Table of Contents
A. Why Layoffs Will Increase in the coming days?
- The US economy has blown debt out of proportion. $ being the global trade currency, the dollar’s inherent value is decreased, and a lot of countries are already trading in bonds and their currencies.
- Germany already has declared negative growth, and other Western economies will follow soon.
- Silicon Valley is the trendsetter in the IT and ITES, trends in Silicon Valley will be seen across the globe. With the closing down of Silicon Valley bank, many of the companies there will lag the cash flow and therefore will start laying off for survival.
- With better software in almost every managerial domain from project management to HR, to finance, managing itself has become a thing of the past.
- Long back Larry Page left Google’s core operation when Google started recruiting more managers than engineers; with Elon Musk exposing this trend on Twitter and removing the bulk of the managerial posts, almost every company will follow. IBM has already started the process.
- Whenever there is an economic slowdown, the IT budget of the companies reduces, bringing down the sales of the IT companies, and whenever the sales are down, the first Axe falls on mid-level managers.
B. Precaution is better than Suicidal thoughts
Managers are often good at sensing the company’s undercurrent and would know the axe is coming almost 6-12 months ahead. So you prepare for the exam. If the axe doesn’t fall on you, good, otherwise too, you will not find yourself staring at the ceiling fan and your belt.
C. Key Challenges in Mid-Level Manager’s Life
1. Huge budget overhead: Children’s fees, maid, grocery, Parent’s medical expenses, money to parents, and rent which takes away almost 50% of the salary.
2. EMI overhead. Car, housing, and personal loans if taken for foreign family trips.
3. Responsibilities: Additional responsibilities of sister’s marriage, brother’s education, and so on.
D. The Actual Challenges
1. India is a lazy country, and there is one bread earner for 5-6 people. And these people keep raising their expectation bars.
2. Over a period family, friends, parents, and relatives start valuing you for what you can give and do rather than them as individuals.
You would be surprised to know how little anyone cares for you and how lonely you are.
E. Prepare and Plan
1. Reduce dependents: Tell your brother/sister and other dependents to start arranging their money. It is better to lose relationships, than life.
2. Cancel Purchases: If anything was planned, including a Switzerland tour, cancel them. “They are expecting/anticipating” etc are pure BS. You expect an axe and survive. Everyone deals with their expectations.
3. Preferably shift the family to a smaller apartment with lower rentals. Even if you were living in a posh house of 70k EMI, do this. The expense for a roof has to be minimum.
4. Think of other expenses that you can reduce. For instance, children will fare well even in a ₹100/pm school and don’t need ₹2L/py schools.
When education, love, and relationships are bought with money, they don’t survive tough times.
5. Start farming Vegetables in your Varanda or roof. A 10×2 sq feet area too can provide a whole month’s vegetables for a family. Pots, soil+compost and other expenses will come to less than ₹5k.
6. Get fit. You can’t afford to get ill in tough times. Practice waking up before sunrise and walking till you bathe in sweat.
7. Keep a diary with you. You will suffer chains of negative thoughts. Write down the day’s events, worries, and thoughts. If the brain is loaded with worry, it can’t solve problems.
8. Eliminate bs calls with relatives. Take on books and read. Get second-hand books and read, whatever, just read. Nothing calms worry more than reading.
9. Start applying for small jobs first. In hotels, food joints, and small shops. Remember a ₹15k job as a waiter after MBA in HR is way better than a photo frame. No one cares!
F. Why Small Job? Why not Start Looking for Other Jobs?
The suggestion is based on recent findings in neuroscience.
1) Dopamine shoots by irrationally high amount when one’s energy is low, hope doesn’t supply positivity and there are early signs of depression, if one does something that the brain doesn’t want to do anyways.
2) The reason is that our neuropathways structure as we work, grow older, and from the experience of life, turning off the unused pathways, and making regularly used pathways strong.
3) For a manager, working a low-profile job is immensely challenging, and even the thought of it will be like “How can I do it” because this pathway is closed.
4) When one pushes himself against closed neural pathways, the body has to generate short bursts of glucose and dopamine, as well as GABA. GABA closes down other threads in the brain, significantly lowering anxiety and the possibility of a panic attack.
5) If one has never drawn, drawing will help. If one has never cooked, cooking will help. Once the burst of dopamine is available, it unlocks the courage pathways.
So, elevated glucogenesis, dopamine burst, and GABA increase testosterone and competence, which leads to success.
Conclusion
Status is fake, most relationships are fabricated fantasies, degrees are like sucked drumsticks, experience is merely a mental expanse, life is real, the threats are real, and so get real.
I don’t care to give gyaans and tell people what they should or should not do. Everyone makes their own choices and lives life according to those choices. No tips, tricks, guides, or methods help anyone in real life, as everyone is guided by their habits(or bad habits), relationships(or fake relationships), situations (or fantasies), and insecurities.
The gyaan of “think out of the box”, “when going gets tougher, the toughest get going,” and “10 ways to survive in layoff” and such things don’t exist. Advice and suggestions never help anyone. Everyone carries their life and burden and just because one read or heard the advice, one can’t follow, and must not follow.
This post is not at all about telling you what you must or must not do. You must read the post several times and read between the lines. This post is not for “perspective,” or “food for thought,” but a hint of what you have and don’t have.
I don’t know you, your family, your financial, social, family, education, medical, and other burdens, but I understand worry, sleeplessness, tension, being crushed emotionally, “log kya kahenge,” pain, loneliness, a feeling of being dumped, not cared for. I understand hardship, and looking at the ceiling. SURVIVE.
