Surviving

Handling Tough Times

If you’re unemployed, employed but in financial meltdown, or employed but at risk of an imminent pink slip, this page is for you. If that's you, you have to act fast. As the saying goes, when you’re up to your anatomical posterior in alligators, it’s too late to think about draining the swamp. You need to preserve what you have and use that as a base of operations for getting through the short term before you can think productively about the long term.

Step One: Stay Afloat Financially

Your first step has to be one of achieving a positive cash flow. This article isn’t about financial planning, but if you need help, get it – right now. There are two basic ways to improve your financial position: find a way to bring more money in, or find a way to keep more of the money you have. Usually the answer is a mixture of both.

By all means, DO NOT HESITATE to take a job that is "beneath" you if that’s what it takes to keep the wolf from the door. Surprisingly positive things can happen if you take an "interim" job as long as you remind yourself every day that:

It’s not for life,
But while you’re there, you’re going to be the best employee you can be...
While keeping your eyes, ears, and (when appropriate) mouth open to find and follow opportunities.

Step Two: Preserve Your Reputation

Your second step is one of salvaging your marketability – another reason to accept an interim job, because many employers look askance at long periods of joblessness. For most of us, six months of unemployment is an upper limit – even if you can afford more – because many employers will start asking either "What have you been doing with all that time?" or "Why haven’t you landed yet?" They will assume one of three things:

There is a very bony skeleton in your closet, such as a heroin addiction;
You so poisoned the relationship with your former employer that s/he is now justly blackballing your candidacy;
You are a terminally fussy person who has inflated expectations. (Q: How does a graduate of an Ivy League MBA program change a light bulb? A: S/he stands still while holding the light bulb, and the universe revolves around her/him.)

The general rule of thumb is that you can expect 4 to 6 weeks of job search time for every $10,000 of salary you’re targeting, but of course, you can’t cope with a longer search by simply raising your salary requirements.

Step Three: Repair Your Network

Your third step (if reason 2. above is why you aren’t landing a new job, this becomes your second step) is to mend your fences, to make sure that everyone in your network will be able to say positive things about you. If you aren’t motivated to do so because it’s the right thing to do, consider the stark reality that, sooner or later, the only possible networking contact between you and the job you want may just be someone who can’t stand your guts. If you have any enemies today, if they’re still your enemies in six months, guess whose fault that is? Okay, it may be their fault, but if you haven’t at least tried to set things right, it’s your fault.

Remember the wise words of Warren Buffett: it takes twenty years to build a reputation, but only five minutes to ruin one. Think about it. The most neglected words in the English language are "I’m sorry. I was wrong." If you haven’t uttered these words in the past two years, seek professional help immediately. If you don't, you may soon find that no one in the civilized world is willing to return your networking calls. That makes finding a good job almost impossible. I've seen it happen to people who could have salvaged the situation by humbling themselves and taking responsibility for past mistakes.

Step Four: Start Thinking Strategically

Now and not before, you're ready to go back and engage in some long-range planning. Once you’re out of the acute crisis stage, you’re going to have to build or rebuild a career, and the rest of this article is about how to do that, whether for the first time or the umpteenth.

If you're under 80 years old, your current life structure (job, career) is unlikely to be your last. Your challenge is one of ongoing, continuous transition self-management, not one of "getting this job thing figured out once for all". Here are six things to do for the rest of your working life that will help you to avoid future bumps in the road. Think of this as a six-point checklist to be used in self-evaluation every six months or so. (Businesses hold quarterly meetings; shouldn’t you do the same for Me, Myself, and I, LLC?)

First, keep a Me File in which you record your activities and accomplishments. Do this because it’s so easy to forget what they are, or when they occurred, or what the details were. This makes the task of revamping your resume (something you should be doing every six to twelve months as a matter of course) much easier. It also serves as a constant reminder of what kinds of activities you enjoyed – if six months have gone by and you didn’t enjoy anything you did, you’re in the wrong career. And, of course, if in the past six months you didn’t actually accomplish anything – didn’t help solve any problems or help meet any needs – your real job title is Turf Protection Specialist.

Second, network as a way of life – stay in contact with others, not just when you "need" to, but all the time. The world of work is a web of interconnections; you need to stay in the web, where you can feel the vibrations resonating. The best place to be when you’re out of work is to have all the world’s power brokers owe you a big favor; even if you can’t manage this, you can get in the habit of helping others to meet their needs, which maximizes the odds that the others will want to do the same for you. (Lucy: "I think I’ve finally figured it out, Charlie Brown. We’ve been put in the world to help others." Charlie Brown: "What are the others here for?")

Third, keep growing and developing. Keep learning new things; as one wit puts it, "the world belongs to the learners, not to the knowers, who are prepared for a world that is already obsolete". This can mean formalized professional development, or something less structured and documented but equally important. At a minimum, have at least one friend who is vastly different from you, and read at least one article a month in a magazine that has absolutely nothing to do with your work or your normal interests. Don’t forget the need to maintain a balance between generalist and specialist skills, and don’t get caught short by technological changes – if you think that crystal radios are high-tech, you may already be in trouble.

Fourth, have a fallback position at all times. Martin Yate says that everyone should have three careers going at all times – one that pays the bills now, one that has a reasonable chance of paying the bills in the future, and one just for fun (a potential dream career or, if not that, then a source of needed balance).

Fifth, diversify your sources of identity. If you are what you do, then when you’re not doing it, you must be nobody – this is why job loss is such a catastrophic experience for many people. Avoid that problem by investing yourself widely – in your work, yes, but also in your family, friends, faith, hobbies, community, cats. Don’t be one-sided. If you can sing only one tune, your name had better be Celine Dion.

Sixth, know what really matters – it’s beyond the scope of this article to suggest to you what that might be – and what only seems to matter. It’s easy to confuse them (for more on that, go rent the now classic Sally Field movie Places in the Heart). As Jim Elliott put it, "He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." Think about it. A person who, as Archimedes said, has a place to stand could move the world with a lever. What is your place to stand, the still point in your turning world?

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