After I got laid off in Jan 2023, I made a list of items I’d want in my next job. Flexible work, good amount of vacation time, benefits, healthy salary - the normal, I-want-to-live-a-stable-life stuff.
The phone call to lay me off happened on January 6th and I started working again on March 6th, this two month period was one of my favourite periods of my life.
At first, I took the layoff seriously. I deeply believed moments like this are the ones where my path would be defined. Podcasts were downloaded, books were read and possibilities were fleshed out. LinkedIn was serving me inspiration. The only question I was asking myself was how fast can I get back up? I jumped into the mass apply trap despite many people telling me not to. My days normally full of meetings, people, and emails were suddenly quiet. My notifications didn’t ding; I was desperate to fill a corporate void that had become my validation fuel.
Then, slowly, I settled into a routine; sleep until 9am, go for a run, make a chai latte, read my book… watch the snowfall… watch the dogs at the park across the street. Apply for jobs. Paint. Try a new recipe. I took workout classes at noon and went to the grocery store at 2pm. It was a new sense of peace not waking up and my first task was a 9am meeting. It was a sixth grade summer, but during the darkest January Toronto had seen in 50 years. I had free time. My mind began to wander, when was the last time I didn’t have to work?
My first job was as a paper route at 12 years old. I applied for it myself and got paid .29 cents per house. It was a meager amount, but it meant I had a sizable savings account for a middle class 15 year old. Then, I started in hospitality where I’d stay serving for the next 5 years. My highschool summers were filled with a day camp job from 9-5pm and heading to the restaurant right after. In the summers of grade 11 and 12, I worked everyday for 3 months. I was released from my job when COVID started, but began as an essential worker in retail after the first lockdown where I’d stay working until I got my first job offer. The few months not working when COVID began were not ones I’d consider peaceful. I was completing an undergraduate degree and had an appendectomy during my final exam season.
The lesson I didn’t expect to learn when I got laid off was that I liked life when I didn’t have to work. Of course, this thought came when I had a severance package to sustain me, but without the layoff, I don’t know when I would have learned it. I grew up drinking the corporate blue kool aid. My childhood routine included watering the belief that if I worked hard enough, it’d grow a grey suit to wear and a corporate ladder for me to climb. When my first job offer came, I felt I was watching a plant finally bloom. 55k, unlimited vacation, travel every month to a new big city for events. It was what I had grown up wanting. The steps had always been so clear: Highschool. University. Job. I was ready to jump into my career. I put my entire heart into my first company. In under two years, I had 3 promotions. I was 24 and managing a team of 5 people. I had no clue what I was doing, but I was making it - whatever that means. Colleagues were giving me validation and I didn’t know why, I just knew that I liked it.
Then I lost my job. 6 months in my first lease. I watched 500,000 other tech workers get laid off in the great massacre of morale of 2023. It really changes a young heart seeing people be thrown aside so easily. It was the first domino down. A lesson that is engraved in my head. Not as a scar, but more like a Mufasa-esque cloud warning: I do not matter to this company. They’d replace me in a minute to benefit the bottom dollar.
Last year, at a networking event we had to answer what we would do if we could do anything. I hesitated, but realized my heart stood in the group that said, “Do nothing” and I had my 2 month lay off period to thank for that. My debate cards are prepped against any person who tells me they “need to work or they’d just be so bored” or “work provides them with a purpose” Our purpose is not to hop on a quick huddle, send over zoom links, circle back on emails, hit KPIs, measure click-through rates, tailor call to actions. My purpose is to sit in the living room at 8am watching the sun hit my dwarf fiddle-leaf fig while taking a sip of my ginger lemon tea. A much more satisfying life occurs when we have the time and space to enjoy our own company.
Is this worth my sanity? No.
Is this what will define me? No.
These are things I have on sticky notes around my laptop.
In the past few months, as I look at mortgage costs, I have decided I want a family. My middle finger in the air attitude didn’t seem to fit into the equation.
I’m entering a new chapter in my life that I’d title something witty about balance. I hold true that my purpose in life is to pet dogs and travel to new places. I’ve also come to appreciate that being able to grab dessert without worrying about my chequing balance is nice too. A line I have loved is that every job comes with shit, and you just have to decide what shit tastes the best. When I started my second job, my requirements for healthy-stable-normal-life were all met. It’s put in perspective a very key item for me. I am not at my current job to be the best, I am there to do my best.
Every job comes with shit, and this job has just enough salt for me to make it work.
I am there to do my work, do it well and close my laptop at 5pm. As someone who has spent her life memorizing the maze to get to the top, finding balance has been a welcomed lesson. My hands still feel clammy when I see myself in the middle of the sales leaderboard, but if I can walk away knowing I put in my best effort - then I’m content.
I’m happy I learned there was more to life than climbing a corporate ladder through my layoff, but I’ve come to realize I can’t burn every ladder in the world. The ladder I have in front of me has stickers and a cup holder. It’s placed in a spot where I can see the sunset.
