Stage 2 of Observing Lay-Offs: Anger

Three days after the lay-offs at my former employer, I'm reliving a few of the reasons why I'd resigned from it in the first place.

The first night afterward I had trouble going to sleep, thoughts racing, and then woke up at 5:30 a.m. I listened to an audiobook for a while and then was able to rest again.

The next day, intense irritation and anger on behalf of my family and friends took hold. I didn't find myself squinting whenever I thought of the lay-offs as on the day before, but the impulse to take out my boxing gloves and pads and take a few whacks to relieve my feelings grew.

Fortunately at least I was able to see more of Gi. and T., since their garden leave had begun. Like most other colleagues, they were busy taking care of signing and submitting the firing paperwork to the company; then the paperwork for the federal German job agency (Agentur für Arbeit) began.

I thought back longingly to the relaxing journalistic routine I've established over the past month, including a larger article that I've been working on and that I'm proud about so far. But to be honest I think I'll need to give myself very flexible working hours until Thursday. The laid-off colleagues and friends and family have been organizing what they need for themselves efficiently, and my sage advice based on my own Agentur für Arbeit experiences was limited. So I've considered myself more or less merely on standby to help if needed.

But I've found myself mindlessly snacking throughout the day, tensely strung, and nervous. And now I'm finding myself thinking of getting therapy again, endlessly listing coping mechanisms to myself that might make me feel more balanced and relaxed, and thinking that I'd better cut out the sugar because that will worsen my anxiety and general state of wellbeing. In other words, changing my entire lifestyle to cope.

What's more, I'm sick of asking other people to manage my feelings for me, including my younger brothers who've seen my crankier side again. I'm worried again about not treating people fairly because I'm so stressed, constantly beleaguered by moral qualms and doubts.

And it feels highly inappropriate to ask for help or sympathy, when 1. my own departure from the company was long ago and it was something I'd arranged on my own schedule, and 2. others are worrying about supporting children, arranging visas, etc.

I keep on reflecting that the upper levels of the company are not full of evil people.

Nonetheless, the company took skilled colleagues from all over the world, with a healthy social working culture and a sense of purpose in their work, a highly prestigious client list, and a regular profit. They turned all of these assets into a massively incompetent and ill-conceived blimp of a project that was such a profitless money sink that I at least couldn't really blame them for shutting it down. (But they should have reassigned the employees.) The leaders, in short, were plain stupid and uninformed.

That almost every single colleague has reported that their wellbeing has suffered over the past months or years is also telling.

And I keep on reflecting that I'd resigned from this f***ing company precisely so that I would never have to feel this degree of emotional ill-health again. I sacrificed my financial security, my ability to guarantee my family financial security, and my fear of never proving myself professionally again, to make it happen. I also sacrificed many regular social contacts in the workplace and have therefore often been tremendously lonely since April, to be honest. And yet I'm temporarily back where I was six to eight months ago.

As my father would say, when a piece of technology drove him past the boundaries of his endurance: damn it all to hell.

An Axe Falls at My Former Employer

It's been an interesting day: in the morning I woke up early as the telephone rang, to confirm details of my mother's hotel stay in France. Until the early afternoon I was working on a journalism article.

Then the telephone rang again: my sister, telling me that all of my ex-colleagues who were still at the company I used to work for have been laid off. (Except for a skeleton team of around 10 who will be keeping the lights on until next April.)

My former team, always gossipy, has been chatting heavily for the rest of the afternoon, and so has the family.

And I don't know exactly how to feel about it... Except that I am annoyed that my friends have had their job security ripped away, but relieved for those who wanted to quit the company anyway. Unsure whether to feel relieved on behalf of those who have been suffering work-related mental health problems and now have the option to take a well-paid garden leave before they can find a next job, ... And not very surprised because valuable colleagues had been axed before I'd left, which to me implied a scarcity of resources or prioritization of the wellbeing of the company.

And to be resolved to never put people in the same position that my colleagues have been put in.

It's also unpleasant to know that three of my close relations have been made jobless at the same time. (I'm also not really a fan of the Fast Capitalism that has led to this in the first place.)

Although at least T. will stay in the skeleton team.

Now I'm not sure how to help without intruding, although I'm also curious to see which support systems will grow up amongst the 'current' colleagues.