The musings of a reluctant house-husband aged 40 and three quarters
Why working was important
The weeks/months leading up to being made redundant were pretty depressing at the office, the writing was on the wall and my colleagues and I were keen to see decisions made so that we could get on with our lives. Our company had been sold and the buyers had made the decision to outsource the key day to day management of the business to one of our competitors with duplicate resources – job losses were inevitable. Bizarrely, when the axe did finally fall, it was actually a relief for a short while. At least I wasn’t hanging on and waiting anymore.
After the dust had settled and the legal process had all been completed, I began to reflect upon the various ways that a job was important that I had never really fully appreciated.
It is a fact that I had been employed in one way shape or form ever since I got a work permit at the age of 13. I did paper rounds, worked in a local grocers shop, worked on the local market and then did two years' service at Sainsburys and that was all before I even left school. Once out of school, I did four years at Barclays and then went to university. I worked during my summer holidays, did a sandwich work year before completing my degree and then went to work. At 40 years old I finally began to understand what a job means once you totally disregard income.
My job defined me and gave me some status
I was a responsible manager (people, budgets, planning, objective setting and objective achievement etc.), was a company spokesperson and had a company car, a company phone, a company credit card, private health care and a reasonable salary. When that all disappeared and instead I became a house-husband, I had to adjust to having no perceived status at all, it was rather emasculating if I am honest. Status was never important to me as a flag to wave at other people but it was very important to me personally as evidence of achievement and self worth.
I needed a plan and I needed to keep busy and continue to achieve things regardless of my employment status.
People and relationships
There are some things that I had always taken for granted, camaraderie and office banter for example. Once job seeking, I started to spend loads more time on my own (Mrs. Baldwin being at work and the kids at school). When the phone doesn’t ring, your mates are all at work and you realize you have no connections in your local community because you always worked somewhere else, you really can start to feel quite lonely – and I did.
Apologizing for yourself
When I was initially out of work I kept up to date with a number of my work colleagues and others that I had working relationships with. As my period of unemployment grew I found that I was communicating less and less and the main reason for that is that I just got sick of having to explain what I was doing – it felt like I almost had to apologize or make excuses to justify my lack of success. You have no choice at the Job Centre but there’s only so much of it that you can manage on top.
The downside of being quiet is that it only exacerbates the feelings of loneliness during the day. The balance isn’t an easy one and my learning from this experience is that people really do care and you just have to identify which individuals do and stay in touch with them – after all the world works by who you know not what you know.
An amusing tale
One of the funniest tales I have to regale about redundancy involved my son who was seven at the time. About a week after I had been laid off, I had just arrived back home after visiting a solicitor. My son was playing on the green outside the front of our house with a few of his mates when I pulled up in the car. Upon seeing me, they started chanting, and much too loudly for my liking, ‘retired or fired’ and must have got through four or five iterations before I managed to get my lad to stop. I then had to explain to him what redundancy was and that I hadn’t lost my job because I couldn’t do it but rather my company didn’t want me to do it anymore! On the bright side, most of the neighbours were probably still at work at the time!
Good days and bad days
It is fair to say that the last few months have contained days that were up and days that were down. There were occasions where I felt a bit depressed and struggled to feel motivated for example when rejections or worse still just silence from recruiters got to me. What surprises me is that it doesn’t take much to change a down day to an up one – someone calls with an opportunity, you complete an application, or you simply achieve something.
With that in mind, I have added structure to my time and have made sure that I have achieved something everyday regardless of its enormity. Running has been a saviour for me; when you run you get some fresh air, blow out the cobwebs, keep fit and get some time to think. It doesn’t cost you any money either which given the circumstances isn’t such a bad thing. Since being laid off I have run more than a 1,000 miles and that really does feel like something of an achievement. Let’s face it how many people would you chat to that could make the same claim?
Playground reflections
Being one of the only dads in the playground before and after school has been a reality for me for a while now. Don’t get me wrong there are other dads but they don’t come that often and never do both ends of the day which is hardly that surprising really. When I was working I’d just take the kids to their child minders in the morning, the other parents barely ever saw me!
As a stay at home dad you stick out a bit and no doubt get gossiped about. The mums are often quite sociable with each other and meet up for coffees and chats but as a dad it’s a social world that is not really open to you. I guess that’s not such a bad thing because at least I don’t have to explain to Mrs. Baldwin why I am going out for drinks with other women.
The job centre
Once I had been out of work for eight weeks, I decided it was about time that I got some advice about what I might be entitled to in terms of government support. That entailed some phone calls and a trip to my local Job Centre. The Job Centre was a whole new world for me having never set foot in one before.
Signing on every fortnight has been a fortnightly admission of failure from my perspective and not exactly comforting as a result. Bless the employees in the Daventry centre though because they have been thoroughly decent with me and wouldn’t be doing their jobs properly if they didn’t question me about my efforts to find work.
My folder of job seeking evidence grows by the week and at least there is some comfort to be had from efficient filing – alright I admit that’s clutching at straws.
