I’ve been laid off twice in my career. The first time was when I was working with a company that went bankrupt. I was coming into the office one morning and found our manager taping a note on the door that said “All classes are canceled today.” We were a computer training company, hence the reference to classes.

As we made eye contact, I could tell she wasn’t very happy so I just said “should I bother unpacking my lunch?” to which she replied “I’ll be making an announcement shortly.”

I didn’t bother unpacking my lunch that day. About 30 minutes after I arrived and the other staff had as well, the owner of the company appeared (he lived out of state) along with a bankruptcy agent who informed us that the company was filing for bankruptcy and that effective immediately, we were all out of work. He kindly asked us to pack up our stuff and asked that we leave the office within the next 30 minutes, so that’s what we did.

I recall the sight of us all leaving the office at about 9:45am that day, boxes and bags in hand. I remember thinking that everyone that saw me probably knew I’d been laid off since I was carrying all my stuff with me. It reminded me of the movies where you see someone losing their job and then seeing them leave the office with all their belongings in paper banking boxes.

I knew business had been slow but I figured that things would pick up and that owner would keep pumping in money until that day came.

Obviously that’s not what happened.

I got back to my condo and wondered what I was going to do next. Then I started wondering how I was going to even figure out what to do next.

The second time I got laid off, I was part of a bigger downsizing along with other staff. At the time I was working for an Internet-based company and the reality was that we were becoming a staff-heavy company competing with a lot of mom and pop shops being run out of their basement with little to no overhead.

In both cases, the circumstances were different but the result was the same.

Getting laid off can be a really demotivating, upsetting, devastating experience. That’s especially true when the economy is tough and jobs are scarce as they are these days in many industries and regions.

To read some past entries on firings, layoffs and downsizings, click here.