Nine years ago this week, weeks before Christmas and towards the end of the housing crash, I was laid off from a design/build company I had worked at for 12 years as their Virtual Design and Construction coordinator (VCD). I started working when I was 15 years old, and a day hadn't passed that I wasn't gainfully employed. I saw people fired. I worked at companies that went through layoffs but was always fortunate to maintain stable employment. Even at this last place, people were getting laid off for a couple of years before it was my turn.
As you see on TV or in the movies, I was given a small box to fill with some items and escorted out of the building like I had done something wrong. I have seen it a dozen times, but you only fully understand once it happens to you. I'm unsure why something so traumatic is handled so coldly and callously. You give your soul to 'the man,' then you are treated like a criminal. Anyway, I walked out of the building, with security at my side, tail between my legs, and hopped into my vehicle, numb to the world.
With my small box of items in my passenger seat, I wondered what to tell my wife and two kids. After three minutes of sitting there pondering, my phone rang. The number was unknown to me, a foreign number, but I answered it anyway (not typical of me). On the other side of the phone, from the other side of the world (UK), was someone who saw my work online and thought I would be perfect for a large project they were working on.
This phone call, unprovoked by anything I did, came out of the blue three minutes after losing my job. I would have declined the offer if the call had occurred three minutes earlier if I had even taken the call. That project lasted about a month, paid far more than I was making at the job I was laid off from, and gave me hope. With the severance package I received and the money I made on that first project, I was suitable for at least six months to land another job. Well, the day I finished that first project, another call came in, and nine years later, the phone still had yet to stop ringing.
If you know me or have read my website, I'm a man of faith. Often, things happen that can not be explained except by something supernatural or some would call a miracle. Times are complex, and layoffs have become the norm. This message is intended to be a message of hope.
