Imagine this scenario you get to the office in the morning in high spirit. Then, your secretary hands you a letter. You open it and gosh! The shocking summary is: you are fired! What? Oh yes, your services are no longer required.

Things like this happen every time in job situations. In some cases, you’d have seen it coming, especially if the company wasn’t doing well and needed to down size. Job loss is the nightmare of every employee, but for the top executive, it can be a terrible experience. For the lowly paid worker, job mobility is a lot easier. It is far easier for a driver to get a job than it is for a CEO to go job hunting after being sacked.

It so happens that as you climb the corporate ladder, executive posts tents to get tighter. The higher you go, the more difficult it becomes to get a job. In the banking industry, for instance, it is very difficult for a CEO who lost their job to get a similar job in another bank; whereas a bank manager or a cashier with a good professional record is likely to land a similar job elsewhere of they are looking for one. Life in the corporate world is full of twists and turns. You may be up today and down tomorrow; walking into a job market from an executive position is not a good experience.

It is for this reason that top executives often get huge pay off when they are sacked. This compensation helps to mitigate the pain of losing a privileged position and all the perks of office, in one fell swoop with all respect, I  have observed that most top bankers often find it difficult to cope with the aftershocks of a sudden job loss. Bankers do not easily adjust to life after this experience; they hardly get used to working in an environment outside the banking hall.

Yet, a job loss is not a death sentence. You can always recover from any setback in life; it is a question of attitude. Not all sickness is terminal. You may need time to recover, but surely, you can recover. Life will always throw fiery darts at you no matter your station in life. People suffer defeat in election to political office only to stage a dramatic comeback and win big again. The important thing is to get yourself together fast after an unexpected job loss. Maybe, a retrenchment is a water-up call for you to do your own thing. You can be an employee forever.

However, what a sudden sack does to people is to remind us that whatever goes up must come down. Once you are hired, know this for a truth that you will be fired someday either by your boss or you. If you quit a job for a better one, it is you firing your employer. You are a loss to them in that circumstance, especially if you are such a valued employee. No employer likes to lose a high performing employee. Every parting of ways is painful; but it is sometimes inevitable.

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When you holding a big job, it is time to start thinking of what to do in case you are fired for whatever reason. That’s not being-doubled minded as it seems. No! You plan for the good, the bad and the ugly. Life has never been a bed of roses. Even, this column you’re reading will stop some day in the future. I know I can’t do this forever. So, whenever my time is up, I’d just thank the SUN Management and bid all my colleagues a happy good bye.

Every beginning must have an end. There’s no permanent job anywhere. Even if you own the business, you’d retire someday. If you live in this understanding, you are realistic and far shocks would jolt you.

That said, anyone in an executive position should think of expanding their corporate space. They ought to plan ahead and have a solid back-up plan in case the hammer falls suddenly. A merger of two big companies would certainly result in a job loss at the top as we can’t have two CEOs, Chairman, or General Managers. Some top bosses must quit making way for a new boss. Such things happen. It may not even be the fault of either of the companies in the merger.

Since there would be casualties in such an arrangement, the concerned executive must embrace the reality and do something fast, when they sense a whirlwind in the horizon. Where to begin the action is to invest part of your huge pay cheque in food securities. Long, medium and short-term investment would help you cushion the effects of losing a regular salary, while you struggle to find something viable to do. The first thing I’d advise is that, try buy a property. You should begin to invest in your own property while still in a company funded apartment. Make sure you have your own house is of an equally high standard even if the location isn’t exactly like the high-brow one you live-in as a top executive.

What you’d deal with next is to set up a viable family business which a competent member of your family could run profitably and efficiently, while you are still in service. This is important so that should the gale of retrenchment strike suddenly, you have another good paying job to hold on to, while you look for another one, if you are still interested in job hunting.

Weekend Spice: The grateful mind continually expects good things – Wallace D. Walt les Ole folks, thanks for reading. Star motivated.