Episode #025 How I Made Redundancy A Positive Move, and How You Can Too

You are defined by your job, so it’s hard to move on and let go.

Positive action is the only way to take back control.

Mindset shifts, attitude, optimism and the knowledge that you can move forward are all elements of coping with the enforced changes.

It can be hard to get through it, but you can make it much easier to cope with by taking actions you choose.

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How I Made Redundancy A Positive Move, and How You Can Too

0:04

Hi, Christie here. Tuesday the second of February 2021.

I’ll be uploading this episode today. I’m quite excited because I’ve just recorded my very first exclusive Patreon episode, which is bonus content that my patrons receive every month.

0:22

I’ve just uploaded that I’ll put the link in the show notes. But don’t forget you can support my work on Patreon.

This episode, I’m going to do a quick intro as usual.

And then I’m going to cover how I made redundancy a positive move, and how you can as well, which sounds a bit odd. Redundancy and positivity can definitely go together. It’s an opportunity so bear with me.

In my intro, I finished my first draft of Damaged, which is Book Two in a series, and I’m now deleting scenes, creating new links between the chapters, making sure I’ve got. At the end of each chapter.

I’m running it through Grammarly software which is really sort of basic user friendly software that helps you edit. I wouldn’t recommend it to new writers completely, but it is something that I’ve started using, and I’m finding it is tightening up my work quite a bit so it’s a good thing.

I’ve got on Clubhouse, finally, I’ve been waiting for an invite for ages.

It’s a social media platform, I don’t know if you’re aware of it, it’s based around audio, and I’m really enjoying my audio journey, and this podcast has been the first sort of step on that ladder and I’m really enjoying it so I’m now into Clubhouse. If you’re on there, don’t forget to let me know either follow me or send me a DM with your link.

I’ve started and stopped reading a book because I really thought I was gonna like it. And I just really don’t. I’ve always in the past, committed to finish every book I start, but lately I’ve just realised that actually, I’ve got way too many books to ever finish in my lifetime that I want to read. So why waste my time reading something that I’m not really enjoying and I’m not getting anything out of it. It’s not even educational. I’m not gonna mention the book because it’s not fair on the author, but that was quite a move forward for me to just decide ‘Actually, I’m not gonna waste my time reading books that I’m not really enjoying or getting something out of.’

I’ll always give it a go. I’ll try and get at least halfway through because sometimes they do surprise you and hook you in later. But this one just wasn’t working. So back to my topic for this week.

How I made a redundancy a positive move.

Sounds really strange doesn’t it because negativity and sort of doom and gloom are always attached around redundancy, and I’ve been through it a few times. I’ve been through restructures, redundancies disguised

3:02

as restructures. I’ve been in department closures, where I absolutely loved my job and was passionate about it, and I was good at it. But when a department closes it doesn’t matter whether you’re good at your job or not, the job just isn’t there anymore. I’ve been through various closures and ups and downs I’ve been through the tears. One of the previous episodes mentioned the five stages of grief and relating them back to coronavirus and COVID and I definitely feel that those five stages of grief apply with any sort of loss, and the loss of a job is just as important because it’s a loss of your identity.

3:42

When you’re introduced to people, it’s always that ‘Hello What’s your name, what do you do?’ Immediately you’re put on a back foot, if you’re been made redundant, or you feel that you’re in between jobs.

3:54

And it’s very demoralising when you apply to lots of jobs, and they never come back to you. I’ve been through that, and it’s awful. When you’re sending off hundreds of job applications and you never get even an acknowledgment, or even worse when you go for an interview. You think you’ve done really well yet no feedback, and they just say the jobs gone to someone else.

It can be heartbreaking I know that I’m not under estimating the damage it can do. But if you are struggling, reach out, there’s help out there. There’s lots of people will help you.

I’m just gonna run through what I did to get through it, because I’ve been through it two or three times. I didn’t want to go through it again. I took certain action steps that were positive action steps, and you can do similar ones because I’m a firm believer that redundancy can be an opportunity, if you see it that way.

I acknowledge that you might have to go through steps of grief to get there. But you can get there.

One of the things I did while I was in full time employment. I took a degree. I’ve never had a degree before because when I left school it wasn’t an option. I was looking around and doing my research of the jobs because I was miserable after a particular, you know horrendous, stressful restructure. I was looking at new jobs and I realised that all the jobs that I wanted to go for required a degree. I knew that I could do the job, but just didn’t have a degree.

Now, I would still apply for the job. I would still go for that job whether I’ve got a degree or not. I know that I would be able to apply in a different way, where I can say, even though I haven’t got a degree, I can do this, this and this, I can bring this to your company, but that’s a separate issue.

So I decided to take a degree, I was going to look at going into education but I wasn’t 100% certain, I did a lot of mentoring, a lot of training. A lot of teaching and worked with volunteers, youth groups teenagers in schools all sorts. When I did my research, they said well rather than going to child psychology, which was a strong interest of mine and still is, and psychology in general, they said, ‘Well, to be honest, if you want to why keep your horizons wide and it was going to take me up to six years to get this degree part time, go for one of the main academic topics and it will keep you basically give you more options and more opportunities’.

I went with literature because I loved books I obviously still do. I took a degree in literature. I worked through it in my own time. My daughter was a swimmer at the time so I was at the pool at 5am, studying. Whilst watching her swim. I stayed up late to meet deadlines and I never missed an assignment deadline I took it seriously, I did all the reading. It was absolutely amazing. I loved it, I loved the learning. It started with art history which was odd, because I’m sort of, I’m going to study words why am I looking at pictures but the symbology is something that I would love to go back to actually and study again.

So, I did the degree and while I was doing that I did various other things at work to change my attitude. I retrained, some of it was compulsory retraining some of them were voluntary. I took every single opportunity I was given. Any free training, I grabbed at it. I was the first one to volunteer. I was a pain because I was always the one pushing myself forward.

I asked if I could shadow people in other departments. If I could go on placements.

I actually went on a placement for a year from a later job, and I wouldn’t have had the confidence to do that if I’d have not done it before, in my career.

I volunteered for everything. I soaked up knowledge. I looked at every different job even if I didn’t like it I asked if I could go and mentor in that department. Get a younger member of staff or if I could get mentees or trainees into my department, train them. I wanted to give as much as I got, I really put myself out there to make sure I was visible. Made sure I was the optimist.

I was the one that if they wanted to jump done, they gave it to me. It’s always the same isn’t it if you want a job done. Give it a busy person, I will always constantly busy. I enjoyed that even though I wasn’t particularly enjoying the work, and it was quite stressful. There were a few jobs I’ve been in where I’ve been bullied, which is underestimated, the damage that can cause short term and long term. I did everything I possibly could to get more knowledge, and instead of sitting there wishing my life away from nine until five until that