I normally ask Learners to write a short Introduction about themselves and of their course of choice when enrolling on a Train the Trainer course. This is one example, though a bit long, I read it at least twice ...
"One day I was there and next day I was gone. Who was I? I was the head buck-cat, the Office Manager of a small Irish company. Now I suddenly wasn't. It felt bizarre standing outside the office with my desk tidy sticking out of the top of the plastic box for all to see and a copy of my RP50 Redundancy Form stuffed bulging in my right pocket. Yes, I had been let go. I had just been made officially redundant!
This god-damned recession just got worse. I kept my head down, made it in on time every morning. In fact, I was making it in a quarter of an hour earlier each morning, slight adjustment to my clock and hey presto, all seemed well and hopefully noticed. The question is why couldn't I have done this before now? Truth is I didn't particularly care, nor did I have to, to be fair.
I had grown up in this company, had battered many the storm with my employers from humble beginnings to what it is today, or perhaps two years ago, if I were to be honest. I dodged the myriad of Sales Reps and Training Consultants assaulting the office through every means available to them - cold calling, networking, fax shots, emails - the lot, with plans to update our skills - show up the lack of mine, more like, but I always had the office juniors to fall back on.
I was blessed with the timely and well honed skills of being very well organised and I possessed the ability to plan exceedingly well. The office ran like a dream. My boss thought I was the 'bees-knees', so did the clients, and I let them. Everything came through me and I in turn took all the praise from above in the way I had become accustomed to over the years. No one stood in my way.
After twelve years working in this company and working my way up to Office Manager within five of those years, this was the first time I had been out of work since I left school. I placed the box of years of tattered memorabilia into the boot of my car and felt the urge to get into the car as quickly as possible, as if my life depended on it. Once inside I closed the car door, took a quick glance around at the cars to my left and right and burst into tears. I was racked with self pity and saw nothing but a long period of mourning for my life ahead of me. I worried about the effect this was going to ahve on my family's lifestyle - the loss of our lifestyle - more tears, buckets of tears. What was I going to say to people, to other members of my family, to family friends and eventually neighbours who will notice me in the house all way instead of my usual early morning and late evening exit and entrance.
I was in a state of paralysis and this continued for quite some time. For the first few jobless months I was filled with a sense of shame. I was terrified of what the neighbours and friends would say about me if they only knew of my plight. I got dressed for the office each morning and did my grocery shopping in a hurry, as if I just popped out and was needed back in the office as soon as possible. My daywear consisted of office suits and well tailored clothing. I had very little to wear that was suitable for 'hoovering'. I found myself muttering someting like "working from home today" as I grabbed the post from the postman through the slightly opened front door.
I sat on the couch looking at morning TV and reprimanded myself for being so lazy, so I got up and refilled my mug, kicked off my high heels and dozed off.
My children and husband always fended for themselves over the years during the day and they didn't want to change their habits one little bit. This meant I didn't see them from one end of the day to the other. I had absolutely no structure to the day. Me, who was so well organised, who ran the company office like clockwork. Nothing seemed to fit into the day. Nothing belonged. Domesticity wasn't making sense. It seemed somehow foreign, like ti wasn't a 'proper' job to me. My son told me to stay out of his room. "Margie will tidy it up as she always does it's her job Mum". Margie had to go. I couldn't sit in the house having her tidying up around me and forever giving me odd looks and asking awkward questions now and then. I couldn't relax. I couldn't enrole on a computer course in case someone I knew was also enrolled on that course. In fact, I found it hard to leave the four walls of my house until it was dark!
Okay, so what happened? What bright idea did you have? Well I spoke to someone at Lir Business Centre, who listened without judging or making distinctive moves to sell me anything. Between us we came up with several possibilities on how I could get my life back on track again.
To start, I took one-to-one computer lessons on what I needed to learn - not a whole course and found it easier than I thought. I realised that training is something I wanted to get involved in and I had plenty of experience and I enrolled on a 'Train the Trainer' FETAC Level 6 course where next month I will qualify as a Trainer with a full course that I have put together and one that I can run as a self-employed person, in my own area of expertise.
I'd love to say it has been all plain sailing - I'm getting there, slowly. My confidence has grown and I now realise something - I was sure I had lost something else that day when I left that building, but I now have a new one - my identity!"
