Three weeks ago today, I was made redundant from my post at a prominent media company. That morning, I had waddled into work early, despite a lot of tiredness, hairspray (courtesy of an Audrey Hepburn style up-do) and a general dislike for Mondays bogging me down.
It was simple. I considered myself an honest, hardworking employee who did not call in sick when she had slept a mere five hours after a massive bout of partying, dancing and drinking the night before for her first cousins wedding. I owed it to my employer to turn up, no matter what I was feeling.
Apparently, my employer didn’t feel the need to owe me anything. At 9:30am, I was served my five minutes’ notice (yep, I drove all the way into work for NOTHING) and told to vacate the premises.
In a blur of shock and fretting about how I could ever afford shoes again, I didn’t ask questions. I simply left her office in tears, the realisation of what was happening dawning on me only as I drove the half hour back home.
Three weeks on, a lot more realisations have managed to sneak their way into my nearly-fried out brain. In a gesture of common goodness, I have decided to share them with you, because as the wicked witch of the recession finally takes the reins of our way of life, the unforeseeable is a lot more foreseeable, and there are still a lot of you who will walk a mile in my (pre-existing, and not newly purchased) shoes.
Redundancy is something many of us never imagined coming. But it has, and it will. I have decided to share my experiences and lessons with you, so that if you are unfortunate enough to share my fate, at least you will have my tale guiding you through… making your redundancy reality a lot more foreseeable…and perhaps, a hell of a lot easier to deal with. Enjoy my tips, tricks, and lessons, and don’t forget to comment if you have some of your very own. After all, we’re all in this recession together.
The Redundancy Files:
* Make a scene at the place of unemployment. In my case, I had to go quietly (that’s right, I didn’t even get to say bye to my colleagues because there was an announcement scheduled for that afternoon and I was not allowed to ruin it) and my stuff was couriered to me the next day. I have spent the last three weeks wishing I stomped back to my desk in a fit of madness and started hurling things around the room and into my packing box. At least then I would have left with a reputation instead of the bullshit outreach program they enrolled me in.
* Tell them their outreach program is bullshit. I don’t even know if it was coherent between my tears and sniffles, but I had the manners to say thank you despite the fact that they were throwing me out of a job even though I had practically just signed up for a mortgage. And when they tell you that the outreach program costs $11,000 to run, ask them for the $11,000 instead. Or, since it has already been paid for, spend the time haggling your outreach program representative for it. Or simply, just drive them mad. They’re obliged to handle you. They have no choice. You, as far as they are concerned, are a paying customer.
* Keep your unemployment a secret as long as possible. Wake up in the morning, and “go to work”. Work might be sitting in Hyde Park all day (free) but at least it’s better than sitting at home with your mother. Why? Even after you tell her you are starting your own business from home, that you’re working on your uni thesis, that you’re writing all those articles you have on deadline, she will still think of you as the unemployed child she’s housing for free, and will expect you to have the laundry/dusting/dishes/ vacuuming done by the time she gets home.
* If Mother Nature has blessed us with rain, it is still imperative you “go to work”. Forego Hyde Park and hang out with the homeless in the central station tunnel instead. This has double the benefits: you’re nowhere near the (by now suspicious) parents who are wondering why you are home a lot more AND you get to learn lessons from the homeless on how NOT let your unemployment get in the way of the roof over your head/your alcohol addiction problem / knowledge of what is a keeper of a possession (tin foil hats and broken tennis racquets fall into this category). This sounds a little mean I know, but when the homeless man at central explains to me why he has an i-phone and I do not, I will back off.
* After your lessons with the homeless, go line up for dole money. If the clerk there is a bitch or a bastard, ask them (in all seriousness) why the bloke with the perfect body for a laser hair removal campaign, a Mercedes Benz and the three wives still gets his money and you do not. Then again, perhaps running a drug ring is classified as unemployed. You know, because the contract ‘in that field’ tends to be on people’s heads and not paper.
* Unplug all the TV’s from your house. Without the news, your mother will stop fetching you for tea time chats about Swan flu (her words, not mine) and towel sales at Myer. Things you clearly do not want to discuss with her.
* Embrace $1 weeklies at Civic Video (wednesdays). Turn the prospect of being a couch potato into the prospect of being the resident movie expert.
* Weigh your wallet. When you find that it weighs a lot more than it did when you were working, tell your old colleagues that you find a new job that pays you a lot more. In my tight-ass way of being, I have managed to end up with even more money than when I was employed.
* Embrace positive thinking and consider your redundancy payout a lotto win. You did technically earn it by doing nothing.
* Become anti-social. When you are unemployed, you do the silliest things to waste time, under the guise of being productive and finding something to do. Unfortunately people start to see you as slightly weird and annoying (understatement). I decided to start putting Niche Creative Media’s next project together – a kind of uber-girly version of Trespass mag. I ended up hassling all my friends with ideas for content/titles/themes etc, and then when I couldn’t decide, I deleted everything. Now that I have alienated all my mates – I am going to ask you to visit www.glamorouslane.blogspot.com and let me know what needs to stay or go before I launch it. And yes, there is no content there yet, we’re just playing with logistics here people.
* Buy new pyjamas. Your old ones will start feeling like clothes because you wear them a lot more.
* Blame everything on your redundancy. It will cultivate a ‘stay away from her’ reputation for you. And then you can finally fulfill your dream of being a successful tortured writer.
* Don’t tell your grandmother (who can’t speak English) what jobs you have applied for, because when the bloke from the call centre tells you upon follow-up that you are over-qualified for his phone call/data entry role, you can’t speak her language well enough to tell her what that means. Just tell her you have not applied for anything because you are planning to bum of her hard working son for a while.
* Don’t send your policeman partner dumb pictures of you making faces to his mobile at work. There’s a probable chance you’re distracting him from a crime scene, and he will yell at you.
* Watch The Life of David Gale. That $1 weekly was worth a hell of a lot more.
* Stop writing sarcastic crap in order to fill your time. Trespass readers don’t want to read it because they are far too educated.
Image of girl in the park by louisa_catlover on Flickr
Cover image by Stromberg on Flickr
Hilarious article Sarah. I think leaving a workplace in a fit of rage is a fantastic idea, and I wish you had of done it too. Best of luck with your new business, blog, thesis and articles! You’ll pull through because you’re fab.
Having lived in a self imposed ‘state of redundancy’ for nearly a decade, I can relate to just about everything you wrote there….especially your ideas about hangin’ with the homeless.
You’ve made your stress – our entertainment. Thankyou.
Someone give the girl a job!