I am now a statistic!!!!!

For the past few months we have been assaulted with employment reports in the print and television media. For the past few months, I have been thinking, "Man, it must be terrible to lose a job in the current situation", "I'm glad I still have my job", "Hopefully this job lasts for another year atleast"

Now, I'm a statistic. You can add me to the list of employed men and women. The Board of Directors of my ex-company decided to save some money and to stop the project I was working on. So, here I am now blogging in the afternoon, thinking about what I'm going to do. The circumstances in which I was informed of this piece of news was extremely unfortunate to say the least. I had only begun my vacation in India, my first in 3 years, when I was conveyed the unfortunate information via email by my ceo.

I made peace with myself during my vacation. Plus I surrounded myself with people whom I loved. My parents, my sister, my friends and Dodo. I was vaguely confident that I could come back and find another job. Maybe it was being in a comfort zone with family and friends. Now, sitting in my room away from family and friends, there is a whole new range of emotions going through me. Despair, pity and hopelessness.

I know for a fact that I did nothing to deserve to be in such an unfortunate situation. I worked hard every single day, I pushed myself harder every week and it felt like I was really doing something important. I really loved what I was doing and woke up every morning looking forward to what I was going to do at work. The work I was doing seemed to give a meaning to what I was doing with my life. Prematurely and abruptly its over now. Will I work as hard and enthusiastically again at a new job? I don't know.

What I know is this. I may have lost my job but it is by no way a reflection of the work that I did. I am proud of my contributions and there are not many who can say that they did justice to their job every single day. It is the only positive thought I can carry forward to my next job.

Where I am going to go and what Im going to do, I have no idea. But I know that I have to start all over again. Feels just like after grad school; no money, no life and a long time before I found a job. Not something I'm looking forward to!

Was it a good vacation? You decide. I can only give you a rehearsed line "I had some good times although I might have enjoyed it even more if I hadn't lost my job"