This is part two of a two part article by Sarah, one of my friends who was recently let go from her job. This is the inaugural story of the Diary of a Firee series, which will chronicle her search for a new job. Here is part one of How I Lost My Job.

As many of you know, it’s harder than ever to find a job. Our economic times are not the best, to say the least, so competition is fiercer than ever. If it’s a good job for a good company, even fiercer. I was in an interview the other day and the interviewer told me that there was exceptionally high competition for the position I was applying for, not what I wanted to hear.

But I wasn’t in “panic” mode yet, I still had a job. It was uncomfortable but I had a paycheck. As I went into the office each day, I’d ask myself, “What will I do today that will subject me to being picked on?” It’s not a good feeling. If you cannot communicate effectively or be friendly in a professional way with your boss, without worrying that you’ll be picked on, it makes for a pretty difficult work environment. It’s especially puzzling when you could do just that a few short months ago. One of my close friends there said: “It sounds like they are trying to make you quit, whatever you do, don’t quit!” On some days, it was really hard not to just walk away. (Remember, qualifying for unemployment is difficult if you quit!)

Communication was poor, the vibe was off in the office, the boss was in meetings all the time. I knew what this meant, they were building a case against me. I was hurt. Why? What did I do? Everything seemed so bizarre. Why was my job at stake? Didn’t I just get a glowing performance review? Or was it a funding issue? Did they not have the funds for the position so decided to make a case to get rid of me? I’ll never know.

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A few weeks ago, I learned that my friend Sarah had been laid off from her job of several years. To help her pass the time between submitting resumes and going to job fairs, I asked her if she’d be interested in writing about her experiences here. Fortunately for us, she was!

She’ll be authoring a new series here, one that I hope will help everyone who is in the same predicament as her – without a job and in search of one in a period of economic weakness. The new series will be called Diary of a Firee and we hope to get out about an article a week (we don’t want to interfere with her job hunt), touching on subjects such as unemployment, interviewing, and resumes. We hope that through her experience, we can all learn a little something about getting through this difficult time.

We’ll kick off the series with this post, part one of a two part series on her “job release” experience.

About Sarah

First things first, let me tell you a little about Sarah. As long as I’ve known her, I’ve thought she was very outgoing, intelligent, and hard-working. I usually interact with her on a social level but she’s always smiling, even if things may not be going well. In talking to her, I learned that she enjoys volunteering for groups working in public health and that she enjoys staying active. She’s hoping to complete a marathon this year! Despite her recent job loss, she’s still keeping pretty active, if not for a 40 hour a week job, by volunteering for health expos and serving on a committee that runs events and activities promoting health in all areas. She has extensive experience in the realm of event planning, executive travel, and has interacted as a liaison with board members of several committees.

That brief little bit probably isn’t enough to get you a good idea of who Sarah is, but I hope that through this story about her job loss and her subsequent articles, you’ll find her to be as agreeable and intelligent as I do!

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