Hear me out.
Thing is, I have been in this situation before so I know it gets better with time. I started with this post last year a few days after I was retrenched. I wanted to capture every emotion I felt and motivate myself for the road ahead.
The first time I was retrenched was in 2012. I volunteered to be retrenched. Why? I wasn't learning, growing nor being developed to enhance my skills and creativity. I thought to myself, "I'm better learning and growing than being stagnant". So I left the "comfortable" (the salary) without any plans. I mean I had no plans at all. All I knew was that I was meant for bigger things and should I have stayed for comfort-ability sake, I would have never known nor discovered the greatness within me. So I took the risk.
Now, I don't encourage people to leave their jobs for self-discovery without plans. Especially if you have responsibilities such as family, children, debt and such. When I left the company I was 24 years old without any responsibility. No family of my own, no children, no debts. That's why I could afford to take the risk.
Three years later I'm retrenched, again. This time I didn't choose it, which makes it more difficult to accept as I never expected it. I didn't volunteer for it, it just happened. What is more difficult this time around is that I have much more responsibilities to care for than before.
So now what do I do!
Some people might look at me being retrenched the second time around as my fault. Call it karma, for choosing it the first time. Truth is, you can never protect yourself from retrenchment and the decision of the first retrenchment has nothing to do with what happened the second time around.
In the midst of all the emotions I went through, I couldn't post anything on my blog because I didn't have any wise, encouraging words to write. I was in a horrible, dark place mounted by responsibilities that I couldn't handle. How did I survive it?
Here's the story, here's my journey of the past 3 months.
I was called in the MD's office for a meeting they had scheduled. Before this, they had prepared us for the worst that "could" happen and I thought I had myself ready for whatever would come. Little did I know, how unprepared I was for the journey ahead. So I walked into the office with confidence. My hair game was on fleek, so was my dress, heels, make-up and even my walk. I'm talking everything about me being on fleek, including my emotions (yass).
A few minutes later after the pleasantries I was told I was retrenched. This wasn't hard to take in as I had prepared myself for whatever would come. Now don't go thinking that I had myself prepared for retrenchment because I "must've" failed at my work responsibilities. I mean, that's the main reason people get retrenched, right?
Wrong! I had prepared myself as I had had an unsettling feeling about how everything was unfolding. I knew everything about me and my work was on point but I couldn't shake the feeling off that I was going to be retrenched. You might say "God" was preparing me for it. Hence the confidence. People think that when you serve The Almighty Lord, that life is a bed or roses but that's not even close to the truth, and yet again that's a topic for another time :). Let's stay focused on this topic at hand.
So after the meeting with the MD, I went back to the office, gathered my colleagues around and broke down the news to them before hearsay had a chance to spread the word. I then got on the phone and told my loved ones. My family was shocked and overwhelmed by the news. It was a bit too much for them to handle as I was the only breadwinner at home at the time. (Little did I know how that would change, for the better of course). So on the last day of work, I didn't say my goodbyes to clients and suppliers. Mainly because I'm horrible at goodbyes. They are sad and dramatic (hahaha) but I also knew that they would be in great hands and that everything would be taken care of.
I walked out the office with my head and hopes up. It was the beginning of greater things (coupled with bumps here and there) but I didn't want to focus on the negative. Little did I know that I required more faith and hope for what was to come.
See apart from being retrenched, I went through an all rounder heartache. I lost a friend who committed suicide because of depression. My then boyfriend and I went our separate ways. I moved back to my Mother's house which is something I hadn't done in years - the longest I had been home was a week. The money I received from my employer wasn't enough to last me, which meant that my debts and responsibilities costed me two arms and all legs to keep up with every month. 2 of my siblings became unemployed (retrenched too) and my only sibling who had a job, was pregnant. At this point in time, all of my Mother's children were home, under 1 roof with less money that could support all of us. It wasn't a weekend thing that we do once a month (be together at my Mother's house). It was all of us, together, longer than a week with all our tempers and characters. No amount of preparation could assist me in what was to come.
I remember when I arrived home, I even took a picture. That's then reality hit. It felt like it was over before it began. Like I had gone all the way back to start afresh and as much as that sounds exciting now, it didn't then. It was terrifying, overwhelming and scary but I wanted to capture that moment as a reminder to myself of the journey ahead. As a reminder of where I was and what God and I would accomplished along the way.
With all the emotions I went through, the one thing I didn't want to do was to drown in those emotions and let them deter me from where I was going and the plans I had for my future. I took out the 3 papers from my bag and put them where they belong, on the wall. I then gathered my business partners to motivate and give them a vision. I did as much as I could to get their mentality shifted from poverty to riches, from weakness to strength and from nothing to something. So we started by exploring our surroundings (mentally and physically) to see what profit we could make out of it. We made a tropical bar that we decided to use for our very first tropical event. I even had my nephew join in on the fun. Start them young hey (hahaha). He had fun though :)
It all started out great, my business partners and I accomplished and learned many things in the process. We excelled, we were strong, a team, one unit. We secured an artist, killed our marketing and got everyone talking about the event. I believed in it so much so that I used my retrenchment money to support the event. Big learning mistake that was. See what happened was our event was cancelled on the day of the event.
That day in particular wasn't just the day we were to make history, that was also my birthday.
The pain of the "loss/failure" was too much that I cried a lot, and that's history for me because I don't like crying. It makes your eyes red, gives you a headache and I'm not for that. It's too much honey, too much but on that day. It was like a waterfall, I couldn't stop nor control the tears.The disappointment tore me to pieces. I couldn't smile, I wasn't happy nor excited about anything. It was the saddest birthday I've had so far.
The good side of it is that it taught me my first business lesson; research goes a long way. Not just any research, proper well done research. The one that covers everything, even things you don't think are important. During the planning of the event I had prayed, my mind was focused on it and all I wanted to hear from everyone involved in the project was positive things only. Heck, even my finances were focused on this event but one thing I didn't do right, costed me everything. It took me all the way back to the ground, on the floor, crying. I remember my business partners put an apology poster on our social media to inform people that the event was cancelled. I hated that poster from that day because I felt like I had failed my team and I.
The next coming days were dark. I lost weight, I couldn't be positive. I couldn't motivate anyone, my negativity rubbed off on my business partners and family members, not because I wanted everyone to feel what I felt. It was because I couldn't manage nor control how I felt. I'm not saying I was too much to be around. I just wasn't positive.
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