Unemployment: A Chance to Reinvent Yourself?
4 October 2012
Read by 2102 persons
Of course, losing your job is always tough. There's the deep distress of no longer being able to define yourself by your work, the worry about the future. But, by changing your perspective on the ordeal, this forced break can be a chance to bounce back. That's what funemployment says.
In the United States, some people wear curious colored badges saying "No job, no problem" or "I watch TV all day", symbols of the unconcerned unemployed person, who claims the right to happiness outside of employment. In France, funemployment – a contraction of fun and unemployment – is slowly entering people's minds. More and more executives, young people, and thirty-somethings disappointed by careers that have stalled, by employers who have been ruthless in dismissing them, are cultivating a new distance from the corporate world. "Trust has been eroded and employees have a more mercenary relationship with work," observes Marc Traverson, psychotherapist and coach, author of *Letter to those who have temporarily lost their jobs* (Payot 2010). In a context where employment is becoming volatile and pensions are shrinking, "everyone must now take charge of their own employability, like a small service company that prospects". The search for a permanent contract is replaced by a new quest for meaning, the very current desire to devote oneself to more "essential" activities – therapy, volunteering, civic engagement, artistic activity, etc. Funemployment enthusiasts hope that by following their aspirations, they are giving themselves a chance to bounce back to a new profession, more in line with their desires.
Allowing Time for Grief
Talking about pleasure unemployment at a time when France has more than 3 million unemployed may seem shocking. Because work is an identity attribute. In an atmosphere that contributes to shifting the responsibility for precariousness onto those who suffer it, the wrongly named "inactive" person eventually ends up berating themselves for their "uselessness". "The company embodies a framework, obligations, a network, something that supports," underlines Marc Traverson. "Unemployment is a shock. You are alone with yourself and empty days, your eyes glued to your accounts for fear of not being able to pay the rent, waiting for rare interviews that send you soaring with hope before plunging you back into disappointment. The balance of the couple is altered by the idleness of one and the discomfort that accompanies it. And, while you play the comedy of "not bad at all", it is the fear of a great decline that seizes you by the throat." Before being able to bounce back, it is all this distress that you must get used to, this suffering that you must be able to recognize, without condemning yourself to punitive solitude. The temporality of unemployment is reminiscent of that of grief. You must have gone through the shock, the anger, the sorrow of the loss before being able to recover. "And, with a psychologist or a coach, take stock of your professional history to understand how you got here, and where to go from there," encourages Marc Traverson. After the unemployment that undermines, comes the time of unemployment that builds.
Breaking Free from Norms
"The more the individual has built themselves outside of work, the more they will be able to switch to fun mode," says the psychotherapist and coach. Like Olivier, whose many travels and recent fatherhood have turned him towards other horizons. "Those for whom social importance is measured by salary and time spent in the office will have more difficulty accepting their unemployment…" Family heritage also conditions the ability to feel less guilty about one's situation. Celine saw her parents devastated by job loss. There was no question of her hanging her head. To the ritual and disturbing question: "And you? What do you do in life?", the pioneers of funemployment are assuming to answer "nothing" or at least "lots of other things". "To bounce back calmly, you must be able to free yourself from the judgment of others, especially that of your loved ones," says Marc Traverson. "In this sense, it is a form of resilience."
Cultivating "Serendipity"
Rather than letting themselves be ostracized from society, funemployment enthusiasts cultivate a stimulating and rewarding conviviality. Thanks to her blog, *My Unemployed Friend*, opened in 2009, where she offered all sorts of leisure activities that workers don't have time for (exhibitions, reading, cinema, etc.), Elodie, 28, created a community. Spotted for her humorous posts, the former marketing manager at L'Oréal has since been hired by the weekly newspaper Marianne. Lilou Macé, 34, poured her distress onto paper. The result? A book: *I Lost My Job and I Like It* (Guy Trédaniel Ed. 2011). "Either I opened up to others, or I sank. By baring myself, I woke up," she explains. Since then, she has set up her web TV and travels the United States meeting strangers. "I no longer seek material success. I work with my heart, less with my brain. My philosophy is inspired by the laws of attraction: if you are a co-creator of your life, it becomes more beautiful." Listing your desires, organizing your week, taking care of your body, undertaking training… there are many ways to stay constructive. And among them, one that Marc Traverson likes, "serendipity", or the art of associating ideas in different registers. "I like, for my part, to listen to speakers on subjects that interest me," he writes. "The act of listening allows the mind to wander, to bring forth unexpected associations of ideas, to bring back to consciousness ideas that we had lost sight of." It is thus, by cultivating small shoots, that great opportunities arise.
