The Wilderness Diaries, Episode 3: The Social Misfits
I recently stayed with my best friend of 30 years.
A few years ago, at 52, he too was made redundant from a very senior position. When he could not find another job, he built his own M&A boutique.
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We compared notes, and it was striking how alike the symptoms were. We feel useless to society. We feel we no longer belong to the finance group. The most painful part is the network of acquaintances. Not friends, because they are not. Just people you worked with and met along a long career, and got on very well with: weekend stories, family joys and difficulties, how to make the company better (to no avail, of course).
Now there is a fear, and it is palpable, that we will ask them for a job. “We are not recruiting right now” comes within three minutes of the conversation, before we have asked for anything. We only want to catch up and stay abreast of the market. But the fear is so strong that we have stopped seeing them.
It is mental torture.
Then there are the forums we used to attend, and still do. The first question is always “What do you do?” We have rehearsed the answer until we know it by heart: “I left recently as part of a broader company restructuring. I am proud of the work I did there and I am now looking for new opportunities.”
It makes no difference. The body language of the person in front of us changes right away. The urge to end the conversation is obvious, and they get fidgety. We are social misfits. Worse, it feels as if we have an incurable and spreadable disease.
Some will not understand. After all, we are told it is not how many times you are knocked down that counts, but how many times you get up. Fine. The continuous hits still hurt massively.
I have applied for JSA. Credit to the institution: it is quick and easy, and I will be contacted soon if my application is successful. I wished right away that I could get a similar text about all the CVs I am sending, which seem to end up in a black hole.
The Wilderness Diaries, Episode 2: Cutting the Cloth
The Wilderness Diaries, Episode 1: Access Denied
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