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The holiday season on the surface presents a festive mood, with bright lights, tinsel, and reindeer tales trying to brighten up the lengthening dark winter nights. But as many have noted, it can be a stressful time as well, between budgeting and planning for presents and parties, and also missing loved ones who may no longer be with us. For some it can feel like a tough reckoning with the passage of another year, and the mixed emotions that can bring. (The famous movie It’s A Wonderful Life comes to mind.) Sadly, this yearly accounting can be particularly blunt and cruel—in the form of end-of-the-year layoffs.
Many companies and institutions unfortunately wrap up their year in terms of budgeting or planning for the year ahead, which includes assessing their employees. Layoffs can happen at any time, but there seems to be an especially cruel irony to issue them during what should be a celebratory and restful time. As a result, a holiday layoff becomes like a dark secret swept under the rug, one that's hard to appropriately acknowledge or discuss, especially if other loved ones depend on you during this time, like children eager for presents from Santa Claus.
Layoffs are in general a difficult and underrated traumatic event for people to discuss. In our driven capitalistic society, whether we like it or not, the workplace becomes a central part of our identities and our lives spent. So when we are fired, it can feel like the ultimate repudiation of everything you have done until that moment, all the hours and hard work and time you have put in, the relationships you have built, and more. And this doesn’t even go into the practical anxieties of lost income and figuring out what your next steps or job will be.
Adding insult to injury is that there is an inevitable stigma attached to being fired, so much so that other employees even ask about it in future job applications—whether you were “terminated” and the circumstances behind it, as though any termination could be associated with your personal blame or fault, no matter the reason. Some people certainly are let go for being poor performers or for significant worrisome reasons; but in many cases, the reasons can be questionable (awkward interpersonal dynamics) or even completely impersonal or financial—“just business,” as the cliché goes. But the stigma remains, and in turn, a person who is fired is often forced to keep the bad news to themselves in relative silence. To discuss it openly can invite everything from gossip to legal repercussions to ruining future job prospects. So the traumatic event can never be fully processed, and the person going through it can feel intense isolation, unworthiness, and loneliness. They may even lose access to free therapy services through work that may help, or to health insurance altogether without paying for expensive COBRA coverage.
So what can one do when going through this difficult situation, when one needs help the most? It’s important to still seek out safe people to talk to somewhere, wherever available. Any trusted friends or family members, former colleagues who are allies, etc. It’s important to still process the circumstances of what happened so that uncertainty and rumination doesn’t continue to follow you. If therapy is available, all the better. Legal counsel for some may be important and even warranted, if unlawful termination is part of the picture, or to at least gather a realistic opinion on what has happened.
Stepping back, assessing the future, and refocusing on that is crucial as well. Often we overestimate the importance of one particular job and may even have felt trapped in an unhappy, even abusive, work situation without realizing it. It may be more difficult to lose a job if a particular job was indeed one you loved, or in a field that does not have many employment options. There is no underestimating the challenges of switching gears especially with certain job markets and financial pressures. But many times a layoff can be a blessing in disguise—a chance for reinvention that was not otherwise possible and was actually necessary.
If finances and time permit it, it can be a great time to take a break and do things you hadn’t been able to, like longer-term travel or working on other projects you couldn’t get to (like a home garden). Sometimes we forget that work should be a means to an end, and not vice versa, and a layoff gives us a chance to take a breath. When ready or necessary, one can dive back into searching for a new job, and more often than not, one can find much better options than anticipated.
It can also be a valuable time to reflect on lessons learned from your prior work, and what you would like to play out differently in the future. Were there aspects that made you more unhappy than you realized that you need to reconsider moving forward? Are there things you can change to avoid similar situations? What are your true goals and ideals in a job to focus on for next time? Being more future-oriented can help the healing process and put the prior loss into a more appropriate perspective. Much like a break-up of a serious relationship, the end may seem devastating at the time, but when you step back you see there are things that weren’t going well before, and many other new and promising options so that you can move forward.
If there were painful aspects like negative interpersonal dynamics at work, such as bullying, unfairness, overwork, and more, it is also important to reflect upon the emotional toll of those events and to acknowledge the pain and suffering they caused, so that you can progress to better relationships in the future. No one deserves to be mistreated at work, and sometimes we get lulled into accepting more than we should due to the need for income, success, and more. It’s important to realize one is ultimately better off without a hostile or negative work environment.
If immediate finances are a problem, that is indeed a major hurdle, and so it is important to also look for concrete resources and help wherever available. Unemployment aid, career counseling centers, and social work consultations are all potential resources to draw upon, as well as networking among friends and using the internet (free at many libraries).
If you find you aren't improving, and the job loss is leading to symptoms of depression and anxiety, it's important to seek professional help when possible.
Workplaces and employers also need to pay more attention to the psychological and financial sequelae of layoffs and should try to institute systematic access to counseling or unemployment benefit support when they let people go.
In general, it’s important not to ignore or hide the fact that a job can play an important role in our identities and our lives, so when one ends unexpectedly, it can be a painful and disruptive event. The stigma and inability to talk about a layoff to others adds to the feelings of isolation and shame it can cause. But it’s also important to gain perspective as quickly as possible, to know that your life and your abilities do not usually begin and end with one job, and that in many cases, you can move on to more positive days ahead.