Testimonials
Celine, 36, former lawyer, now trainer
"I've gone from a coercive relationship with work to a pleasurable one"
"In three years, I've done about thirty temporary contracts. I was in a situation of demand and submission: I hoped that the company would hire me, because I had rent to pay. Today, I give and I learn, it's an exchange. I've gone from a coercive relationship with work to a pleasurable one. I grew up with the memory of my stepfather, laid off at 42, who missed a lot of opportunities because he didn't take the risk of retraining. I was fed up with my job, I felt I hadn't succeeded in my sentimental life, I couldn't fail in my professional life as well. Instead of seeing unemployment as a constraint, I made it a period conducive to change. Optimizing it made me more employable, less stressed. I took a course in sophrology to become a stress management trainer and, above all, psychotherapy, which taught me to become an actor in my life. I had a fatalistic view of things. It's like a form of resilience, a very gradual work on self-esteem. You're not trembling one day and conquering the next. Now, the more assignments I take on, the more client references I get. That's class! Whereas before, with these repeated temporary contracts, I was perceived as someone unstable… It would bother me a lot to become an employee again, because, as a freelancer, I choose who I work with. Since this retraining, I have been increasing my skills. With each assignment, I ask myself what it has brought me. I am building a library of positive memories. Obstacles in life are like yin and yang, they can also be beneficial."
celinecamoun.hautetfort.com
Sophie, 49, former sales promotion manager at a major record label
"The job market doesn't want me? Well, I don't want it anymore!"
"I was raised on the value of work. My mother was a cleaning lady, my father an electrician. They killed themselves with work, but they were proud of it. With my baccalaureate in hand, I joined Société Générale and then Warner, a record company. I was in my element. And the layoffs followed one after another. After four months off for exhaustion, I was laid off. I thought I would find work quickly. In fact, I've been unemployed for ten years. I've sent over eighteen hundred CVs and received nearly five hundred negative letters. After a severe depression, I wanted to know the "evil" that I was a victim of, like a patient facing their cancer. I sifted through everything I could find on unemployment. My conviction? It's a status essential to the functioning of the liberal economy, because it allows wages to be lowered. This discovery freed me. I spent a long time comparing my quest to that of a woman chasing a man who doesn't want her. In love stories, people advise you to stop, whereas deciding not to look for a job is perceived as irresponsible! The job market doesn't want me? Well, I don't want it anymore! Which doesn't mean I don't work. A mother, a retiree, an unemployed person all work. Today, I run a news website for job seekers actuchomage.org. I improve my condition and that of others. It's not being unemployed that's unworthy, it's society that tells individuals to have a job when it's unable to provide them with a decent one."
Olivier, 38, former art director, now acrobat
"I love the time I spend with my son"
"My first trip to India was a revelation. At the time, I spent all my time at work, I realized that I was chasing after illusions, that I was losing my life to earn it and that I could work differently to live better. I lived in the 7th arrondissement of Paris and I saw these battalions of executives returning at impossible hours to pay their rent without enjoying their children. When my son was born, in 2010, there was no question of putting him in daycare at 3 months old and working like crazy! I stopped. My partner took a year off and we traveled the world with the little one. I've always had a rather particular relationship with work. I come from a privileged background, I was raised by the Jesuits, where the value of work is essential. For my parents, I'm wasting my opportunities. But they also understood that it was necessary to enjoy the time that passes before it's too late. For years, when people asked me what I did, I replied that I was idle. It doesn't bother me to be perceived as a dilettante. I love the time I spend with my son. My wife, who works like crazy, de-stresses from everyday life because she knows I'm there. The most difficult thing to accept is not the fact of not working, of depending on unemployment benefits – after all, I'm entitled to them, I've paid for them! – but the guilt of the look of others, jealous of seeing you fulfilled. For me, this free time is a success, because it allows me to make contacts, to find ideas that I wouldn't have had if I were stuck behind a desk. These are open doors that nourish other activities. Within a year, I will have completed training in oenology-viticulture and bought vines in the South of France. This will be our home port."
