The bright side of being fired

As I stated in my previous column, my former employer “downsized” me. It can be unnerving when the boss calls you into his office and lets you know you’ve been laid off. The reason? “It’s the economy,” he says. You won’t hear: “Sorry, we screwed up. We didn’t plan properly by looking for additional customers.”

A company might have spent all kinds of money on equipment for a customer and ramped up by hiring more employees only to find the customer pulls the plug—without any notification or consequence. Heaven forbid your company should admit that. Then your employer sends you out the door.

The hardest part is telling your spouse. I’m fortunate that my wife has come to expect employment changes and is a good sport about it, as anyone married to a metalworking professional should be. Manufacturing can be a transient industry, but there’s a bright side to being laid off.

No, I haven’t lost my mind! I’m just optimistic, usually seeing the glass as being half full rather than half empty. In my case, I wound up with a few weeks off to do things I wouldn’t have had time for while working full time. Instead of going fishing and probably only catching a cold, I did the next best thing and took a vacation with my wife to visit my parents and daughter in the Midwest.

While there, I even had time to seek and secure a new position. It’s not the best job I could have hoped for, but it will pay the bills and then some. After I landed a job, we found a new place to live as well.