Day Club Initiations – Chinkara Singh – Three Easy Lessons

I had 2 sessions that morning - a record session and an edit session - just another day where I felt I had to clone myself to get all my work done. It was the norm. The only way to catch up was to work 14 hour days consistently. You could feel the belt tightening around our company, but with all the work I completed at record speed, I was irreplaceable, right? In fact, a friend had heard a rumor that I was going to get a promotion.

And, It's always the two people in the office. That's the rule -- there has to be more than one person for legal reasons. And they called me in from my 2 -session-morning to do it, but i thought i was getting a promotion.

And though it didn't seem like it at the time, I was.

That morning, I was laid off from my employer of 5+ years with no warning and locked out of my computer immediately. Didn't get to say good bye to friends or even get all of my personal information off the computer (lesson 1). Even though I felt my loyalty to them had been betrayed, I immediately felt relieved. The market was still good, and I was leaving for LA the next day.

I moved to LA later that year. And would never have done so if the layoff hadn't happened. I learned how to sell my skills as a freelancer and give what they call the 15 second pitch (lesson 2). I had time to take short workshops to refine my skills as a producer in the industry - SAG talent workshops / Apple apps workshops / NAB conference / etc. I was never more connected to the production that I love.

From the layoff, I learned to market myself. I was never good at that - I found it to be cheesy, like a name dropper - but it forced me to find a flow, how to show people what I'm good at, and tell them effectively so they remember me (lesson 3).

A couple of years into it, I had my own logo designed that was echoed in my business card, website, portfolio, letterhead, invoices, stickers, and thank you postcards. And finally, people started remembering me by my logo.

It was the insight into my industry that I needed to be successful - marketing myself, advertising myself. Six years of being a freelancer, I immersed myself in more layoffs and rehires to conquer my fear of it. In turn, my measurement of success was how I turned a layoff into a promotion.

Coolest Recession Ever!

Is anyone besides me starting to get the impression that this recession, aka ‘The Great Recession’, is rapidly becoming the latest ‘it’ thing? Everyone’s talking about it and blogging about it (guilty); it’s all you hear about when you turn on the news. And when the news takes a commercial break, most of the commercials will invariably reference the recession one way or another. Car companies are letting people drive off the lot with no money down and with the option of bringing the car back if they lose their job….or even if they just don’t want the car anymore. (Thanks for the loaner, GM. Sucks to be you.) Restaurants are offering discounts for folks who can prove they’re unemployed. Laundromats too. And have you people been shopping lately? I walked through an outlet mall in the DC area a couple weeks ago. Whereas it was a madhouse in prior visits, this time….very lonely. Again, sucks for those folks on the other side of the counter. But for the smart shopper, these are boom times. Apparently it’s even easier to get into certain oh-so exclusive clubs and bars that wouldn’t give us the time of day, pre-crisis. Is the Meatpacking District on the (velvet) ropes too? Horrors!

Again, there’s a certain pervasiveness to the recession zeitgeist. Being a victim of the recession has taken on a certain panache. It’s become an identifier of our time. Twenty years from now, if you can’t say that you weren’t personally affected by the recession, you’re going to feel left out. I’m not saying it’s a good thing. It is, however, at the very least, a thing to marvel at. And marketers have clued in. Identifying with one’s loss of a job and/or one’s loss of purchasing power and confidence in the economy has ironically become a potent marketing tool. It’s a buyers’ market out there. Everywhere. There’s never been a better time to be jobless and poor. Sure would be nice to have a little to take advantage of all those fire sales tho……..

The Day Club Reading List

The Manhattan Users Guide pointed out a couple blogs we think will be helpful for all you Day Clubbers out there:

Penny Palate: Food and Drink for the Thrifty New Yorker. If there are three words to describe your typical Day Clubber, they are: Hungry, thirsty and thrifty. This is a blog we need. http://pennypalate.wordpress.com/

offManhattan. As much as we love our island paradise, sometimes it’s nice to leave, at least for a day. And what with all our free time, now’s the time. I’m already planning my own ‘Self-Guided Brooklyn Grafitti Tour’. Here’s the link: http://offmanhattan.com/

Day Club Initiation - Paul Dozier - Where's My Bailout?

