Both Sides Now

If you are around the same age as I am, or if you are familiar with "Golden Oldies" music from the 1960's and 70's, then you probably remember Judy Collins' recording of Joni Mitchell's beautiful, although perhaps somewhat maudlin, song "Both Sides Now."

In the song, which Judy Collins sings like an angel, she talks about several aspects of living and how she has viewed them at earlier points in her life.  The specific things she sings about are clouds, love, and life.  She says that as she has progressed through her life, her perspective on each of these things has changed, and so therefore her ideas about each of them has changed.

This week I have been reminded of that song, and its ideas about changing perspectives, because I find myself in a situation that is completely new to me, in a place I never really expected to be.   After 32 years with the same employer, yesterday I was one of about 200 people who are part of what is legally referred to  as a "mass lay-off" (as I learned in the letter they gave me on the subject).   During my tenure at that job, there were several lay-offs in the past, but I always survived them.  I was always on the "win" side mentioned in Judy's song.  This time I am on the "lose" side.

The real theme of "Both Sides Now" is the illusions we live under until some event changes our perspective.  In the past, the criteria for who would be laid off and who would not included tenure, and job performance, such things as quality of work, ability to self-motivate and lead others, and ability in special assignments, such as writing portions of proposals to win the company new contracts.   I rated well in all these areas, so I was always safe, or so I thought.  It turns out, looking at this lay-off from the "lose" side, that my belief in my job security was an illusion like the ones Judy Collins sings about.

Because of our Federal government's inability to do what we elect them to do, because of sequestration, and the budget impasse, the criteria for this lay-off were different than before.  Most of  the work we did at my job was funded from the same big pot of money.  A few other tasks were funded separately from other agencies in the government.  This layoff was the result of the big pot of money being eliminated.  If your job was funded by that money, it was eliminated.  Only the jobs with funding from other sources were safe.  My job was from the big pot, so I was out.   Seniority, quality of work, and all that other stuff didn't matter this time.

Finding oneself suddenly out of work at age 57 is devastatingly shocking. After so long, many of the people I worked with were like family.  Although I did not always love my job, it always gave me self-respect, the feeling that I was capable and valued, somewhere to go each day, and something to do that mattered.   Ironically, in recent months I had grown to like my job more than ever and I finally realized how much it meant to me, how much it defined who I was.  Facing the loss of all that is much like dealing with the death of a loved one.

I know that although this is the end of a major part of my life, as Judy's song says, "something's lost and something's gained in living every day."  I have lost my job, but I have gained an opportunity to do something new, to learn new skills, meet new people, perhaps live in a new place.  I don't think I would have ever chosen to do those things if I were not forced into it.  So, like the cliche says, a door has been closed.  Now I need to find the open window.

One thing I am determined to do is to avoid becoming a victim.  Someone smart told me this week that battered women who believe they deserve the abuse they receive remain victims.   But when they become angry at their abusers, they are able to realize they are not to blame for what happened to them, and  from that belief comes the ability to take steps to change their lives.  The person who told me that said I need to be angry at what happened to me to avoid being destroyed by it.   I think I've got that covered because I am mad as hell at our incompetent government and the suffering it is inflicting on so many decent people across this country.

However, I'm not going to get stuck in anger and grief, either.  Gone is whatever illusion I had that the future of my job was secure.  Now my future is uncertain.  It was always was.  I just didn't know it.






Copyright © 2013 by Steven W. Fouse