Starting Over: One Guy, Two Perspectives on Losing a Job and Finding a New One

By Ed Tazzia

When the author lost his job he was devastated. How could this happen? His credentials were perfect. His performance was excellent. How could he be the one to lose his job?

Starting Over is one man’s story about the process of dealing with losing a job and then finding a new one. It deals with both the emotional roller coaster that is a job search and the key learnings gained from the process. Because the author later became a successful executive recruiter, he is able to look back on his own experience and provide valuable insights for job hunters.

More than a how-to book, Starting Over is a personal journey that can only be provided by someone who has been there.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ed Tazzia
• Release date: Jan 19, 2012
• ISBN: 9781465951953

Ed Tazzia

Ed Tazzia is a Principal with Sycamore and Company, a management consulting firm with special expertise in executive search. He spent nearly twenty-five years in client-side roles from entry level to executive. He worked for some of the best known companies in the world before becoming a management and executive search consultant. He has been an executive search professional since 1997 and his clients have included companies like SABMiller/Coors, International Paper, Express Scripts, Akzo/ICI-Glidden, IBM, American Greetings, Oreck, Wal*Mart, Pfizer, LoyaltyOne/Alliance Data and Tate & Lyle. Ed’s professional experience includes marketing and general management positions in packaged goods and high-tech, retail and sports marketing. He started his career at Procter & Gamble spending ten years in brand management roles, including seven in new products. Later, he was the Vice President of Marketing for the North American Soccer League, the professional soccer league that brought Pele to North America. Ed returned to consumer packaged goods with Vlasic Foods, a subsidiary of Campbell’s Soup Company, eventually being named Vice President of Marketing. His time there included a stint as General Manager of Campbell’s U.S. Hispanic Business Unit where he led a team marketing Hispanic cuisine to both Hispanics and to the general market. In 1991, Ed was named Vice President - Marketing for Silo Electronics Stores, the U.S. subsidiary of the Dixon’s Stores Group, the world’s largest electronics retailer. The combination of classic packaged goods and electronics retailing led to his recruitment by IBM where he was eventually named the global marketing executive on the IBM commercial PC business, a worldwide $5B business. Other responsibilities at IBM included a major cross-divisional program (IBMSystemXtra), exploration of handheld mobile computing as a business, and the Aptiva Consumer Division products. Ed has been a regular contributor to Brand Week, has been published in AdAge and other trade journals and has spoken at both industry conferences and colleges including Wharton, Columbia, Northwestern and Michigan State. He is the co-coordinator of the US Marketing Communication College that works with the U.S. State Department and other key USG agencies to teach senior level government leaders and diplomats how to apply modern marketing strategies and best practices to enhance America’s image abroad. He serves as Chairman of the Board of the 18,000+ member global P&G Alumni Network, served as an instructor in the MBA program at Michigan State, and as a member of the Alumni Marketing Board for the Broad College of Business at Michigan State. Ed is a graduate of Michigan State University with a BA in Advertising. He is married with two daughters and lives in Michigan.

Book preview

Starting Over:

One Guy, Two Perspectives on Losing a Job and Finding a New One.

By Ed Tazzia

Published by Edward C. Tazzia at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 by Edward C. Tazzia

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Epilogue

About the Author

Connect With The Author

Prologue

The working title for this book was Life On The Beach. My first boss had spent time in the Navy before joining the business world. He was the first person I knew who used the term on the beach, an old sailor’s way of saying someone was out of the game. Unemployed.

An incredible number of people will lose their jobs at least once in their lives and with the economy in the state it is in that number has gotten even higher than anyone ever expected.

Well no one told me that I would be one of those people who would be 'on the beach'. And, if they did, they sure didn't tell me what it would be like.

This is a book about what it is like. How one guy felt. How one guy handled it. I'm writing it so you won't be surprised. So you won't wonder if you're the first and only person to have the feelings you have when you go through the experience of losing a job and start looking for a new one.

