Advice – Page 158 – Steven Savage

Don’t Let Employment Define Your Identity

May 5, 2010 by Steven Savage

I remember my first layoff in 1996.

It was weird and traumatic. I'd been let go before, I'd had temp assignments run out, but this was a case of everything just ended. The company I worked for was gone, my co-workers scattered to the four winds, and I was out of a job.

I'd like to say that immunized me against future layoffs. It didn't. There's really something about your job just ending, and not because of anything you did – but because a company collapses, or runs out of money, or just decides to cut staff. Your job is just gone.

In some cases, it feels like you're gone too. You're not making money, not doing anything, and you don't feel like anyone. Like it or not, we define a lot of ourselves by our jobs.

If Instead of Cannot

May 2, 2010 by Steven Savage

Many years ago, when I was a Senior Programmer with a consulting company, one of my clients commented that I never said anything was impossible – I never said "No, it cannot be done."

Now of course there are times in my career I have said no. And when I said things could be done, I also noted the costs – which is a way of saying "I can do this, but boy is it going to cost you or disappoint you." However the fact is that in your career, "it cannot be done" is not something you want to say to anyone – including yourself.