What's So Good About Being Laid Off?

When bad things happen, we tend to forget to look for the bright side. One technique for finding new perspectives is reframing. In reframing bad news, you try to find alternate ways to view what has happened so as to bring out the good.

Take being laid off. We often see only the dark side, especially during the holidays. Not minimizing the dark side, here are some reasons to be thankful when you get a layoff notice.

• Don't have to worry about being laid off anymore
• Looking for a new job is a full-time job — it's easier to find time for it now
• Every day is casual day — not just business casual — really casual.
• Collect unemployment without guilt
• Run errands when there's no traffic on the roads
• No longer have to deal with your old boss
• No time sheets
• One good thing about
  being laid off: you no longer
  have to worry about
  being laid offSave 35 cents on Tabasco sauce by clipping coupons
• Home at a decent hour all the time every time
• Don't have to listen to traffic reports
• Traffic reports now seem hysterically funny
• Gives you the insight you need to support friends in the same spot in the future
• Lower income taxes
• All your books are now in the same place
• No more email from Security about new parking restrictions
• Eating much less takeout
• Cooking real food, then eating it sitting down
• Afternoon movies
• New job bound to be better than old job
• More time with the kids
• Reading for fun
• Sitting down to dinner as a family much more often
• Dry cleaning bills zeroed out
• Got accrued vacation in cash
• Dating
• No longer have to deal with survivor guilt
• Don't have to wear a badge any more
• Can use the health club in mid-afternoon when there are no lines
• Can actually use the health club
• Get to the produce department before the produce gets picked over
• No more cellular leash
• Read more things like this
• Finally see the Grand Canyon
• No more bags of liquefied lettuce in fridge because of unanticipated three-week trips to the Far East
• Vacation whenever
• Network for yourself instead of your employer
• Can always use the same bathroom
• No traveling to exotic places and seeing nothing but the hotel
• Catch up with friends
• Browse in bookstores
• Biking, hiking, skiing, snowshoeing, climbing
• No more working dinners at 9pm
• Save big bucks on day care
• No worries about what to do with the kids on snow days
• Less wear and tear on expensive clothes
• Low-mileage discount on car insurance
• Jacqueline Suzanne and PDQ Bach
• While sending out resumes, get interrupted by your four-year-old with urgent drawing of moon
• Rediscover your spouse
• Two words: the package

If you face layoff soon, or if it's already happened, see what you can do to extend this list.  Top    Next Issue

The health effects of a positive outlook have been suspected for some time, and research in the area is expanding the evidence. Two examples available on the Web are:

• Toshihiko Maruta, MD; Robert C. Colligan, PhD; Michael Malinchoc, MS; and Kenneth P. Offord, MS. "Optimists vs Pessimists: Survival Rate Among Medical Patients Over a 30-Year Period." Mayo Clinic Proc. 2000;75:140-143. More
• Laura D. Kubzansky, David Sparrow, Pantel Vokonas, and Ichiro Kawachi. "Is the Glass Half Empty or Half Full? A Prospective Study of Optimism and Coronary Heart Disease in the Normative Aging Study." Psychosom. Med. 2001 63: 910-916. More (search for Kubzansky)

Love the work but not the job? Bad boss, long commute, troubling ethical questions, hateful colleague? This ebook looks at what we can do to get more out of life at work. It helps you get moving again! Read Go For It! Sometimes It's Easier If You Run, filled with tips and techniques for putting zing into your work life. Order Now!

Your comments are welcome

About Point Lookout

Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.

Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.

Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.

Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.

Related articles

More articles on Emotions at Work:

It's a Wonderful Day!

Most knowledge workers are problem solvers. We work towards goals. We anticipate problems as best we can, and when problems appear, we solve them. But our focus on anticipating problems can become a problem in itself — at work and in Life.

Good Change, Bad Change: I

Change is all around. Some changes are welcome and some not, but when we distinguish good change from bad, we often get it wrong. Why?

A Review of Performance Reviews: Blindsiding

Ever learn of a complaint about you for the first time at your performance review? If so, you were blindsided. Reviews can be painful. Here are some guidelines for making them a little fairer.

Toxic Conflict in Virtual Teams: Minimizing Authority

Toxic conflict in virtual teams is especially difficult to address, because we bring to it assumptions about causes and remedies that we've acquired in our experience in co-located teams. In this Part II of our exploration we examine how minimizing authority tends to convert ordinary creative conflict into a toxic form.

Big Egos and Other Misconceptions

We often describe someone who arrogantly breezes through life with swagger and evident disregard for others as having a "big ego." Maybe so. And maybe not. Let's have a closer look.

See also Emotions at Work for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming July 25: Exploiting Functional Fixedness: II

A cognitive bias called functional fixedness causes difficulty in recognizing new uses for familiar things. It also makes for difficulty in recognizing devious uses of everyday behaviors. Here's Part II of a catalog of deviousness based on functional fixedness. Available here and by RSS on July 25.

And on August 1: Strategies of Verbal Abusers

Verbal abuse at work has special properties, because it takes place in an environment in which verbal abuse is supposedly proscribed. Yet verbal abuse does happen at work. Here are three strategies abusers rely on to avoid disciplinary action. Available here and by RSS on August 1.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenRWSepiEKmbYUnVojner@ChacrUQnYHDnkgoDPkBBoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.

Get the ebook!

Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:

• Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, USD 11.95)
• Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, USD 11.95)
• Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, USD 11.95)
• Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, USD 11.95)
• Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, USD 11.95)
• Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, USD 28.99)

Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info

Public seminars

The Power Affect: How We Express Our Personal Power

Many people who possess real organizational power have a characteristic demeanor. It's the way they project their presence. I call this the power affect. Some people — call them power pretenders — adopt the power affect well before they attain significant organizational power. Unfortunately for their colleagues, and for their organizations, power pretenders can attain organizational power out of proportion to their merit or abilities. Understanding the power affect is therefore important for anyone who aims to attain power, or anyone who works with power pretenders. Read more about this program.

• A recording of a program presented 6:00 PM June 29 (Eastern Time), Monthly Webinar, Technobility Webinar Series. You can earn 1.0 Category 'A' PDU by viewing this program. View this program now.