The feeling of losing a job....

Some times I feel why I have to face so many difficulties? Is it because I am destined to not enjoy the state of happiness for long time. Or is it because I have to face these, so that I become more tough, less emotional, stay calm. I ask many times to myself, why I have to face so many new unlearned things which many people do not face in many years?

The latest one in addition is "Losing a job and worrying about the finances that you had planned". :) Today, I was working as usual in my company during my internship stay and suddenly mail from CEO popped up in the mail box saying there is a meeting in the hall. So we gathered in the hall. The second sentence that the CEO said was "We as a company no longer exist and we are closing down our operations today. You can pack your things till 1pm today and thereafter the company as an entity does not exist". I said in my mind "ok, cool, This is the latest excitement in my life". This is the 5th company that I have seen in my career of 4 years. I have seen changing job myself, one company acquiring another and this is the latest where I am losing it toally. In one word "LayOff". What else I want to see I asked to myself?". I had worked for a month in this company and was expecting to work for 2 more months as an intern. I was very happy with the work I was doing. Things seemed going in a nice way.

The first thing that crosses your mind in this situation is what about my future plans of managing the finances. What about the loan taken from people, house rent. What about plans to save the money for this much time so that I could fund my own education to some extent. A single sentence takes all your plans away from you. Somehow I was not shocked by the announcement of closure of the company. In recent times, I have faced so many stressing situations including personal humiliations that I have somehow got used to stress and panicky situations. I have seen so many of my plans going nowhere and collapsing like a card house in last 2 years, that I quite knew that Yes, I had to face something like this as life was pretty nice for last couple of weeks except a few really bad incidences. I have accepted somehow that I have to have a troubled life else there is no meaning to it. I am not used to so much calmness since last 2 years. Its treating me very strangely and teaching me lots of lessons. So the panic did not occur at that instant. I dropped a mail to another company asking could I apply there for an internship? Got reply asking me how much time I have left for internship. I do not have much, so basically I am screwed and any company I would go would ask me the same question. Lets see.


I was pretty calm till I came back home. But as soon as I got to home the empty house started eating in my head. The loneliness and the silence was unbearable. The feeling of losing the job started sinking in deeply. Suddenly problems started appearing everywhere in future. Managing loss of almost 4Lakh Rs and plans that go with it have to have some impact on you. I felt need of someone who could be my side just to hold my head and calm me for that instant. I felt need of a girlfriend who could understand my emotions and who would soothe me in her lap. The feeling lasted for about 15 minutes and then I came back to the reality again. I was having thoughts of going back to India as I feel, I have learned most of the things both technically and personally, for which I wanted to do a MS. I felt I do not have the fancy of a degree and fancy of an American job and $$$$. I felt what in the practicality is the value of a MS degree as compared to the money I would be spending on it, if I do not get funding. All questions passed through my head in that moment. Yes, I loved my work. The quality of work is great. I felt the experiences which I have witnessed, the stress I have gone through, the knowledge I have received is all worth the money I have spent till now. I do not need an authorized degree. I do not want to spend more money for just the sake of the degree. But somewhere I felt I am running away from the difficulties. I am getting emotional. I am going down with the pressure. I need to be more stable and calm and face the situation. I controlled myself. I had to, as there was nobody else who could have understood my situation better than me. I was my only friend and consultant at that moment.

I have experienced worst of situations. Being in a foreign country and losing all the plans is not so nice. It becomes more worst when it is directly linked to your finances. It is worst when you do not have anybody with you to feel calm. It is worst when even though you wanted to go home you can not because you are tied with the situation and the things just does not fit into plans. A foreign country comes with all these blunders and heavy stress. The life is not so cool as many Indians feel. After a point it gets monotonous and you really miss the people back there. Life of a student is not at all great as he does not have money to spend like a working professional. He is tied in different ways. Life is not great because you do not have your close friends. Material comforts are great, but whom are you going to share them with? Each side has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Life is full of surprises and that is why even though suddenly I felt like I had no future and I am totally lost financially, somewhere I felt I could come out of previous bad situations and I would come out of this too. This is life. Take it in a positive way. Face it. Its there to teach you lots of things and make you a better person. Every situations brings with it some new learning and may be this will give me some new learning. May be something more fruitful would emerge out of this? Who knows? Yes, I had to face many difficulties in the past, but they only made me more strong and gave me more strength. May be there is something bigger for me here also. Who knows? Or at least you can console yourself by saying all this to yourself because at that moment all these words of kindness are required and they certainly make you feel better. What would a friend say if he/ she were near you? What would parents say? What would a girlfriend say in this situation? She would say the same things, so why not say them yourself for you. Why you need someone?

Kudos. I need to sleep now. As I am pretty tired after returning with my pack of things from the company. Commute to the place of internship was another pain as I used to spend 4.5 hours daily in a train and a bus daily. I used to read a lot in that time. Read lots of things on psychology. How mind works? The emotional intelligence. How a child thinks and related things. Also read a lot on economic developments of different countries. I would miss my long reading sessions :( I hope to get some job soon. Lets see. This is America. It teaches you lots of things.

Why I wrote this? Not to show that I am some one great !!! But to vent out the frustration that got accumulated in my head. It had to come out in some way or else I would have collapsed. I would have lost totally as I was getting the feeling that it had started eating into me and I would buckle under it. I wrote this to get the feel of talking to some unknown person as if he/she was sitting near me. It has calmed me down tremendously and I am feeling somewhat better. May be this is the form of public diary, which many people used to do in earlier times, when they used to write their thoughts in their own private diaries.

If you read this, thanks for reading.


-Mrunal