To make things a little more interesting, I’ve tried to add another perspective. The perspective of an executive recruiter. You see, in the years since I first wrote this book, I’ve become an executive recruiter. I’ve seen life from the other side of the desk. So in each chapter I’ve stepped back from the original story and looked at it from a recruiter’s point of view.

Anyway, people I trust told me my title was too cryptic. So I thought about the process I went through in my job search and an old Sinatra song came to mind.

Nothing's impossible I have found,

For when my chin is on the ground,

I pick myself up,

Dust myself off,

Start All over again.

I hope both perspectives help.

Ed Tazzia

Chapter One

I needed to buy some time on a major project. I headed to my boss's office first thing in the morning.

It was a Thursday in January, right in the middle of the company's strategic planning season. I was the Vice President of Marketing and we were due to forward an interim report the following day. We just weren't going to make it.

The guys in the financial planning group had been overwhelmed with monthly projection demands and they just couldn't give us the information we needed to finish our report. Management wanted both and on the same timing. Something had to give.

I had worked out an alternative schedule with finance and I wanted to get my boss to buy off on it. That's why I headed for his office first thing. Once he started his day, there was no way to break in. His assistant smiled and said he had a minute. Go right in.

Tom looked like Tom. I jumped into what I had to say. As usual, I just stood inside the doorway and laid out what I saw as the problem and what I had in mind as a solution.

He listened. Then he said, Close the door.

I assumed we were going to vent a little frustration. We'd been dealing with a lot of it in the past few months. Lots of changes were taking place and not everyone was seeing the situation as clearly as we were. So, from time to time, we ranted and raved a bit behind closed doors, just to clear the air. Then we would get on with our corporate lives.

That's what I thought was going to happen this time. Instead Tom told me that the company had decided to go in a different direction and that I was not going to be a part of it. I was being let go.

I had never been fired before. That's how I thought of it. Fired. Not laid off. Not downsized. Not any of the other euphemisms that have been invented over the years as the number of corporate reorganizations has ballooned. Fired.

I was surprised. Not really shocked. Just surprised.

Afterward I found myself wondering why the news hadn't just knocked me out. I can still remember how I've felt when I've been passed over for a promotion I thought I deserved. That was like getting physically punched in the stomach. Why hadn't this affected me the same way?

I suppose one reason was that it was really time for me to leave. I had known that for some time. But inertia is a funny thing. I liked my home, my wife was happy in her job, my oldest daughter liked her school and her friends, we liked the lady who came to the house to watch our youngest. I didn't want to leave and I guess I knew that if I were to change jobs, we'd have to leave the area.

I had been listening to headhunters more carefully recently. I'd even made a few calls and had a few meetings, but I hadn't been aggressive in looking for something new.

The last year at the company had been difficult. Management had been cutting back on staff, but not on workload. My people were regularly working until eight at night. Weekends were considered a normal part of the work week.

I'd generally get in about 7:00 or 7:30 in the morning, work until 6:30 or 7:00 in the evening, have dinner with my family and then read reports for three hours at home. I read in front of the TV, so I could see my kids.

It wasn't a problem really. I wasn't complaining. After all, I was an officer of the company. A vice president. Had been for four and a half years. At my level, the extra effort was expected. I didn't quite see it the same way for my people though. They deserved better. A life.

The business was below plan. Not so much because the business was bad, but because the plan was unrealistic. Our fiscal year started on August 1 and by August 2 it was obvious that we were in trouble. So we spent an inordinate amount of time replanning the year… all year long. What could we cut? Where could we squeeze out another case? Did we really need that advertising or that new product research or that human being? Headcount. That was a constant subject of discussion.

We'd forecast our volume and expenses each month. Then we'd look at shipments each day and emotions would rise or fall with the numbers. Half way through the month we'd have to forecast the next month. By the time the first month's actuals were in, the next month was committed to, and the third month's forecast was due.

People spent half their time explaining why they were off on their last forecast (with little information available to answer the question) and the other half of their time forecasting the next month (for which there was no new information either).