December 11, 2008 is a date that has been etched on my memory, along with all those other dates of infamy. We had been forewarned it was the day my department would contribute its share of the 5,300 investment banking jobs that needed to be cut. If I could last through the day, I could count myself a survivor, for that round anyway. A colleague and I had joked about making ourselves scarce. Hey, if you’re never at your desk, how are they gonna tap you on the shoulder? I smirked about that as I left my desk to grab breakfast down in the cafeteria, which I rarely did.

When I got back to my desk and settled into my chair, there was something on my screen that stuck out like a sore thumb. It was one unread email, in bold, a new one, sitting atop all the other emails I had already opened. It was from our admin, who sits right next to me…..who was staring intently at her screen. It said, ‘Call so-and-so (my boss, who’s based in Sao Paolo) at such and such number…. it wasn’t his number. Somewhere in my brain, an alarm went off.

I picked up the phone and called…..it rang for a few seconds…probably the time it took my boss, whom I still consider a friend, to step into an empty office and close the door. He picked up and asked me to walk down to the reception area of our floor where an HR representative was waiting for me. More alarms in my head. Got up and started the long walk, like a lamb to the slaughter. The HR rep was clearly nervous. She took me into another glass office; together we called my boss. He informed me that the firm was no longer in need of my services. And all the sudden I’m short of breath and sweating and a little dizzy….and I start wondering, well, should I tell everyone out loud when I get back to my desk or do I let them surmise from my filling a box with personal effects that I will no longer be with them?

Back to my desk. Avoided eye contact. Everyone else’s eyes were glued to their screens anyway. Did they already know? Were they avoiding eye contact? I couldn’t tell. Told my closest colleagues as discreetly as possible. Started packing my stuff, sending out all the requisite mass emails. Got a call from a colleague in Mexico City. She got let go too. Then, the department head, also a friend, called me into his office, offered his apologies, condolences, support.

Walked back to my desk. People finally started coming by my desk bearing hugs, tears, business cards, righteous indignation and the like. Soon enough, my collea…..er, former colleagues and I were all laughing about how good it would be for me to be surfing while they were still hard at work. They knew me so well. Weird how a lay-off can trigger a huge outpouring of love and support to the point of making one feel good about the whole thing. It’s like the last day of school before summer vacation.

By 11:30am, I was gone. For anyone not familiar to the ways of Wall Street, two hours is ample time to say your goodbyes, clean your desk and walk out the door. There’s too much at stake to risk a disgruntled former employee stealing sensitive information or sending out disparaging emails. Not that I would do anything like that. I actually have nothing bad to say about my former employer or my former colleagues. The layoff was nothing personal. It’s business. As much of a cop-out as this may seem to the Day Club, I don’t hold grudges toward my former place of employ, nor any of my former colleagues….not even the people who had to let me go. In fact, I miss ‘em. And I knew the risks, which are significant, going in. It’s business.

It’s now been over four months since that day of infamy. Not knowing when the next paycheck will come nor from whence it will proceed is no bueno. But unemployment does have certain perks, like more free time for surfing…. and working a temp production assistant job on an iPhone commercial….and getting a picture with Ice-T when they filmed an episode of ‘Law and Order: SVU’ in my neighborhood….and attending Obama’s inauguration….and sitting in on Hillary Clinton’s confirmation hearings as Secretary of State….the list goes on. Maybe getting laid-off wasn’t such a bad thing, after all.

Day Club To-Do List for Friday, May Day (Gotham)

Strawberries. NYU’s annual Strawberry festival, featuring carnival games, live music and NYC’s longest strawberry shortcake, is going on today on LaGuardia Place between the Kimmel Center and Bobst Library (just south of Washington Square Park).

Laidoffcamp. As we mentioned in a prior post, Laidoffcamp is going down today and tomorrow here in NYC. So if you’re looking to leave the Day Club, start your own thing or just do a little networking, you should check it out. Here’s the link:

http://laidoffcamp.pbworks.com/NewYork

Art. Free Fridays at the Museum of Modern Art. Show up at the MoMA, at 11 W. 53rd Street, between 4pm-8pm and get in, gratis!

Comedy. Eastville Comedy Club will feature sets by Todd Lynn, Julian McCullough, Godfrey and Maddog Mattern (never heard of ‘em) tonight, starting at 10pm. Call the club at 212.260.2445, mention ‘FreeNYC’ and get in for free. The club is at 85 East 4th Street.