November 29, 2019 – It’s been a month since I lost my job. Sometimes it seems like it was only yesterday. Other times it seems like it was so long ago. How can time fly by and stand still at the same time?
I still keep my morning routine. I’m up by 6am. I sit quietly at my desk, sip my tea and search the various job boards. I’ve applied for almost 60 jobs in the month that I’ve been off. Only a handful of companies have responded to let me know that they’ve moved on with another candidate. Most of them don’t bother. You can only assume that you didn’t make the cut when you haven’t heard after a while.
I’ve had a couple of phone interviews. The first caller asked the basic questions, thanked me and hung up. I never heard back. The second caller spent a little more time and then asked if I would be able to provide references from my supervisors at my last two jobs. I said that at one role it wouldn’t be a problem but I would have to check for my most recent role. I didn’t know if my exec would be a reference and what he would say.
I reached out to him via email, said I respected his business decision and was moving forward with my job search. I asked if he would take a call or consider providing a letter of reference. He responded that he had been meaning to reach out to me and that he didn’t have a problem with either. However he said it was challenging and didn’t know how explaining his business decision in terms of “it just didn’t work out” or “we never hit our stride” would work for me. He asked me to provide a draft letter for him to start with.
I responded and explained that “fit” wasn’t a criticism of me or my skills. It just didn’t work for us. That doesn’t mean I’m not good at my job. I’m paraphrasing but that was the gist. I provided him with a draft letter that outlined why I was hired and what I did for him. I provided wording about why it didn’t work out – we were both too busy to forge the connection you need to have – and that a difficult business decision was made. It took me a while to write the letter. I struggled with the termination paragraph. I wanted it to sound mutual and that there wasn’t fault. I happily sent it off to him.
It’s Friday. I haven’t heard from him. Yes, he’s busy. However, the longer I sit here, the longer I think that he isn’t going to provide a letter. I think that seeing what happened in writing (in the email and in the letter) hit a little too close to home for him. He saw that history repeated itself and that he had a hand in why it didn’t work. It wasn’t just me.
Now I’m thinking I should take my transition coach’s advice and remove the job from my resume and pretend I was on a break for 8 months.
Epilogue: It has been almost three weeks and I haven’t heard back. I’m thinking that’s a sign.
Diary of a DOW 