When I was laid off from my staff job as a Vice President/Associate Creative Director at a San Francisco advertising agency after working in the business for 15 years, I started keeping a diary of my thoughts to focus my anger, chart my progress, and chronicle my ride on the emotional roller coaster.
From that experience, I learned that I could make a living as a freelance copywriter, that I was pretty good at marketing myself, and that I had quite a large network of contacts that I started calling “The GilNet.”
The result is this series of articles for Adweek Magazine that ran nationally for two successive weeks. I chose to write under the name of John D. to keep myself anonymous and to let other ad folks across the country better relate to the pain and frustration of losing one’s safety net of a paycheck every two weeks.
I hope you enjoy reading “The Diary of An Unemployed Ad Man”…
Week No. 1. It happened mid-morning on a Wednesday. My Creative Director walked into my office, closed the door, and dropped The Bomb. He said I was being let go. Basically, it was a budget cut because of decreased billings from a major client. He mentioned some other reasons but I wasn’t listening closely anymore. I was feeling the pain, the waves of nausea, of remorse, of guilt, of fear, of reality. My paycheck was going to stop. My security blanket was disappearing. My whole life was being turned into turmoil because of a financial decision beyond my control.
The next thing I did was stumble into the personnel director’s office to hear about my severance benefits. I got the usual after three years: Two weeks’ pay and a week’s vacation. I could continue my medical benefits. I’d be mailed my profit-sharing check within three months. I told her I would clean out my office that weekend when I could have some time there alone.
Then, I went to lunch and never came back. Read More.
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