Man, 2020, right? What a year. Everyone was talking about everything being up in the air, but for me, it felt like the ground just dropped out from under my feet for a bit. I remember kicking off that year feeling pretty solid, you know? Had my routine, was cranking away at my regular gig, thinking things were just gonna keep cruising.
Then, boom. February and March hit, and suddenly everyone’s talking about this virus thing. My company, which always felt super stable, started getting shaky. Like, really shaky. We were in an office, a bunch of us crammed together, and pretty quick, they were like, “Alright, everyone home, figure it out.”
I packed up my stuff – a monitor, my keyboard, some notes – into a garbage bag, no lie. Thought it’d be for a couple weeks. Turned into months. And then the whispers started. Layoffs. You hear about them, but you never really think it’s gonna be you, do you? Well, it was me. One Tuesday afternoon, I got a calendar invite for a “quick chat” with HR and my manager. My stomach just dropped. Knew exactly what it was.
They gave me the whole spiel: “difficult economic climate,” “restructuring,” all that jazz. Handed me a severance package – tiny, but something – and just like that, I was out. Felt like a punch to the gut. I’d been there for years, built up a whole life around that place. Suddenly, nothing. Just me and my living room, staring at the walls.
For a few days, I just kinda floated. Binge-watched some stuff, ate too much junk food. Felt sorry for myself, to be honest. But then that Virgo side of me, whatever you wanna call it, kicked in. I couldn’t just sit there. I had bills, you know? A life to maintain. So, I picked myself up off the couch.
First thing I did was organize. Sounds dumb, but it helped. I cleared out my “home office” corner, made it feel less temporary. Then I started mapping out my skills. What could I actually do? Not just what I did at my last job, but what core stuff did I pick up? I wrote it all down on a whiteboard. Made me feel like I had something to work with.
Next, I jumped online. LinkedIn, all those job boards. It was a jungle out there. Everyone was looking, and a lot of places were freezing hiring. But I just kept at it. I wasn’t just blindly applying, though. That was a big lesson. I started really tailoring my resume, not just a quick tweak. Read the job description, pulled out keywords, and made sure my experience, even if it wasn’t a perfect match, spoke to those points. Took forever, but I knew it mattered.
I also started reaching out to people. Old colleagues, friends, anyone who might know someone. Not just to ask for a job, but to actually connect. “Hey, how are you doing? How’s your work going with all this craziness?” A lot of it was just being a sounding board for others, and they’d often return the favor. One of those chats actually led to a pretty unexpected lead.
See, someone I knew from an old project mentioned their company was looking for someone to help set up their remote operations, because everyone was struggling with it. My old job involved a lot of process management, even if it wasn’t called that. So, I pitched myself. “I can come in, look at your current systems, and help you build out some best practices for your team working from home.” It wasn’t the kind of job I’d ever applied for, but it sounded like something I could totally handle.
I prepped for that interview like crazy. Didn’t want to mess it up. I researched their company, thought about specific problems they might be having with remote work. I even sketched out a few ideas on paper, just for myself, to solidify my thoughts. When I got on that video call, I felt ready. I talked about specific issues, like how to manage team communication when you can’t just lean over a desk, or how to keep track of tasks without everyone being in the same room. I told them about the chaos I saw at my old place when we first went remote, and how I’d learned from it.
Long story short, I got the gig. It was a contract role at first, smaller pay than I used to get, but it was work. And it was a completely different beast. I was building things from the ground up, figuring stuff out on the fly. It forced me to be super adaptable, to really dig into problem-solving instead of just following established procedures.
That year taught me a ton. Like, seriously, never get too comfortable. Always be thinking about what else you can do, what skills you’re picking up. And reaching out to people isn’t just for when you need something; it’s about building real connections. My career path completely veered off course in 2020, but looking back now, it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. It showed me what I was really capable of when things got tough.
