Lifestyle

When Life Hands You a Pink Slip...

No question. Being let go from a high-tech company produces stress, but it also generates time—time to reclaim your relationships and your passions.

by AMY BUTLER PAULSEN, MBA ’93

Photograph by Saul Bromberger & Sandra Hoover

PINK SLIPS AND HIRING FREEZES abound in Silicon Valley and other technology meccas these days. My husband and I, and so many of our friends, have watched the demise of our most recent ventures and now face searching for new opportunities in a tight job market. While savvy seekers treat the search process like a full-time job, I have observed something wonderful in all of this upheaval—people spending more time with their kids and rekindling their passions.

I see more fathers picking up their kids from school, playing in the park mid-week, and attending swimming and soccer activities. When we get together with friends, it seems that I hear little about the stock market, even less about stock options, and so much more about Giants’ baseball games with the kids and a spontaneous family vacation to San Diego.

I can attest to this pleasant change. My work shifted from full-time frenzy to part-time consulting in January, and gone with it are the days of 4:30 a.m. emails and arguments with my husband over who will pick up the kids from daycare. I now spend lazy afternoons with my daughters, Talbott and Mia, in the backyard looking for worms and making rivers in the grass for Barbie adventures. I arrive early for preschool pickup and am greeted by my daughter with a hug and a “Mommy!” so filled with joy it makes me want to hold her forever. I also have found the time to write again.

After years of working at frenetically paced companies, the transition is not easy for people like my husband, who was laid off in January. His 12-hour days suddenly became a void of unstructured time. “I immediately tried to put an organized job search in place so that I wouldn’t go nuts,” he admits.

“When you’re not working,” he concedes, “it’s hard to be an upbeat dad. I feel a tremendous amount of financial pressure to provide for my family. Yet I know working for startups that were always struggling meant I brought a lot of stress home to my family. This affects the things I want to do going forward.”

My husband has now found some hours to nurture his garden of heirloom tomatoes. He also enjoys making more time for our children, because he realizes “kids notice who’s spending time with them, and it’s about quantity time, not only quality time.” And I will tell you that he looks great, having put some effort into training for local 10K races.

My classmate Kathy Carrett-Hoyt remembers when her husband, Ned, a startup founder, would leave before their daughter woke up and return when she was asleep. Now that the startup’s doors are closed, Ned cares most about being with his family, doing what he enjoys, and “working to live, not living to work.”

Many parents find part-time consulting work to pay the bills and spend more time with their families. As a consultant, neighbor Bruce Bower taught his son to ski and now cooks dinner for his family each night. He believes “getting laid off every few years is healthy. You’ve got to take advantage of the time you have.”

Katherine Noesen, MBA ’94, says she “succumbed to the workaholic nature of Silicon Valley,” which provoked her to work “a solid year of 16-hour days.” The office closed, but Katherine’s interests unfurled. She has learned to surf, taken a trip to Turkey, and reconnected with lapsed friends.

As for my husband and me, this experience has helped us more clearly understand our priorities and savor the days we have with our kids and each other. Our Saturday “date nights” with expensive dinners and baby sitters have become take-out burritos and twilight at the park with the girls, but our relationship is no worse for wear. And now when my daughter asks me each morning, “Is today a mommy and daddy day?” I answer “yes” with the joy that makes my daughter want to hug me forever.