It's Not Personal

I was conversing with the other half, who is rather adept at the redundancy procedure: unlike me (who is now on her third redundancy) he has been given the unenviable job of making redundancies in his work place.

His first statement to me was to remember that it wasn't personal; this was a business decision.  And he wholeheartedly believed that.  He could see that because he knew that, and that is how he gets through his tasks.

However I needed to show him that this was personal.  This was happening to me (and to two others too) but to ME.  A person.  A person who thought she had a career in front of her, who was in the job for the long haul.  A person who found herself both angry and sad; a bad mixture at the best of times (both often resulting in tears).  A person that was confused; had she done something wrong.  To this person it was everything and the business that had made that decision wasn't making a position redundant but a person, a mother.

My first thought had been for my children, how was I going to provide for them now?  Was I going to lose my house?  It was never a woe-is-me, why me, it was more a "not again" thing.  

But it was personal.  To me.

Redundancy is hard and as much as people making the decisions and those giving out the news can proffer the phrases that it isn't something that we have done, it is 'just' a management decisions, it needs to be said; to those on the receiving end it is personal.  It hurts and it isn't something that we can quickly recover from.  Jobs don't hang from trees, there isn't any low-lying fruit we can just grab to get by.  Money makes the world go round and as much as we all strive for a work-life balance, we need both of those aspects there to achieve it.

My previous blog spoke about responses to my news and how others responded with unhelpful phrases and I find that again I am writing about this.  Maybe this is just to let others know how to respond and to let anyone else know, in the same unfortunate position as me, that they are not alone in feeling like poo and that there is a long road ahead that we have to muster up the energy to walk.