Redundant; Not or No Longer Needed
Redundant; adjective. Not or no longer needed. Superfluous.
Let’s face it, nobody ever wants to be labelled as superfluous. In itself a word that strips you of any self worth. To be told that despite giving it your all there is no longer a seat at the table for you. You didn’t make the cut. However, here we are in the tragic scenario where a huge percentage of our brilliant hospitality industry have experienced just that - fallen by the wayside as more and more venues close and businesses scale down. And inevitably there’s more to come over the coming months. That calls for a pause for thought; a moment of clarity for those fortunate enough to have dodged the bullet and a reassuring hug for those that didn’t.
With almost one million people in the UK having been made redundant this year it’s something that’s touched all industries and walks of life but the feelings and reactions are often common; denial, anger, worry and sadness. A rollercoaster of emotions that are not dissimilar to the stages of grief, which although surprised me to realise I suppose makes sense... when you passionately love what you do it can be a crushing blow to have that taken away from you unexpectedly.
Recently I’ve seen my partner go through it - a ten year career abruptly come to an end as an indirect result of COVID - and it momentarily turned our lives upside down. We’d just had a baby, our own business was indefinitely closed while we desperately tried to reinvent it and in the space of a few days and a number of tense phone calls it was all over. Locked out of emails, company car collected, thanks for giving us a decade of your time and goodbye. You don’t even get a leaving party in lockdown. Having dealt with it myself in 2019, and now being an employer who lies awake at night thinking of ways to keep a team in work, the worries of redundancy - from both sides of the coin - seem to have taken up unwelcome residence in our lives for the last eighteen months. Us and many of you reading this I’m sure.
Apart from the obvious financial implications there’s an overwhelming feeling of uncertainty that makes redundancy so tough. Us humans need a sense of purpose, without it we feel like we’re just flailing around in the abyss and failing to achieve. If you wake up in the morning without a job to do it can leave you feeling somewhat like a spare part (unless it’s a holiday, in which case… HOORAY!). Much like with lockdown there’s a cooling off period where you need to adjust to a completely new routine, or lack thereof, and it can be a strange experience when you’re used to working the majority of your waking hours. Whether it’s boredom or anxiety, when external factors leave you without control of your own life it’s debilitating and undoubtedly bad for your mental health. But there are ways to navigate it, to anchor and find a ‘glass half full’ outlook and this is where the hope lies.
For want of a less preachy twist sometimes it actually can be a blessing in disguise, a chance to regroup, refocus, and move on to the next challenge with a full tank and determination. An opportunity to reconnect with people and passions that have been neglected when the sixty hour upwards week has had you firmly in its grip. Eighteen months on from my own personal trip to the bin and I’m a co-founder of an award winning business and have a beautiful baby boy who would never have been on the cards if I was still busting my butt for the man. So if you’re reading this and are currently moving through the aforementioned stages of grief then know that it will pass and if you keep on walking there will always be light at the end of the tunnel.
To close, and this is the important bit, if you know someone who’s lost their job recently - it’s highly likely with numbers as great as there are - then be a good pal and show support; buy them a beer, tell them all the reasons they are really great at what they do and encourage them to take the bull by the horns and see what’s next. It’s easy to feel bitter, uncertain and hard done by when the rug is pulled out from under your feet but sometimes a massive kick far out of our comfort zone is the best way to find what’s waiting around the corner.