First, always get legal advice to help maximise your position.
Second, don't take it personally. Even if it is meant to be, it is always
more about them than you. Everyone deals with redundancy in a different way.
Third, by the time you're made redundant, you've usually suspected or
expected it for some time. It often comes as something of a relief that the
sword is no longer hanging over your head, that it has actually happened,
and you can move on with your life.
If you refuse to let yourself grieve for too long, if you refuse to play
the victim, you'll find that life starts improving quickly. You'll notice
minor but measurable health improvements, for instance. That's because living
under the stress of redundancy is extremely wearing and toxic to the body.
When that burden falls away, even though being out of work is also stressful
(but in a different way), the body can start to "recharge".
Fourth, cut down drastically on expenditure, but enjoy your time out of
work as if you are going to go back to work next month. Make sure that, if
that happens, you won't look back and wish you had done more with your
unemployment time.
Firing should never
be a surprise. According to Robert Half, author of Robert Half on
Hiring, "80 percent of us have been fired, and only 22 percent of the
time was it a complete surprise."
