Telling the Kid You Lost Your Job

 Esquire Magazine has a section "The New Middle Age." In the September edition, sports journalist Jesse Dougherty reflects on losing his dream job. That was 16 days before his daughter Eva was born. The essay is in the format of a letter Eva.

Oh, he admits how catastrophic it was or so it seemed at the time. After all, he was to become a father for the first time. He sobbed. His wife sobbed. He warns Eva not to make a job so much of an identity. Maybe Eva will pay attention. Younger gens, I am bumping into as a coach, tend to reject the old-line hustle ethos which made the job all-consuming.

In addition, he confides to Eva how the loss (along with fatherhood) has changed him. Now he feels fear all the time. Is the takeaway you want to pass on to your offspring during this reversal of fortune (hopefully temporary) to choose a line of work that doesn't operate on existential angst? No, all ways of earning a living aren't equally uncertain, performance evaluated with extreme high standards and dominated by politics. 

One more nugget to be extracted from Dougherty's bearing his soul: Hold the bravado. This really is a terrible development. 

What's common in the complimentary consultations I provide is denial. The males, for instance, speak with the aggressive tone they used in management (usually a turn-off in interviews). The females tout their advanced degrees (not realizing, of course, they are currently liabilities).

The approach, as they say in zen, should be the beginner's patient, humble exploration. Dougherty nails it when he says you will be different after you lose your dream job.

Obviously, a family message is how you're all going to pull together. That ranges from reducing expenses to bringing in income, from any kind of work.

Careers. Forget all that. It’s about earning a good living, no matter what.

Complimentary consultation with Jane Genova, StreetSmart Coaching (janegenova374@gmail.com)


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wachtell Partner Romancing Associate in Central Park: Let's Talk About Power

  Would red-haired 40-something Nathaniel Cullerton be so appealing to a 20-something if he hadn't been a partner in an elite law firm and she was an underling at that firm?  That's what most of the coverage of the kissing incident in Central Park by the two Wachtell lawyers doesn't touch. Here is the video by Tik Toker Jay Guapo of their romantic break in the day. It was foreign-policy expert Henry Kissinger who observed: "Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac."  Since then, organizations have recognized how that reality can create major problems in the workplace. Typically, those take the form of a manager type engaging in an intimate relationship with a subordinate or at least a person with less status. Another issue is that such arrangements can breed favoritism. The subordinate gets goodies others don't. The rest of the organization seethes in resentment.  In addition, it can also trigger penalties for "non-compliance." The subordinate resists th...
Read more

America Not Hiring in 2026: Back to Golden Age of Solopreneurs?

 For hiring, 2025 was a brutal year to search for a job. The Wall Street Journal reports that 2026 could be worse: "At a gathering of CEOs in Midtown Manhattan this month organized by the Yale School of Management, 66% of leaders surveyed said they planned to either fire workers or maintain the size of their existing teams next year. Only a third indicated they planned to hire." The WSJ adds that pullback from adding manpower could be temporary. But given shareholders' demand for cost-efficiency and the continual improvements in AI, chronic unemployment could become standard. However, there is a solution. An old-fashioned one. That's becoming a solopreneur, that is setting up your own business without partners or employees. The model dates back to ancient times.  The golden age of the solo business owner in America had been from the late 1800s to about the mid 1920s.  There had been a wave of immigrants, discrimination against them and few jobs. They drove pushcarts ...
Read more

Scott Barshay's Leadership at Paul, Weiss Torpedoed, PR Nothing But a Joke, Sympathy for Brad Karp

  Last week was a bad, gone worse and worse, one for law firm Wachtell.   This week starts out as what could upend the new leadership of Scott Barshay (The Decider) at Paul, Weiss.  Today's very long-form article in The New York Times  by Michael Schmidt and Jessica Silver-Greenberg depicts Barshay negatively. Understatement. He is rolled out as one-dimensionally power-driven, abrasive, divisive and downright naive about the power of the media. About the latter, he blew off any concern about the media's response to the law firm's removing from the website the Center to Combat Hate.  An example of the beating delivered Barshay? Here is the NYT coverage of the response by some at Paul, Weiss when Barshay was hired: "But there was unease among some at Paul Weiss. Partners and associates learned from lawyers at Cravath that some people there were not unhappy to see Mr. Barshay go. His ego made him difficult to work with, the Paul Weiss lawyers were told." No ambigu...
Read more