A year ago today, Hubby and I were sitting in the home office, trapped in the house due to an ice-storm. Both of us were at our computers. He was working; I was surfing the net for job opportunities and playing the occasional game of solitaire. As I tried to stay warm, it dawned on me that exactly one year earlier I had been laid off.
I started thinking about my year and remembered that only a few months earlier I had begun to write about my journey through unemployment. The intention was that I would start a blog. But I let my personal doubts and fears creep in, thinking “why would anyone want to read this?” and “I’ll be embarrassed to let anyone read my writing”.
I guess the ice storm froze all my fears, and as we shivered in the home office I plugged in the flash drive loaded with my writing. Overcome by a moment of bravery, I wrote my first blog post and alerted the world through Facebook.
Immediately I regretted my decision, certain that friends across the country were laughing at my writing. Fear was back. I pulled a blanket over my head so no one could see me cry.
Within seconds I had my first response. Hubby had to read it to me; I was too nervous. “It’s good!” he said. “They like your post”.
A tiny bit of courage started pushing my fear aside. A few days later I wrote another post and broadened my audience. More good response and lots of encouragement from friends to keep writing. Tales of the Terminated™ was born!
It’s been a year of writing and I’ve loved every minute of it. My heart-felt thanks to everyone for your encouragement and support. My writing has been fun as well as therapeutic. It brought the opportunity to write a monthly column for the paper. And most surprising of all, it has helped me find work.
Funny to think that my personal tales from the lay-off have provided a silver lining to an otherwise dark cloud.
Tales of the Terminated™ is far from done. I’ve got so many personal tales as a result of the lay-off. And I’m no longer afraid to share my thoughts and observations with the rest of the world.
Happy 1st Birthday, Tales of the Terminated™. I’m so proud of you.
© Tami Cannizzaro 2012 All Rights Reserved
Like Tami, I was terminated once (By my best friend, BTW – he is now on the board of the agency I lead, so I got him back – ha!), but you don’t have to be unemployed to learn something from this book. 
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