Being made redundant can seem like the end of the world, but Anna Coogan met a woman who has spotted some survival traits

If you ask people about the threat of unemployment, and what concerns them most, you will find the big fear is about money," says Lisa O’Callaghan, who was twice made redundant and who has charted her experiences in a new book.

Lisa is a successful marketing manager with a telecoms organisation, yet she has been made unemployed twice in the past, in her mid-twenties and her early thirties.

"I cared a lot about my job and the companies I worked for—both in the fast-changing technology and services industry," says the thirtysomething southsider.

Her book, Surviving The Axe: The Irish Guide to Handling Redundancy and Finding a New Job, seems perfectly timed for our current economic woes.

"The inspiration for writing this book was based on my experiences, and those of my colleagues, and how we coped and how we found new jobs," says Lisa.

"I found that while everyone worries about what they’ll do when the pay cheques stop, money isn’t the only element that impacts on you when you’re made redundant," she says.

"And believe it or not, money is often the easiest thing to get back. What people sometimes overlook is the cost of a job loss to their emotional life.

"They can overlook the impact on their mental health of not having a job to go to. Or underestimate how long it will take them to rebuild their shattered confidence or diminished sense of worth," says Lisa.

"For some, it takes all of five minutes upon hearing the news they are gainfully re-employed to feel good about themselves again. Others take years to get their confidence back," she says.

Yet, Lisa and her friends discovered there are ways to keep going when unemployed which help to boost your confidence.

She continues: "It’s understandable why people lose heart. As someone who has experienced being out of work for several months at a time, I know how hard it is to keep positive when employment agencies keep ‘losing’ your CV," she says.

And she adds: "You do start to identify with Michael Douglas’s character in the movie Falling Down. The slippery slope into depression and defeatism can be surprisingly short and sharp.

"I was surprised at the number of people who did not feel so dejected. In the world of the unemployed, I thought they were the oddballs.

"I would ask Mr and Mrs Oddball how they were coping with being unemployed, and an uneasy silence would follow, as if they were suddenly remembering they were unemployed.

"I think they thought I was the mad one. I realised that they were not in denial. Yes, they knew they were unemployed, knew their finances had seen better days, but they disagreed with any notion that they were ‘not working.’

Habits

"The fact is they were simply busy in their lives. And busy and negativity don’t mix. When I probed further, over tea and biscuits, and asked billions of questions, other strange habits emerged too.

"They were also physically active. They swam, they ran, they sailed and power-walked their feelings away. And come to the end of the day, they were too exhausted to think about their situation, never mind worry about it," says Lisa.

"They were involved in life on many levels—in home projects, they were doing renovation, or just cleaning—it’s harder than you think to get that mop out.

"They were involved in community projects: volunteering for charities, small businesses, schools and hospitals. And they immersed themselves in un-paid work projects: teaching, website development or painting.

Friendships

"The people who were doing best with being unemployed were sociable people. They had surrounded themselves with people they liked and who made them laugh and feel good. And they did the running too when it came to those friendships.

"There was no sitting at home for them waiting to see how many people would lose their number. No one had a chance to lose their number, in fact, because they were constantly organising coffees, lunches, early-bird pizza evenings and dragging the world and his mother along."

And she adds: "They were pragmatists. They kept their ego in a box and only took it out for important events such as discovering a new vaccine to cure cancer from the mould growing behind the fridge.

"Beyond that, they didn’t carry around a presumption that it can only be all or nothing on the job front.

"They found many opportunities in the twilight world of ‘in-between’, such as jobs with less pay that you don’t boast about but keep you busy and engaged.

"And they also appreciated that everyone’s life is crap from time to time and no-one had a monopoly on feeling bad," she says.

"Put simply, they were believers. Not one of them took their unemployment situation personally. It was someone else’s loss, their stupidity, and beyond their control. They knew they were good, and were proud of their achievements," says Lisa.

Surviving The Axe; The Irish Guide to Handling Redundancy and Finding a New Job, by Lisa O’Callaghan is published by Liberties Press

Anna Coogan