Afrikan Goddess (AG) Online

Written By: N. Amma Twum-Baah
Monday, July 2, 2009 

When Elizabeth landed a job right out of high school, she was not only excited, but grateful for being given the opportunity to enter the workforce. The job was supposed to hold her interest until she heard back from colleges regarding her acceptance to their schools. However, right before she received her first letter of acceptance, Elizabeth had proven herself competent enough to be promoted from sales clerk to assistant store manager. The money was good, at least for a nineteen year-old still living at home with no responsibilities. She decided to postpone school to the disapproval of her parents. Then came the second pay raise, and Elizabeth was sold even though she secretly yearned to go to college. She hated her job as an assistant store manager but was reluctant to leave because she was now independent of her parents, had rented and furnished an apartment, bought a second hand car and was paying bills that come with such privileges. Before Elizabeth knew it, she was turning 26 and had worked at the local department store as an assistant store manager for 7 years. She had tried to attend the local college, but found that her work schedule kept messing with her school schedule. Eventually she dropped out of school. Two years later, 2 months after her 28^th birthday, Elizabeth was laid off from the only job she had ever known.

Melinda worked at a job she hated for 4 years, but resisted the urge to walk out because each time she tried; she remembered the day she had walked in desperate for work and how kind the owner had been in giving her the job even with her limited qualifications. She felt she owed him, so she stayed out of loyalty to him. Unfortunately, her dissatisfaction with her job had started to take its toll on her performance and attendance, and she was eventually fired.

Fresh out of a job with no new opportunities in sight, Elizabeth decided to finally enroll, full time, at the local university. And Melinda poured all the free time she finally had into her writing. Today, Elizabeth is a practicing pharmacist living her dream and finally happy. She is even considering opening up her own pharmacy back home in Nigeria. Melinda has just completed her second novel which has already sold over five hundred thousand copies. She also owns and operates her own media relations firm with a branch in Ghana, and writes during her free time.

What these two women shared in common was an unwillingness to voluntarily walk out on jobs they both hated for various reasons. But, in their misfortune of being fired, they both discovered and revived suppressed talents and desires and pursued them. Something they probably would never have done had they not been fired from their jobs.

Many women today find themselves trapped in jobs they hate maybe because they feel bad about leaving or they just don’t have the courage to do so for many reasons – the main reason usually security.

In a continually plummeting economy where being laid off or being let go seems to be the norm, you need not even despair any longer. Today’s Huffington Post headlines read: “BROAD UNEMPLOYMENT RATE HIT 16.5% IN JUNE.” The New York Times read: “U.S. Job Losses Rise in June as Unemployment Reaches 9.5%” Chances of ending up as one of these statistics is now higher than ever. This just might be the time to sit back, exhale and re-strategize. To help, here are some ideas:

1. Take up a hobby you never pursued before due to time restraints. Hobbies have very often been known to turn into sole proprietorships and sometimes, multi-billion dollar empires. Love to knit? Knit a sweater or two and very soon you could be the new IT sweater line out there. Love to write? Start a blog, submit an article to be published etc.
2. Take this time to reflect on exactly what it is that you really REALLY want to be doing with your life.
3. Take time away from everything. This may be the time to visit friends you haven’t seen in a while because you were always busy with some report or some deadline. Visit family. Go someplace.
4. Sometimes moving to a new city or a new state might be just the jolt you need to get back on your feet. If you live in Maryland but in actual fact would rather be in Texas, but for the fact that your job was holding you back, well why not move now? That job is no longer holding you back.
5. In all this “finding yourself,” be sure, however, not to become too lax lest you find yourself becoming too comfortable with your current situation. It is wise to still be applying and looking for jobs during this period as unemployment benefits don’t last forever. Six months is sufficient time for you to at least consider getting back on your feet.