Staying Safe From Work: Identity Mine

How to lose something without giving up everything.

Note: Trigger warning for discussion of mental health, suicide.

Photo by Andre Mouton on Unsplash

I don’t see myself when I look in the bathroom mirror.

I see someone, but that’s not me. There’s only one me, and I’m the one looking at the mirror. So whoever I’m seeing, that must be someone else.

In the 1970s, psychologist Gordon Gallup Jr. developed a test for self-recognition called the “mirror test.” An animals’s body is marked with a dot in a location they would not normally detect. Then they’re placed in front of a mirror.

Many display social behavior, becoming affectionate or aggressive. This shows they’re aware of another individual, but they’re not seeing themselves.

Only certain critters are this special kind of clever. They’ll maneuver around in order to get a better look at the mark. Soon they’ll discover, inspect, and attempt to remove the dot from their bodies. This behavior is how the mirror test reveals self-awareness.

Around 9 species of animals have passed the mirror test. This includes some of the Great Apes, Asian elephants, bottlenose dolphins, Orca whales, Eurasian magpies, and ants, and Manta rays. Newborn human babies fail the mirror test at birth. Most start to pass around 18 months old.

These creatures are self-aware. They understand the difference between the mirror and themselves.

Do you?

You Are Not Your Job

Our jobs are a kind of mirror. They supply us with information that we use to construct and calibrate our own self-image.

But like the bathroom mirror, it’s not a perfect picture. Our jobs describe or even define some things about us. But we are not our jobs.

We know we are not our jobs because they’re sometimes abruptly and unapologetically ripped away from us. Yet when this happens, we are still here.

Our jobs conveniently supply us with some answers about our identity. For starters, they make effortless the inadvertently existential cocktail party question “what do you do?”

And what do we do? We work. There are about 112 waking hours in each week. American adults average less than 7 hours of sleep and more than 8 hours of work. About a third of our waking lives are spent at work.

It’s no surprise that most of our social activity relates to work. It is a wellspring of prospective partners for our most productive customs like meetings, conference calls, high-fives, and crying in the bathroom.

There’s our job titles, which we hate, but they do matter. We use them to describe our work to our family and friends, who politely pretend to understand. Our titles validate that immoderate investment in our education. They’re where we publicly and proudly register incremental professional advancements. Titles are the way-finding system that illuminate the architecture of our chosen industrial hierarchy.

Work supplies us with a physical place that’s important. The pandemic eliminated our commute and led us to move farther away from the downtown glass office building. Now the work is done online, but our bodies have to be somewhere while we do it. We may not go to work anymore, but the work still needs a place to come to us.

The Broken Mirror

When we leave or lose a job, or when we change careers, or exit the workforce for a spell, sometimes these aspects of our identity are also lost.

We lose our cursed job title. We despised it, but now we want it back. It told us “you are here.” The cocktail party question now requires an extemporaneous recital of vague assurances.

The circle of people we interact with every day are lost. We might never see many of them again. Our social clique at work is built on relationships that are transactional in some sense, but that grow very meaningful over time.

Sometimes comfortable, predictable work friendships sometimes felt like the healthiest ones we had.

Our workplace, the actual physical place, is lost. Our work space at home remains, but it seems slightly spoiled. There’s an awkward sheen, like a coating of uncomfortable reminders. An important stack of papers is still sitting there, but their meaning has all gone.

The work may not be done, but the job is.

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In my day, firings typically occurred towards the end of the workday. It seems now the custom is to fire people by email overnight. I am not proud to have fired people but I am pleased that none of them were in their pajamas when I did it.

I can’t think of another major life event that we’re meant to process without any kind of transition. When I went to bed, my job title was one thing I knew for sure I was. I wake up, and suddenly I’m not that thing anymore. What am I?

I’m stressed, and I’m worried about the future. Financial concerns begin to gather, exacerbated by the loss of health insurance. It’s a bitter irony that job loss takes a well-documented toll on our mental health even as it takes our health insurance. The impact will range from anxiety and depression to personality changes. For many it will grow much worse.

Research shows that the risk of suicide is elevated by 20%-30% after a job loss. In that very grim 2015 study, 4,983 additional suicides were attributed to unemployment associated with the 2008 financial crisis. Mental health impacts disproportionally affected the vulnerable, including in life-threatening ways, when they lost their jobs during the pandemic. Research shows increased mortality rates if a firing affects a worker over 50.

We’ve heard the argument that layoffs optimize the cost structure of employers’ firms. The data also show a real cost in human lives that must be factored into this equation. The crude and sometimes cruel ways the firings themselves are done adds to this a premium in unnecessary suffering. We can and must do better.

