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Opinion: So, welcome. I realise this is a club you did not wish to join, but as a life member of sorts, I can give you some insights into the how, the why and the what next of it all. I hope this will prove useful.
Redundancy. The language is so unhelpful. It has a brutality to it that you weren’t expecting, snug-as-a-bug in your routine with your work-husband and your coffee-machine compadres. And then: Redundant, let go, booted out, superfluous to needs, de trop.
That needs a reframe. How about Emancipated? Unshackled? Set free like a Kiwi trapped in a Whangārei sawmill? Those are some other ways of looking at it.
This may be your first redundancy, and if so, you’ll be feeling a bunch of things. Shock, when the boss called and asked for a meeting, saying you can bring a support person if you’d like. Outrage. Grief. Isolation. Terror of the financial kind. All of the above.
Having been made redundant five times in my career, I too have felt those things. Five times? I hear you gasp. Yes, five - I work in the media. And I’m not blowing smoke up your lanyard when I say it is possible, in the fullness of time, to see each one of those as a blessing (at least once the murderous urges have subsided.)
The first one was the hardest but in retrospect, was some of my best work. It was the early 90s and because I was young and stupid, I hadn’t asked for a formal contract, and therefore had no severance provisions. My boss was one of the Australian media’s most heinous bullies and sexual harassers and not a mincer of words. You’re out, he said, as of Friday.
There were three months to run on my “letter of offer” and I had to make rent on my condemned hovel with the outside loo (even back then, Melbourne rent prices were appalling.) After consulting people I trusted, all of whom said you’ll never work in media again if you rock the boat, I ignored them and went to see the general manager at the TV station.
Look, I told him, I need that three months’ pay. And I’d hate to have to take “Mr Molestation” to court. To my astonishment, it worked. “We know we’re sitting on a powderkeg,” the GM said, “one of your colleagues has already filed suit. You’ll have your money by the end of the week.”
The second was done by subterfuge. Older by now and knowing my rights, when I sensed something amiss, I asked repeatedly for a meeting with my manager, who apparently couldn’t face me and disappeared like a wraith. I phoned the CEO, who told me my job was guaranteed, solid-as-a-rock. A few days later the chair of the board called and said, “Don’t come Monday”.
“Is this a lockout?” I asked.
“Awww, Ali, don’t be like that!” the now-sweating chair fumbled, expecting me to revert to nice-girl factory settings. There was a very public stoush and in the end, it cost that company dearly.
The third time I found out from a gossip columnist who called me while I was driving to work. Many years had passed since my last redundancy and the memories had faded, so I scoffed, told her she should “find better sources” and then arrived at my desk and found she was right when the boss cancelled my routine review - for the second time. This was not technically a redundancy, as another presenter’s bottom would be hitting the show’s couch the moment I lifted mine for the last time, but I felt all the same things. By now, though, I had a truly great employment lawyer on call. Again, costly for them.
More years later, another boss called on the second-to-last working day before Christmas, while I was standing in the wine aisle at the supermarket (handy, all things considered.) He did not seem to think it even warranted a face-to-face meeting.
The final one hurt the most, but I was a veteran by now, so I knew not to take it personally. I also knew the ropes. We’d like your feedback, they said. Feedback is a curious part of the redundancy process. There you are, begging for your job in an eight-page Word doc.
It’s crucial that you frame these thoughts in a positive light, the recruitment experts will tell you. In my experience, my brilliant ideas for why they should keep me on, have rarely (okay, never) changed the outcome.
The next thing the experts will tell you is to talk to your network(s). And most of those people will say you’re amazing and can do anything you put your mind to. This is lovely, but unhelpful.
One person, however, came to our lunch armed with a written list of truly great ideas. She then insisted on paying the bill, which really was above and beyond. I have her to thank in part for where I am now, in a position where I can never again be made redundant.
But there is one thing the Pollyannas of the HR world are right about, and that is, if you can, think of your situation as an opportunity. This bit is hard, perhaps the hardest thing you’ll do. As I stood in that wine aisle (job loss #4) all I wanted to do was weep.
My partner (wise beyond belief) begged me not to panic, to take a month and consider what I really, really wanted to do next. This advice eventually led to a project that changed my life and won me Reporter of the Year at the national journalism awards.
So, if there is anything I can offer in these troubled times, it is this: don’t make the big decisions too soon. Take your time and you could end up doing the thing you really, really want to do. Oh, and when you do get your next job, while you’re negotiating that employment contract, get the best redundancy clause you possibly can.
Alison Mau is a former broadcaster and journalist, now co-founder of access to justice charity Tika
