I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Philippians 4:13

A year to the date after being made redundant, I have found myself in the same position again. This is probably the 4^th time I have been manoeuvred out of a job and while I miss that regular income, one thing I have learnt from living in Ghana is to always have a contingency plan. With every job, I have my main savings and then my temporary savings pot to tide me over for the moment. Today, as I said, I do miss that regular income but I have to trust in God and believe that this is the time to reflect and do what needs to be done.

To be honest, I never really had time to think these past 8 months as I would be up at 6, out by 7am and home by 7pm, with only a 30 minute break I day (which I would mainly miss), my days were work, home, eat and sleep (sleep is really important).

The reason they let me go is that they said that, they their inventory was high and I wasn’t being proactive enough to reduce stock. Now let me take you back a while. First Brexit happened and sales started to decline. However, the company had committed to buying a certain amount of stock every year. My suggestion has and is, stop buying crap that you don’t need. I am not a sales person, I can’t give you the magic formula to sell your stock, but I can advise on what needs to be bought and where you can save money. Furthermore, it was a small company, live within your means people. I won’t go into my personal feelings about certain people I worked with because that’s my perception and that’s all subjective but it is hard working with disingenuous people and have a smile on your face when you know that they are stabbing you in a back.

Does this sound like sour grapes, maybe, do I sound petty, more than likely but the same people who were attacking my character are now the same ones doing my job now as I am not being replaced for now. Furthermore, this is a company that sacked their cleaner to save costs (and the staff had to do the cleaning), so whatever I did, unless I pulled a rabbit out of a hat, the writing was always on the wall.

I had a nice little contract role prior to taking this up where I was actually adding value but I got sucked into the “I need to get a permanent role”, in hindsight I should have stayed where I was but no regrets though, only life lessons. This is what I have learnt so far:

1.       Permanent is not always best, there is comfort in having to not jump from job to job and if that’s what you feel is best for you, then go for it, especially in an uncertain economic environment. However, it can consume your whole life, and well gone are the days when you have a job for life so it is up to the individual and what their vision is for their life.

 2.       Always listen to your gut. I took over the role from someone who they said was not up to scratch. I did feel a bit uneasy accepting as the whole interview process was very cloak and dagger. It felt like dating a married man who leaves his wife for you. If he can do that to her, he can do that to you. After I started hearing about the contributions my predecessor gave to the company, I never felt my seat was totally mine.

 3.       Forgive people their foolishness. I found myself not only having to remember what I had to do but sending out the same communication about 10 times because nobody read their emails until they actually needed that information. My boss read my emails during our weekly meetings (so basically once a week), then I was accused of poor communication. Reach!

 4.       One-Man business run the same in almost every country. At the end of the day, they have the final say so take that into consideration when making that decision to accept. If you have worked in fairly large corporations it is difficult to make that transition unless it’s your own.

 5.       Lastly, something I need to do for myself. I tend to take my job way to personal. I don’t have children, so my job tends to be my baby. If I am going to stay working in any company, I need to learn that “poker face” and play the game without selling my soul. I need to learn to smile even when the people around me make me so mad that I just want to hit them in the face.

 As always, I have learnt more life lessons (or re-learnt in some cases) and if I want to move from an employee to an employer, I know what I should and shouldn’t. I will not however compromise my integrity so it is good that we parted way.

On a positive note, I will not take this as “another rejection” as rejection is subjective and it is one person’s opinion of you, it doesn’t define who you are. To quote Steve Maraboli

“Every time I thought I was being rejected from something good, I was being redirected to something better”.