My redundancy achievements
The weeks/months leading up to being made redundant were pretty depressing at the office, the writing was on the wall and my colleagues and I were keen to see decisions made so that we could get on with our lives. Our company had been sold and the buyers had made the decision to outsource the key day to day management of the business to one of our competitors with duplicate resources – job losses were inevitable. Bizarrely, when the axe did finally fall, it was actually a relief for a short while. At least I wasn’t hanging on and waiting anymore.
After the dust had settled and the legal process had all been completed, I began to reflect upon the various ways that a job was important that I had never really fully appreciated.
It is a fact that I had been employed in one way shape or form ever since I got a work permit at the age of 13. I did paper rounds, worked in a local grocers shop, worked on the local market and then did two years' service at Sainsburys and that was all before I even left school. Once out of school, I did four years at Barclays and then went to university. I worked during my summer holidays, did a sandwich work year before completing my degree and then went to work. At 40 years old I finally began to understand what a job means once you totally disregard income.
My job defined me and gave me some status
I was a responsible manager (people, budgets, planning, objective setting and objective achievement etc.), was a company spokesperson and had a company car, a company phone, a company credit card, private health care and a reasonable salary. When that all disappeared and instead I became a house-husband, I had to adjust to having no perceived status at all, it was rather emasculating if I am honest. Status was never important to me as a flag to wave at other people but it was very important to me personally as evidence of achievement and self worth.
I needed a plan and I needed to keep busy and continue to achieve things regardless of my employment status.
People and relationships
There are some things that I had always taken for granted, camaraderie and office banter for example. Once job seeking, I started to spend loads more time on my own (Mrs. Baldwin being at work and the kids at school). When the phone doesn’t ring, your mates are all at work and you realize you have no connections in your local community because you always worked somewhere else, you really can start to feel quite lonely – and I did.
Apologizing for yourself
When I was initially out of work I kept up to date with a number of my work colleagues and others that I had working relationships with. As my period of unemployment grew I found that I was communicating less and less and the main reason for that is that I just got sick of having to explain what I was doing – it felt like I almost had to apologize or make excuses to justify my lack of success. You have no choice at the Job Centre but there’s only so much of it that you can manage on top.
The downside of being quiet is that it only exacerbates the feelings of loneliness during the day. The balance isn’t an easy one and my learning from this experience is that people really do care and you just have to identify which individuals do and stay in touch with them – after all the world works by who you know not what you know.
An amusing tale
One of the funniest tales I have to regale about redundancy involved my son who was seven at the time. About a week after I had been laid off, I had just arrived back home after visiting a solicitor. My son was playing on the green outside the front of our house with a few of his mates when I pulled up in the car. Upon seeing me, they started chanting, and much too loudly for my liking, ‘retired or fired’ and must have got through four or five iterations before I managed to get my lad to stop. I then had to explain to him what redundancy was and that I hadn’t lost my job because I couldn’t do it but rather my company didn’t want me to do it anymore! On the bright side, most of the neighbours were probably still at work at the time!
Good days and bad days
It is fair to say that the last few months have contained days that were up and days that were down. There were occasions where I felt a bit depressed and struggled to feel motivated for example when rejections or worse still just silence from recruiters got to me. What surprises me is that it doesn’t take much to change a down day to an up one – someone calls with an opportunity, you complete an application, or you simply achieve something.
With that in mind, I have added structure to my time and have made sure that I have achieved something everyday regardless of its enormity. Running has been a saviour for me; when you run you get some fresh air, blow out the cobwebs, keep fit and get some time to think. It doesn’t cost you any money either which given the circumstances isn’t such a bad thing. Since being laid off I have run more than a 1,000 miles and that really does feel like something of an achievement. Let’s face it how many people would you chat to that could make the same claim?
Playground reflections
Being one of the only dads in the playground before and after school has been a reality for me for a while now. Don’t get me wrong there are other dads but they don’t come that often and never do both ends of the day which is hardly that surprising really. When I was working I’d just take the kids to their child minders in the morning, the other parents barely ever saw me!
As a stay at home dad you stick out a bit and no doubt get gossiped about. The mums are often quite sociable with each other and meet up for coffees and chats but as a dad it’s a social world that is not really open to you. I guess that’s not such a bad thing because at least I don’t have to explain to Mrs. Baldwin why I am going out for drinks with other women.
The job centre
Once I had been out of work for eight weeks, I decided it was about time that I got some advice about what I might be entitled to in terms of government support. That entailed some phone calls and a trip to my local Job Centre. The Job Centre was a whole new world for me having never set foot in one before.
Signing on every fortnight has been a fortnightly admission of failure from my perspective and not exactly comforting as a result. Bless the employees in the Daventry centre though because they have been thoroughly decent with me and wouldn’t be doing their jobs properly if they didn’t question me about my efforts to find work.
My folder of job seeking evidence grows by the week and at least there is some comfort to be had from efficient filing – alright I admit that’s clutching at straws.
My redundancy achievements
