(Actually a step in my butt…..but, let’s read)
As a Italian citizen accustomed to a theoretical greater protection of workers’ rights, I have always found shocking the reality depicted in American films when a layoff can happen at any moment.
The dreaded box to be prepared with your personal belongings to take away your presence from the workplace. As if,when you lose a job, the notebooks and the pens you take away with you can mean something tangible …
Well this is what happened to me in the summer of 2013 when at the age of 41 I lost my job at the multinational company I had worked for the last 6 years.
In the morning I entered the office full of plans for the day, for the next few months, with the idea that you will have all the time to apply to try to achieve them, and in the afternoon I left knowing that the next day I would no longer have an office and a work to worry about.
An unexpected visit to the HR office and I had surprisingly been told that day was my last day of work following a very hard decision made in consideration of the “difficult economic situations of the company” (a NASDAQ listed giant worth 60 Billions of stock capitalization .. .).
And the famous box materialised with the sad smile of circumstance of the “colleague-undertaker” who followed my steps making sure I took only those personal effects I was authorised to withdraw.
If in these circumstances that suddenly strike I would have be alone I would probably fell to the ground due to the disappointment of the fading away dreams and the precariousness that would have now become part of my daily life.
Fortunately I had a beautiful family and friends who believed in me and I happened involuntarily to have sown well in these years of honest and hard work so as to receive many signs of esteem from customers and colleagues.
And then the Faith in God that I have cultivated up to then became an uproar to cling to in the stormy sea where I found myself trying to float.
So that afternoon I left for the last time that dusty employee parking lot with a hope that how crudely life can subtract one day, you will be returned with interest in the future.
The traumatic experience that I experienced made me understand that we have to honor this gift called Job with our best personality, abilities, dedication and professional skills. Skills that, by the way, we perfect in the workplace, where day after day we become increasingly aware of the professional path we want to take in the future.
And if one day we ever get deprived of a Job we will certainly be able to wait for the next opportunity with Dignity and Trust that are waiting in the future.
May the Trust be with you!
Paolo
RoadIsLife.blog 