So you’ve been fired. What now?

It happens to all of us.
Heck, it happens to the best of us.
From the mere cog-in-the-wheel employee in a faceless organisation to reputed industry leaders.
On the cog side are people like us. (On a personal note, I must admit I’ve been fired a few times in my 30 plus years in the business. And each time I had gone on to do better work with better people in better agencies and at higher remuneration. Every single time. It was liberating. I saw it as Life’s way of kicking me out of my comfort zone.)
On the other end of the spectrum are luminaries such as Steve Jobs, who, you’ll remember, was fired from the company he started. Of course he went on to write iHistory when he came back.
While not all of us who get the axe are likely to follow in his footsteps, the least we can do is find out how to face it and move on.
You’ll probably go through the 7 stages of grief after coming out of that awkward Friday evening chat with the boss.
It’s not his fault. Usually.
Apparently, the higher up one goes on the ladder, the more you, as an employee, resemble a dot on a bell curve.
And despite what they might tell you, no company is ‘like a family’. ‘People are an asset’ is just a line thrown in for effect. Like ‘exclusively for you’ products they flog to millions of people just like you.
Nothing personal is what I mean, it’s just how it plays out.
No matter which stage of grief and shock you are at, you need to understand this monumental truth: it’s not the end of the world. Count your blessings.
Besides, being let go is no big deal. It doesn’t carry the stigma it used to decades ago. In a way it gives you space to regroup, rethink your strengths and weaknesses and reorder your priorities.
Like I said, liberating.
Usually, you get a month’s pay in advance, so you won’t starve while looking for another job.
Meanwhile try not to be bitter. It doesn’t help and it can be toxic. I remember reading this somewhere: “Anger, bitterness and resentment are like poison. You can’t ingest them and expect someone else to die.”
Actually something good can come out of the seeming disaster. Find out what led them to give you the marching orders. There might be some truth in their decision-making process. Ask if there was any area in which you could have improved? Was it a wrong fit? Like someone said, you can’t judge a fish by its ability to work a bicycle. Was there a gap in you managing their expectations? Find out.
On the other hand, if it was mere downsizing so the big guys could buy another private jet, that’s fine (at least you won’t be contributing to it).
That said, now will be a perfect time for re-skilling yourself. There are a great many learning platforms these days that teach you everything from programming to accountancy to public speaking to entrepreneurship and everything in between.
Take your pick.
If time is not on your side, spread the word through your friends and start applying. Use what you’ve learned from previous falls and work on them.
On an off chance, maybe it will throw you in a totally different direction and make you a star, as it did in the case of Simu Liu
There’s a lovely saying in Illusions by Richard Bach:
“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.”
Remember that, and rock on!