Hey Kids,

It was a sad day at work today; lay-offs happened.

5 people from our staff were released under the term “Reduction in Force” or RIF as Human Resources likes to call it.

The morale of everyone sinks when these things happen. It’s not hard to envision what the event would do to our lives if it turned out to be us on the receiving end of that kind of notice. What would we do? Where would we go? How would we continue to pay the bills? What do we tell our families? Our friends? The thoughts makes us feel sorry for the ones who were forced to face those questions today.

And then the guilt sets in. Guilty for our lives remaining the same and knowing others, people we cared about, worked with, and with who we shared a third of every day’s total hours; their lives were devastated . Guilty that we’re relieved it wasn’t us after all.

I’m not preaching because I’m in this boat too, but this is the exact reason to keep yourself out of these situations. Here’s a few tips I’m telling myself and if you agree, do likewise:

1. Don’t work for someone else where they have total say of what you do, when you do it, and whether or not you’ll be allowed to continue to do it tomorrow. Find your own thing and be your own boss.
2. If working for someone else, don’t be dependent on them. Save money. Hone your skills and keep your eyes always looking for other opportunities. Don’t be more loyal to them than they are to you. Lay-offs define the limit of their loyalty.
3. Limit or eliminate your debt. It’s a lot easier to survive without the wolves at the door.
4. Be valuable; so valuable that it hurts them more to get rid of you than for you to get rid of them.

Currently, I feel I dodged a bullet. And I’m going to do everything in my power to not have to worry about this kind of thing again.

Life owes me nothing, so I might as well earn and take what I want to have. A “job” is not one of those things.

Day 37