At a minimum, post-termination mental health counseling is obvious and necessary. One big company recorded costs of $120,000/person for a recent 10,000 employee layoff. The average cost of psychotherapy in the US is estimated at $100-$200/hour. 10 hours of therapy for every fired employee might add about 1% to cost of the layoffs. I’m just going to leave that there.

Surviving On Your Own

There’s an avalanche of advice out there for recently-fired people.

Here’s mine to add to the pile: beware of free advice, lest you overpay.

The best time to mitigate the impact of a job loss is before it occurs. No matter when you start, it’s never too late to get to work building your professional identity.

Imagine a mirror filled with an image that makes you feel proud and inspired. That’s not your job in the mirror. That’s you.

Ok, ready to get started? Let’s go!

1. Networking: Research shows that networking leads to more successful job searches. It’s effective in gaining re-employment. A larger network benefits future searches. Hour for hour, building your network and staying in touch with people is probably a better investment of time than sending out résumés. I advise job seekers to invest half of their time on a networking. Clients should keep up their networking activities whether they’re job seeking or not. Many people think they’re terrible at it, have social anxiety, or don’t know how to get started. Forget the term “networking” and just start clicking on faces and sending messages on LinkedIn. Get a coach, find a course, or ask a community for help. Every minute you invest in building relationships is time invested in yourself. Your personal network is something you get to keep if your job is taken away. And it could be your best asset in finding a new one. Make sure you network with me and the fine folks in the Safe @ Work community. We’ll review your profile and résumé, and you can get free coaching too.

2. Reboot your Workspace: If you work at home, consider refreshing the space where you work. Move your monitor to the other side of the desk. Burn some sage, one of those scented candles from Target, or that big stack of unfinished papers, why not! Get rid of all the junk on the walls — get yourself all new junk. If you need beautiful, inspiring wall art, just ask your kids. If you don’t have kids, ask someone who does. Trust me, they’ll be delighted! We have plenty on hand, and we can quickly produce more to your specifications. Move the desk over to the other wall. If you lost your job, get rid of all the job-related papers and artifacts. Whether you’re starting over or not, make it look like you are. Make your space looks like your space, not your employer’s. Because it is your space, isn’t it?

3. Start Writing: Start writing every day. This is good mental exercise and it can be great for your career no matter what career that is. Here’s my writing tip: give yourself a one-hour time block. Before the timer starts, commit yourself to publishing by the end of that hour, no matter what it looks like. If you don’t commit to publish, you probably won’t, and if you do not publish you will not write. Publishing can be a post on LinkedIn, a Twitter thread, or an essay on Medium or Substack if you’re feeling fancy. Make sure to tag me in your post. Post drafts of your writing in the Safe @ Work community. We’ll make sure you get some feedback and send some 💡reactions 👍 your way to get you started.

4. Be Aware of Your Mental Health: Job loss can affect your mental health whether it’s happened to you or it’s happening all around you. Negative thoughts, a period of lowered self-esteem, and some low-key catastrophizing about the future are all quite reasonable under the circumstances. Feel those things, and try to keep your balance. If you’ve lost your job, interruption of your work routine can make it difficult to stay upbeat. I saw it suggested that you should try to start up a new daily fitness routine ASAP. I think that’s brilliant for if you are a stoic emotionless perfection machine. Please end war and famine, too, ok? Diet and exercise is very important for those who’ve lost their job, it’s been said. That may be true, but haven’t you been through enough already? Costco has giant boxes of Godiva chocolate ganache hearts. Grab two of them. We selected this shape to remind you to love yourself. That makes it health food, and that makes this a wellness tip ✅ . If you need a referral to a therapist, I know a few who are amazing, just ask.

5. Be smart about social: My article “Ask Someone Who Loves You” is about the problematic role that social networking often plays in my clients’ lives. Research shows we are prone to making comparisons between ourselves and the people we see online. The science solidly shows that these comparisons are harmful to our mental health. I frequently find my coaching clients have made assessments of their own accomplishments that seem poorly calibrated to these comparisons. This can lead to a poor self-image and may impact important career decisions. Because networking is an essential part of your career development, it’s tough to avoid these interactions entirely. Make sure you critically evaluate the real meaning of this content. People most vulnerable may be avid consumers but infrequent creators. Start creating your own content and investing in your own network. Spend at least as much time building your social presence as you do admiring others’.

Social sites can also act like a wicked, broken mirror. Learn about yourself by talking to the people who love you, instead. Ask them to tell you about yourself, and believe the answers that they give you.

They’ll remind you of what you needed to know all along:

You are not your job, because even if the job is gone, you’re still here.

And remember: you’re going to get another job, but there will never be another you.