There was little or no time left to actually do anything to move the business ahead. At least not during normal business hours.

Folks were exhausted. But no one slacked off. We had a great group of people. They kept sprinting. But the finish line just kept moving. Somewhere though, we crossed the line from being a lean and mean team to a strapped and strained team.

Then, to save even more money, some of the hardest workers were laid off. Three layoffs in nine months... and we were very profitable. Just not as profitable as the management had planned and had promised to headquarters.

It's one thing to let people go who are not pulling their weight. Not everybody is a great fit in every situation. But, the unwritten promise between American business and its employees had always been that if you work hard and deliver on your portion of the puzzle, we will take care of you. Because we are a team.

Companies traditionally recognized that they needed loyalty. Companies spent a great deal of time and money training and supporting their people so that those employees could do their jobs. When companies lost a top performer, at any level, it hurt. So companies sold loyalty.

That's how retirement packages were put together. The longer you stayed, the more your nest egg built. At the company where I started my career, your profit sharing package grew exponentially over time. The last five years were much more valuable than the first five or the middle five.

But today, loyalty seems to be expected to only move in one direction. So there I was. My boss and friend had just told me that my services were no longer required. His boss, the President of the company, had decided to reorganize the company… again. The third major reorganization in three years. The second in six months. Tom was saying that he did not agree with the decision to reorganize nor with the decision to let me go. But he could not say anymore.

God, I felt sorry for Tom.

I knew exactly how he felt. Nine months earlier I had to let three of my people go. A few months after that, two more. People who were doing their jobs. One person I had hired and who had become a good friend. I didn't agree with those decisions either. I found myself thinking, I hope I can be as gracious about this as Marilyn was when I let her go.

I tried to let Tom off the hook. Hey, I said, I understand and I appreciate your support in this. It’s probably time for me to move on anyway. I tried to let him off the hook, but from the expression on his face, it didn't look like it was working.

I asked him if I could tell my people. He said no. I was to clean out my desk and leave as soon as possible. I shouldn't speak to anyone.

This was a new one. In the other two downsizings we had offered our people a chance to say good bye to friends, take a couple of hours to clean out their desks, absorb just what was happening to them. For some reason, management was not going to let that happen here. That hurt.

My people were very important to me. We were a team. We took a lot of pride in what we had accomplished in the face of some difficult problems and very limited resources. We had been through a lot together and if someone was going to tell them that I was leaving, I thought it should be me. Apparently, the company didn't agree.

Tom then had to shift into Human Resources Dismissal 101. Human Resources. I hadn't really thought about the name of that department before, but at the moment, I was feeling more like a chunk of iron ore than a human resource.

Tom had some papers I needed to read, some papers I needed to sign, some meetings I needed to schedule.

Although all of us in management had had some training on how to handle the dismissal of an employee, Tom was not dealing with this well. He kept saying that he did not agree with the decision and that he would be glad to act as a reference. If there was anything he could do...

When I got up and walked down the hall to my office, I was certain that everybody knew. It was like it was written on my forehead. Ed Tazzia is a failure. He's just been fired. Stay away so you don’t catch what he has.

I walked quickly to my office and closed the door. I needed to call my wife. I needed a release. Maybe I could catch her before she left for her day. I called. The sitter answered. No Julie had already left. Was there anything wrong? No, why should anything be wrong? I'll talk to her later, thanks. No sense telling the world you're a failure. It would find out soon enough.

I grabbed a couple of things off my desk. I don't even remember what. And, I headed home.

***

On the ride home I thought about a lot of things. I remembered other more pleasant rides home. Like the time right after I'd been promoted and nobody else knew. I rode home to tell the family. Couldn't wait to see their faces. I was bouncing off the walls with excitement.

Now I could wait. I knew how Julie would react. She'd be supportive. She'd tell me I was too good for them anyway and this was a chance to make a move. To take a step up. I'd been thinking about it anyway, hadn't I? Julie has always been my most ardent supporter. She thinks more of me than I do of myself. I knew she'd be fine.

