I have been very fortunate to know several individuals who shared the name “Bob.”  Last year I wrote “Bob’s Story” about an individual I met back in my high school days.  Sadly, his life ended earlier than it should have. 

   Another individual named Bob was my manager and mentor at a company I worked for about 15 years ago.  Fortunately, he is alive and well and living in the Midwest.

  Today I would like to tell you about another individual named Bob.  Sadly, his life ended a week ago as a result of an automobile accident.

  For those of you who have followed my writings, I was fortunate to have advance notice about my job loss.  It was a cold November day when Bob Cerny was filing some routine paperwork. The filing cabinets were located just outside the office belonging to one of the company VP’s.  There was a telephone conference taking place in that office.  During telephone conferences, it was normal company procedure to make sure office doors were closed; however in this case, the door was left open by accident.

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Maybe you saw it coming; maybe you didn’t.  You thought you were doing your job well when your desk phone rings.  It is either your Manager, Human Resources, of some other Administration official asking you to go to their office right away.  You may try to tell them that you are in the middle of an important task, however their direction is clear: You must drop whatever you’re doing and go directly to their office.

You feel your adrenaline level rising.  Somewhere in your mind a voice is saying that this cannot be good.  Part of you just wants to turn and run like you did when you were frightened as a child, but you are an adult now; you cannot run from your responsibilities.

As you walk into the office, the manager moves to quickly close the door.  It is then that you learn what your inner self was telling you the moment you received that call.  You are no longer an employee…

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During my job search the most painful news I received was that a position I applied for had gone to another candidate.

During that painful moment it was as if I was living the worst moments of my life all over. In many cases I received the news after two or three rounds of face to face interviews with my prospective employer.

Let’s back up for a second here. Maybe it’s not the end of the world; however it need not be the tragedy that I represented in the previous paragraph. The larger question is, what do you do from here?

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It is time for house cleaning again. Although I have a lot less free time these days, I still try to keep things neat in the home office where I conducted my job search. I was surprised to find several writings which I never completed.

There is a saying that for every one great idea there are at least another thousand that never see the light of day. So I decided to take another look at the ideas that occupied my “work in process” folder. During that search, I found some very interesting material.

The writing below was originally intended for my first Nightmare post. Before I submitted the post to 405, I edited this dream out of the piece. I decided, instead, to use it for my sequel…Nightmare, Again. Unfortunately, the main copy was lost when my computer crashed late last year. A few days ago, I found a back up copy in my “Work In Process” folder. Enjoy!

On those days when my job search seemed fruitless, I found that I was plagued by nightmares during the evening hours. In fact, I found that nighttime could be just as challenging as the daily job search…

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There was a saying in one of my previous jobs; “You are only as good as your last success.”  The purpose of the saying was to insure that every employee remained focused on achieving success.  The underlying message however, eventually became “failure is not an option.” 

 It was no surprise that, when the aforementioned company began layoffs, employees looked at their termination as failure, and carried this baggage during their job searches.  The result was that their respective searches became much more difficult. 

 I have given that message some thought lately.  To expect nothing but success 100% of the time is an unrealistic expectation.  This is especially true when it comes to job search.  There are times when you just need to take a step back and accept the fact that success does not occur every time you undertake an effort. 

The holiday season is particularly stressful for those who are unemployed.  So as we enter this holiday season, I offer the following message:

   Whether you have just lost your job, or have been unemployed for a long period of time, DO NOT LOOK UPON YOUR UNEMPLOYMENT AS FAILURE!  During your job search there will be times when you feel that you have failed, and your attempt at finding new employment seems nearly impossible.  Please do your best to dismiss these thoughts. 

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No matter what your occupation is, losing your job is a difficult issue to face.  If, however, you are in the public spotlight, think of how much harder it would be.

When high profile firings are mentioned, many think of the transgressions that led to dismissals of Don Imus and Marv Albert. Thanks to the news media, most of us know why these individuals 

were fired.  Both were eventually re-hired.  Not everyone is as lucky as those two individuals.  Here are some other high profile firings that have taken place over the past few decades. If you are upset about your job loss, please take a moment to think of the following people.

1): Donna Reed.   Donna Reed was one of those actresses anyone could identify with.  She had a “girl next door image” and in the early days of Hollywood she found steady work with MGM Studios.  She was best noted for her role as Mary Bailey in the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.”  In the late 1950’s and early 1960’s she played what was considered an average American housewife in “The Donna Reed Show.”  For Ms. Reed her hardest moment was yet to come.

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