Restructuring Sanity

How did I maintain my sanity during this uncertain time?  Perspective helped.  It was hard, but I tried to think about how others had it much worse than me.  I also looked at what was happening around the world, and realized that even if I did get laid off, I'd still be fine.

Also, since I didn't actually know when things were going to happen, it didn't make sense to let my anxiety affect me too much.  There were things that I could still do.  I still had a job to do (at least as far I as I knew), and I could be proactive and see if there were any other jobs that I could do.   I was still a professional and I didn't want to shirk my responsibilities at work, and I also didn't want to actually put myself on the list if I didn't do my job.

All of this made me think of one thing.  Loyalty.  It seems like the "old" days where people worked for one company for life was over.  Companies are no longer loyal to their employees and employees should feel no loyalty to the companies they work for.  Is this right? Will this attitude actually help or hurt people/companies?  Even though there are expectations of loyalty,  yet, for some strange reason, I still felt some loyalty.  I still liked the people that I worked with, and I liked the company that I worked for.  I believed in their purpose and admired its business ethics.  A restructuring was inevitable considering its lack of performance, and yet, it was still a surprise when a restructuring was announced.

I wanted to stay (of course, it wasn't up to me), and I wanted to contribute to a turn-around (if any). 

This feeling isn't mutual.  Business is business, and the business has to be profitable.   Businesses will have to do what it takes to stay profitable or become profitable or else it will continue its slow decline into bankruptcy.  Also, the cold and objective eye towards profitability has to ignore the human aspect, but how can that be possible?  When managers or heads of departments look at the numbers and targets for reduction, they have to lay off people.  If you've worked with a person for years, can it be an easy task to lay off a person, especially when you know they depend on their job to make a living and support their families?  I didn't envy the hard job ahead for my department head.

Again, how did I keep my sanity?  Perspective and preparation.  I had some time to figure out what to do.  Now, the question was - what was I going to do?