A friend of mine recently lost her job in less than ideal circumstances. She is a single mother and so income is critical. She called me to see if I could help in any way and, I suppose, for some support. At the time she was stressed and not thinking clearly; It was on the day they ended her employment and walked her off the premises. Just for the record, it was not through any fault of her own; The business simply couldn't afford to retain her.
We decided to meet for a coffee which I felt was preferable to speaking on the phone. The greater part of communication is via body language, not verbal, and in her state I didn't want to upset her any more than she was, through a misunderstanding or careless word.
After the usual conversation one might have with a friend under these circumstances we moved on to think about what the future may hold. She was reasonably deflated, as you can imagine, and quite negative which is not productive and after failing to break through that barrier I said the following:
"A door has closed and you find yourself out of work. You can look at the door hoping it may reopen, which of course, it won't or you can turn around, look left, right and behind you with fresh eyes. You'll find yourself in a "corridor", hallway or passage and you'll notice there's other doors, there always is. Behind each door is a new opportunity and the only way to take advantage of them is to take a step away from the closed door you are in front of and move towards another, and another and so on. Only in this way will a new door open and potentially welcome you inside.
You see, sometimes life is hard, unfair and brutally cold and sometimes it's not. My door/corridor analogy above simply refers to the fact that a person's attitude or perception can have a large bearing on their future. See negative, receive negative. Activity creates activity I guess right? Do the right activity and theoretically the right things will happen. Also, that there's always options, if only one looks for them.
We spoke some more and started to formulate a plan; Well, to be honest, she formulated the plan, I just offered encouragement and support here and there, and coffee. By the end of the hour she had mapped out a way forward with a clear strategy, list of things to do and challenges she may face together with possible solutions. A SWOT analysis as such. It was a pretty reasonable plan too.
Three weeks later and my friend is employed once more. Her remuneration package is up by 15%, her work hours are more flexible and she no longer has to work every second Saturday. A pretty good result I'd say. She's over the moon.
I'm not taking the credit for any of it of course, I didn't get the job after all, she did. However she thanked me for our coffee meeting and for helping her see a little more clearly. Looking back she can see how unhappy she was at the other role and the best thing that could have happened was getting pushed out into the hallway. I am so pleased for her and look forward to the next catch up to hear how it's all going.