Emmanuelle Souffi.
Psychologies.com
Posted online October 4, 2012.
In the United States, some people wear curious colored badges saying "No job, no problem" or "I watch TV all day", symbols of the unconcerned unemployed person, who claims the right to happiness outside of employment. In France, funemployment – a contraction of fun and unemployment – is slowly entering people's minds. More and more executives, young people, and thirty-somethings disappointed by careers that have stalled, by employers who have been ruthless in dismissing them, are cultivating a new distance from the corporate world. "Trust has been eroded and employees have a more mercenary relationship with work," observes Marc Traverson, psychotherapist and coach, author of *Letter to those who have temporarily lost their jobs* (Payot 2010). In a context where employment is becoming volatile and pensions are shrinking, "everyone must now take charge of their own employability, like a small service company that prospects". The search for a permanent contract is replaced by a new quest for meaning, the very current desire to devote oneself to more "essential" activities – therapy, volunteering, civic engagement, artistic activity, etc. Funemployment enthusiasts hope that by following their aspirations, they are giving themselves a chance to bounce back to a new profession, more in line with their desires.
Allowing Time for Grief
Talking about pleasure unemployment at a time when France has more than 3 million unemployed may seem shocking. Because work is an identity attribute. In an atmosphere that contributes to shifting the responsibility for precariousness onto those who suffer it, the wrongly named "inactive" person eventually ends up berating themselves for their "uselessness". "The company embodies a framework, obligations, a network, something that supports," underlines Marc Traverson. "Unemployment is a shock. You are alone with yourself and empty days, your eyes glued to your accounts for fear of not being able to pay the rent, waiting for rare interviews that send you soaring with hope before plunging you back into disappointment. The balance of the couple is altered by the idleness of one and the discomfort that accompanies it. And, while you play the comedy of "not bad at all", it is the fear of a great decline that seizes you by the throat." Before being able to bounce back, it is all this distress that you must get used to, this suffering that you must be able to recognize, without condemning yourself to punitive solitude. The temporality of unemployment is reminiscent of that of grief. You must have gone through the shock, the anger, the sorrow of the loss before being able to recover. "And, with a psychologist or a coach, take stock of your professional history to understand how you got here, and where to go from there," encourages Marc Traverson. After the unemployment that undermines, comes the time of unemployment that builds.
Breaking Free from Norms
"The more the individual has built themselves outside of work, the more they will be able to switch to fun mode," says the psychotherapist and coach. Like Olivier, whose many travels and recent fatherhood have turned him towards other horizons. "Those for whom social importance is measured by salary and time spent in the office will have more difficulty accepting their unemployment…" Family heritage also conditions the ability to feel less guilty about one's situation. Celine saw her parents devastated by job loss. There was no question of her hanging her head. To the ritual and disturbing question: "And you? What do you do in life?", the pioneers of funemployment are assuming to answer "nothing" or at least "lots of other things". "To bounce back calmly, you must be able to free yourself from the judgment of others, especially that of your loved ones," says Marc Traverson. "In this sense, it is a form of resilience."
Cultivating "Serendipity"
Rather than letting themselves be ostracized from society, funemployment enthusiasts cultivate a stimulating and rewarding conviviality. Thanks to her blog, *My Unemployed Friend*, opened in 2009, where she offered all sorts of leisure activities that workers don't have time for (exhibitions, reading, cinema, etc.), Elodie, 28, created a community. Spotted for her humorous posts, the former marketing manager at L'Oréal has since been hired by the weekly newspaper Marianne. Lilou Macé, 34, poured her distress onto paper. The result? A book: *I Lost My Job and I Like It* (Guy Trédaniel Ed. 2011). "Either I opened up to others, or I sank. By baring myself, I woke up," she explains. Since then, she has set up her web TV and travels the United States meeting strangers. "I no longer seek material success. I work with my heart, less with my brain. My philosophy is inspired by the laws of attraction: if you are a co-creator of your life, it becomes more beautiful." Listing your desires, organizing your week, taking care of your body, undertaking training… there are many ways to stay constructive. And among them, one that Marc Traverson likes, "serendipity", or the art of associating ideas in different registers. "I like, for my part, to listen to speakers on subjects that interest me," he writes. "The act of listening allows the mind to wander, to bring forth unexpected associations of ideas, to bring back to consciousness ideas that we had lost sight of." It is thus, by cultivating small shoots, that great opportunities arise.
