“Each passing day of your life is one more day you have gained to live.”
I mentioned recently on another social media platform that I’ve kept a daily journal for many years. It prompted someone to ask how often I might look back at entries I’d made. The truth is rarely. I do occasionally peek to check when such and such might have happened but have not spent much time perusing the record, I’ve made of my life
It begs the question of why I keep a journal. It began as a writing exercise. To write something every day. And what better than to capture thoughts, feelings, and experiences of that day. Over time I realised the mental health benefit of a journal. Confiding thoughts to paper when times were tough helped me through those times. As with most men, I find it a challenge to discuss the darker times. However, sharing such times with a journal felt comfortable. Writing my journal is now part of my daily routine and, no matter what might occupy my day or where I might be, I always find time for it.
So, prompted by the question above I thought for this week’s Reflection, I would look back through some journals of more recent years and focus on one day. October sixteenth. I was intrigued at what I might find.
On that day in 2002, I was in the throes of a redundancy programme at work. It was in January of 1987 that I first sat across the table from someone to tell them they no longer had a role. That day I went on to repeat the same conversation some thirty times. It was something I was to do countless more times in my career. I never became used to it. That is a good thing. Becoming hardened to the plight of others would make me less of a person. So, from the first person I ever spoke to in this way, to the last, I always took pains to spend time explaining the position. The critical thing I tried to get them to appreciate was that any failure was not theirs but the business. My intent was to have the person leave the conversation with dignity. I wished to convey I saw them as human beings, not numbers. Its why I’ve always hated the term Human Resources. A resource to me is a table, a printer, a chair. A person is a person.
I learned quickly not to apologise (if I were genuinely sorry, I wouldn’t be making their position redundant). Not to empathise or sympathise (I didn’t know how it felt receiving such devastating news and my pity was the last thing someone needed). My approach was to keep things calm and factual. Ensure the person understood their options and what would happen next. Also, to answer any and every question they had.
I expected anger from the people I told. Yet, I never saw that. Either with the people in 1987 or with the many others over the next thirty years. Instead, I saw tears, disbelief, confusion, stoicism. Some even said, “I’m glad I don’t have your job. It can’t be easy doing this”. It wasn’t. Thank goodness it never became so.
These early redundancies were made more difficult by the fact that payments to people were extremely poor. Someone who worked for 30 years walked away with only £7000. That didn’t give them much time to find a new role. Also, the 1980s saw a recession, and there were very few new roles around. Many of the 50-year olds I spoke to that January never worked again. These were skilled engineers - software, hardware, mechanical etc.
October sixteenth in 2003 saw me awaiting news of who my new boss was to be. The MD who had recruited me had recently left the business, ‘through mutual consent’. Over the previous five years, he had grown the business, but the last two quarters had seen a downturn. There is no sentiment in business. Especially one American owned. So, despite the years of success, sadly time had run out for my boss.
In 2005 I was party planning on October sixteenth. I’d married Sarah late in September. The wedding was an intimate affair with family and close friends. We were to entertain the larger circle of friends later in October, and it was this party I was in the throes of helping organise with Sarah.
October was obviously the travelling season for the next three years as I was out of the UK on the sixteenth. First to Turin on business. A city I went much to for a while. I record little of the business day in my journal. However, I do record much of the magnificent dinner I enjoyed with a colleague. The restaurant was the Tre Galline (Three Chickens), and I would wholeheartedly recommend it if visiting Turin. The next year was Berlin for a business conference. Again, I comment little on that (I summed it up as soporific) and much on the sights visited. And the next year was Gothenburg, also for a business conference. The highlight of my return journey was having checked in and gone through security, my colleague and I took a wrong turn and ended up back in the Check-in Hall. It took some explaining to get us back through security.
In 2013 October sixteenth was the day after my interview for the job from which I retired. I record my ‘coming down’ from the high I felt after that interview. It’s always the case with me. In my younger days when I felt an exam went well or later with promotion or job interviews at which I thought I’d done well; self-doubt filled the following days. Playing over the activity again and each time feeling it didn’t go as well as I thought. In this case, it did, and I started the new job the following month.
It was the joys of house selling and buying that I record on October sixteenth, 2018. As ever with that process, it seemed a case of one faltering step forward only to see progress collapse backwards soon after. We eventually got there, but it took another two months. We’ve settled in nicely over the past couple of years, and one day we will finish all the remodelling and redecorating ….
So, there you have it — one day in a life ….
