admit that revenge hangs closely in my “alone time thoughts”.  

So how do I grow from this personally?  What can I learn that is not negative?  How can I see that this is another mountain to climb (hell, I climbed an actual mountain and went zip lining)?  The articles on the World Wide Web are not helpful.  They talk about the psychological affects; they talk about how to “deal”; they talk about “pulling up your boot straps and taking time”.  I don’t have time.  I NEED to work, I need the intellectual stimulation, I need something more than a job, something I thought I had but didn’t.  So I will spend time sorting it out.  Maybe a creative way to take my knowledge will come out of all this so I can still help the elderly and their families and have some social justice for an area of our society that is so completely ignored that it breaks my heart.