But what would I say to the kids. To Gennie really. Samantha was only two, so I didn't think she would notice. But, what do you say to an eleven year old? Gee, your dad's a failure. I've been fired. I don't know what I'll be doing next, but don't worry. We'll probably have to move because there aren't any jobs around here, but don't worry. Work hard in school, get good grades, get a good job and everything will be alright? Trust me, I know. Or, I did know. Or, I thought I knew.

I've always been very sure of myself. I knew what I believed in. What I considered right and wrong. I had goals and objectives. And had achieved most of them. And, because of this certainty, I was very certain about how my kids should act. What their values should be.

Now I wasn't so sure.

What would I say to her? How would she feel about me? How could I give her direction for her life when I couldn't control my own?

Gennie had had some friends whose fathers had been laid off (somehow I could accept that they were laid off, but I felt like everyone would think of me as fired). It hadn't seemed to phase her or her friends. I knew this, but assumed it would somehow be different when it happened in our family. I didn't know what I would say.

***

The sitter was surprised to see me when I showed up in the middle of the morning. I gave her some excuse about a meeting or something and went directly to my den, closing the door behind me.

The first thing I did was to try to call my wife again. She was a sales representative for a big packaged goods company and she was on the road. No answer so I tried to leave a message for her to call me. I knew she checked her messages regularly.

Unfortunately, this was clearly not my day. I punched in the numbers, but the little computer voice refused to admit that her phone number even existed. After about three tries, I called her office to see if they had the key to this thing. I was not in the mood to be understanding of a phone company glitch. They couldn't make it work either. We agreed I would just leave word with them and hopefully Julie would call in.

Well she did. A few moments later I got a call from her. What was the problem? If I was home in the middle of the morning, there had to be a problem. I told her we didn't have to worry about who would stay with the kids when our business trips conflicted in early February. I had been let go.

The call was brief. Julie was calm. Just as I knew she'd be. Should she come home? Her only concern at the moment was how I was dealing with this. I said no. I was fine. No need to break up her day. It turns out she didn't listen to me and started home immediately. Just to see for herself how I was dealing with this. I was glad she did.

After I hung up, I turned and looked out the window onto the lake. This was our dream house. Private lake. A small boat. Large Weeping Willow trees. And an even larger mortgage. We had just spent a fortune adding a new master bedroom with a fireplace, a gigantic master bath with a Jacuzzi, a dining room, and my favorite room...my den.

My den. Dad's room. A place for my books and my pipes. It was paneled, had a comfortable leather easy chair, a classic desk, and a view of the lake. It made me feel like Ward Cleaver. Funny the values you develop way back in your childhood.

At that moment, all I could think was that I would have to give it up. It would be someone else's room. Not too many jobs for Vice Presidents of Marketing in consumer goods in Detroit. We'd have to move.

My parents lived in the same house they brought me to when I was six weeks old. They built it. Added to it. Embellished it. They never moved. When I was growing up, I can only think of one family on our block that moved and even then they only moved across town. You knew the same kids all the way through grade school, all the way through high school. In fact, I was the first one in our entire family to move out of the Detroit area and that was after college.

Now I was going to wrench my oldest child from her friends and her school and her dance classes, all because I was a flop. I was beginning to feel pretty miserable.

Then my emotions changed a little. I started to read the severance agreement the company had offered. The offer was ‘take what we're giving and sign away your rights’ or leave it and get squat.

It was no different from the offer we made to the employees in the first two layoffs. Our parent company had had to face some major layoffs in the past couple of years and they had obviously spent some considerable time with their lawyers to write an agreement that favored the company.

Hell, I understood their position. Until a few hours ago, I was them. I was only really bothered by two things. First, the severance period seemed pretty short given my time with the company and my job level. A vice presidency should count for something, I thought. Second, some of the perks...my company car, airline clubs, and things like that were to disappear very quickly. I thought of these as part of my compensation and I thought of compensation lasting for the length of the severance period.

For a