So, You’ve Been Made Redundant : The 10 Stages of Being Laid Off

By Charlotte Harris

Redundancy is a strange experience. In one fell swoop, you find yourself thrown into uncertainty. It’s as if powers from above (or maybe just the powers from the office down the hall) have decided that you were due a little rain. You feel angry, sad and bizarrely shameful over something over which you have no control. Whilst redundancy will affect everyone in different ways and severity depending on their situation, here are some of the more universal stages of being laid off.

Stage One: Smile like a fool when your manager tells you the news
It hasn’t sunk in yet, so you just make slight ‘oh’ sounds and nod, as your manager mumbles about ‘budgetary restrictions’. Oh look, now you’re actually thanking them on your way out!

Stage Two: Cry in the loo
It’s all hit you now: the life you’d built for yourself, the comfortable routine - all gone in a two-minute meeting. Time to hide, cry and hope no one notices your distress as you shuffle out of the building.

Stage Three: Resolve to start a workers’ revolution
The anger ramps up now that you’re home. Why oh why did you wait until you were in the bathroom to start crying? You should’ve noisily wept in their office, rent your garments and torn your hair to make them feel truly awful about what they’ve done. You need to make this messier, much messier. To misquote a great poet: ‘do not go gentle into that P45!’

Stage Four: Realise that there is no revolution to be had
It’s useless. Any show of defiance would only affect your colleagues anyway. Your mortal enemies, the management team would be utterly untouched. Their plan has been executed neatly, their timing was carefully considered and they’ve left you with nothing to tear down. Besides, they were only going about their jobs just as you had been going about yours.

Stage Five: Resolve to embrace your unemployment
You decide to look into the government benefits you’re entitled to. You picture yourself sleeping late into the afternoon and watching daytime TV. Oh, this could be nice for a while.

Stage Six: Realise that benefits are harder to qualify for than you thought
Sorry kid, it’s not the eighties anymore. You’ll also discover that daytime TV gets very stale very fast. Nothing but quiz shows and antiques, with endless life insurance ads in between.

Stage Seven: Wistfully remember the good old days at your job
The in-jokes, the tea-breaks, the times you became so engrossed in your work that whole weeks flew by. A tear-jerking movie montage is forming in your mind. You wonder if the nice lady in the shop you frequented during your lunch hours ever thinks about you.

Stage Eight: Anxiously imagine that you did something to bring this redundancy upon yourself
What if it was the teaspoons you left in the break-room sink? Was it that day in March when you were late? What if you can never find work again because you’re obviously so terrible at everything? The movie montage from stage seven morphs into a psychological thriller, egged on by the fear that they had wanted you gone from the start.

Stage Nine: Start looking for a new job
Success is the best form of revenge, right? Time to fire up the computer and dust off your CV. You shop for a new life online - bartender, warehouse operative, funeral director - it’s all here, and they’re all paying a ‘competitive’ wage, which mysteriously isn’t disclosed on the advert.

Stage Ten: Smile, and mean it!
‘When one door closes another one opens.’ Of course, the last door didn’t close, it was slammed in your face. But here, in this long open corridor of possibility, you’re starting to believe that better doors could be just around the corner. And even if you take a while to find them, a few more episodes of Tipping Point will surely keep you entertained in the meantime.