I lost my job when swathes of my industry – and countless others – were decimated by the coronavirus pandemic. Newsrooms around the country were swept out like a fire sale. It’s a sorry state from which we may never recover. Not fully, anyway. Still, losing my job meant I was in good company. When getting laid off is a daily occurrence, it takes away the stigma. Being out of work, sadly, becomes just as common as being in it.
But lack of shame is small consolation for lack of income and, for many, the death of dreams. I, too, panicked about how I’d keep myself and my two kids afloat with the career I’ve invested so much in, the only thing I’m really trained for, in an enforced hiatus. For me, though, it was also the perfect excuse for change.
“I thought about breaking up with my job but I didn’t have the guts. I was terrified of the abyss.”Credit:iStock
I was over my job. Yet it was too good to leave. My job was presenting news, one many would kill for, as I might have done years before. But night shifts can be gruelling and tricky to negotiate as a single parent. It was also stimulating and engaging. Until it wasn’t. I had outstayed my welcome but was staying anyway. For all the wrong reasons.
Like many long-term relationships, this one had run its course. We liked each other at the start, diving in with grand intentions and mutual respect. We had our ups and downs but we were committed. I had other offers, was tempted, but hung in out of loyalty, not wanting to let anyone down. Then, over time, they changed and I changed and we grew apart.
It got to the point where it felt, as one former colleague observed of her own very similar circumstances, like being the distant aunt at a wedding who’s only there out of obligation. She’s not asked to leave, but the hosts wouldn’t be too fazed if she did.
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I thought about breaking up with my job but I didn’t have the guts. I was terrified of the abyss that lay on the other side. Not so much the fear of unemployment – although, as a single mother of two young kids, that was real – but the panic of my identity going with it. Who would I be if I wasn’t on TV, reading or reporting the news as I’d done almost constantly since leaving university?
I tried to make it work. Adapting, staying on my game, laying low, then crying in the car on the way home, depleted by the amount of energy it was taking for me to stay untrue to myself. It wasn’t them, it was me. And I wasn’t sure how much longer I could go on.
Which doesn’t mean that losing your job doesn’t shake you when it comes. Termination, even during a global employment crisis, taps into that part of us that wants to be wanted. But not far beneath that was the part of myself that wanted more. In attempting to cling on, despite my despondency, I had forgotten my dream. I remembered that I never wanted a job; I wanted a vocation.
