Laid Off During the Crisis of Our Age

For weeks now I have been waking up every day expecting to hear bad news. For the last few months the gradual spread of the COVID-19 virus, otherwise known as the Coronavirus, has been a hot topic in the news. For most of January and February it was at least a distant concern. I was more focused on the new admin job I had just started in February and was having a tough time adjusting to. The last week of February I caught the common cold that was going around the office but worked through it because I felt it was important to put forward a professional, dedicated and hard working front for my new employer. Just a few weeks later however I found myself in the office watching as customers vanished, businesses shut down, employees disappeared from the office, either teleworking or simply self isolating and forgoing pay. Meanwhile many of those who continued to work were suddenly wearing masks and gloves, restaurants shut down, and traffic dropped. On Friday the 20th I made the decision that, given that my employer was permitting it, I would forgo pay and self isolate for a week or two and hopefully return to work when the immediate shut downs were over. I made this decision because I live in a house with three family members who all have compromised immune systems, two of whom are in the over sixty age demographic that is at greater risk from this virus. I prioritized stocking up on necessary supplies and then bunkered down expecting a quiet few weeks while things blew over. However just a few days later on the 24th the state issued a shut-down order for all non-essential businesses and by the 27th I got a call from my boss telling me that I, like a sizable number of other employees at the company, was being laid off.

For me, given that I had only worked at the company for seven weeks and had not even had my medical benefits activated yet, the news of being laid off was honestly kind of expected. That employees who had been at the company for years were being let go primed me for my somewhat redundant admin position to be cut loose. Expecting it did not really prepare me for the complex mess of emotions that I have been stewing in all day. Guilt that perhaps if I had chosen to risk infection, go to work and made myself more immediately useful I would have been spared a lay off, surprise that the job I was only just getting accustomed to had suddenly vanished, stress and concern that now I have no income stream and no immediate course to attain replacement gainful employment, as well as a host of other feelings and frustrations.

Fortunately I have some savings, I have a safety net, I have food to eat, a place to live, and plenty of entertainment to keep me busy. Yet I cannot help but feel myself brushing with a long-familiar feeling, purposelessness. I don't have a job, I don't have employment, I don't have a purpose, a task to complete or a role to fulfill in wider society, I am untethered and unproductive and honestly its a crappy feeling to grapple with. Before this crisis I was quite confident that my previous industry of employment, namely dog walking and pet sitting, was always a fallback option. There are tons of businesses to serve that market locally who were, up until a few weeks ago, almost always hiring and there was no shortage of business. Now with the shut down and most people not going to work business has all but vanished as it has for so many industries. So even a job that I had felt was a secure and stable backup option has now disappeared. Worse I don't have any idea of when things will return to normal. We may see businesses reopen regular activities in a few weeks, but even then it may take some time for consumer confidence to return. It is possible that three weeks from now the economy will be ramping back up and I might get a call from my employer asking me to come back. Or I could be staring down the barrel of six to twelve months of unemployment as the economy limps along timidly and faces waves of short-term shutdowns as the virus peaks and troughs. Experts are saying a vaccine is eighteen months away at best, Harvard released a study that suggests we will be struggling with this crisis for the next two years, I don't think anyone has any real idea how long this situation will last or how bad the damage will really be.

Yet again I have to remind myself it could be worse, I could be facing a looming rent payment with no paycheck incoming, I could be struggling to put food in my stomach or clothes on my back, in that way I am more fortunate than all too many of my fellow Americans right now. Nevertheless I don't have two years of savings, sooner or later not only my, but the rest of my family's savings are going to run dry. With the market down what modest investments my family have in the market are significantly depreciated and if the stock market doesn't start recovering soon we could lose a sizable chunk of our savings. While we are alright for now we may be in this crisis for the long haul, it may take a lot longer for the economy to pick up again than people are anticipating and I just don't know how we, or millions of other Americans will manage. In the meantime I guess I'll be applying for unemployment benefits and hoping to see a $1200 stimulus check soon and maybe that will help though goodness only knows what the long-term consequences will be. All I can say is keep your fingers crossed, don't go outside if you don't have to and pinch some pennies because this is probably going to get worse before it gets better.