Don’t Cry over Spilt Milk!

I don’t remember spilling that much milk as a child, but I do remember hearing my parents repeat the proverb often. I’m sure I didn’t fully capture the meaning they were trying to convey as they hoped to teach me how to grow up into a mature, responsible adult. There’s no point to being upset over something that has already happened and cannot be changed.

Three years ago today I began employment with the company that made it necessary for me and my wife to leave New York City after 15 years of residence there. Three years later I am approaching four weeks of having lost that job due to downsizing and reorganization. How does not crying over spilled milk apply here? I guess there is no point to being upset over something that has already happened and cannot be changed. And that is true!

Losing employment at my “tender age”—15 months from the traditional age of retirement—means starting all over again and putting myself back out into the job search world in a very economically unstable time. It means deciding what I want to do, if I get to choose, with the hopefully many productive years still ahead of me. Before losing my job I worked for twelve weeks remotely due to Covid-19. It helped me realize that not all work takes place within the confines of an established work site or office cubicle.

I’ve connected with a “talent transition and development company” thanks to my former employer and I’m taking advantage of the insights and advice being offered. New ideas of marketing my skills are “agitating my gray cells” as Hercule Poirot would say. I hope to keep you posted as I move forward.

During the time I spent working in my former company, work anniversaries were marked with coffee with the president/CEO and coworkers who had the same anniversary month. One of the icebreakers in that social gathering was to write the number of years of employment on a sheet of paper and pose for a picture with the group. I kept those papers marking “1” and “2” years of service. I didn’t get to “3”. That would have been today.

I will not cry over split milk or coffee! The best is yet to come!