Testimonials
Celine, 36, former lawyer, now trainer
"I've gone from a coercive relationship with work to a pleasurable one"
"In three years, I've done about thirty temporary contracts. I was in a situation of demand and submission: I hoped that the company would hire me, because I had rent to pay. Today, I give and I learn, it's an exchange. I've gone from a coercive relationship with work to a pleasurable one. I grew up with the memory of my stepfather, laid off at 42, who missed a lot of opportunities because he didn't take the risk of retraining. I was fed up with my job, I felt I hadn't succeeded in my sentimental life, I couldn't fail in my professional life as well. Instead of seeing unemployment as a constraint, I made it a period conducive to change. Optimizing it made me more employable, less stressed. I took a course in sophrology to become a stress management trainer and, above all, psychotherapy, which taught me to become an actor in my life. I had a fatalistic view of things. It's like a form of resilience, a very gradual work on self-esteem. You're not trembling one day and conquering the next. Now, the more assignments I take on, the more client references I get. That's class! Whereas before, with these repeated temporary contracts, I was perceived as someone unstable… It would bother me a lot to become an employee again, because, as a freelancer, I choose who I work with. Since this retraining, I have been increasing my skills. With each assignment, I ask myself what it has brought me. I am building a library of positive memories. Obstacles in life are like yin and yang, they can also be beneficial."
celinecamoun.hautetfort.com
Sophie, 49, former sales promotion manager at a major record label
"The job market doesn't want me? Well, I don't want it anymore!"
"I was raised on the value of work. My mother was a cleaning lady, my father an electrician. They killed themselves with work, but they were proud of it. With my baccalaureate in hand, I joined Société Générale and then Warner, a record company. I was in my element. And the layoffs followed one after another. After four months off for exhaustion, I was laid off. I thought I would find work quickly. In fact, I've been unemployed for ten years. I've sent over eighteen hundred CVs and received nearly five hundred negative letters. After a severe depression, I wanted to know the "evil" that I was a victim of, like a patient facing their cancer. I sifted through everything I could find on unemployment. My conviction? It's a status essential to the functioning of the liberal economy, because it allows wages to be lowered. This discovery freed me. I spent a long time comparing my quest to that of a woman chasing a man who doesn't want her. In love stories, people advise you to stop, whereas deciding not to look for a job is perceived as irresponsible! The job market doesn't want me? Well, I don't want it anymore! Which doesn't mean I don't work. A mother, a retiree, an unemployed person all work. Today, I run a news website for job seekers actuchomage.org. I improve my condition and that of others. It's not being unemployed that's unworthy, it's society that tells individuals to have a job when it's unable to provide them with a decent one."
Olivier, 38, former art director, now acrobat
"I love the time I spend with my son"
"My first trip to India was a revelation. At the time, I spent all my time at work, I realized that I was chasing after illusions, that I was losing my life to earn it and that I could work differently to live better. I lived in the 7th arrondissement of Paris and I saw these battalions of executives returning at impossible hours to pay their rent without enjoying their children. When my son was born, in 2010, there was no question of putting him in daycare at 3 months old and working like crazy! I stopped. My partner took a year off and we traveled the world with the little one. I've always had a rather particular relationship with work. I come from a privileged background, I was raised by the Jesuits, where the value of work is essential. For my parents, I'm wasting my opportunities. But they also understood that it was necessary to enjoy the time that passes before it's too late. For years, when people asked me what I did, I replied that I was idle. It doesn't bother me to be perceived as a dilettante. I love the time I spend with my son. My wife, who works like crazy, de-stresses from everyday life because she knows I'm there. The most difficult thing to accept is not the fact of not working, of depending on unemployment benefits – after all, I'm entitled to them, I've paid for them! – but the guilt of the look of others, jealous of seeing you fulfilled. For me, this free time is a success, because it allows me to make contacts, to find ideas that I wouldn't have had if I were stuck behind a desk. These are open doors that nourish other activities. Within a year, I will have completed training in oenology-viticulture and bought vines in the South of France. This will be our home port."
Emmanuelle Souffi.
Psychologies.com
Posted online October 4, 2012.
