
Why you should at least once FAIL in life — Part I
Either you quit, were laid off or fired from your job. That shouldn’t stop you from reinventing into a better version of yourself.
After ten years of paving my way towards becoming a successful fashion designer, I was laid off from my dream job due to Brazil’s political and economic crises.
I remember that day like it happened yesterday. It was a typical morning, I was extra focused on my e-mails, the early hours were always the best time to go through them, as the office was still calm. Nine o’clock was when the deafening sound of my keyboard was interrupted by my department manager passing by my desk and requesting an urgent meeting with the department director. Back in those days, I was leading a major project within the department.
Alert as I was, after having my third expresso — before 9 am — , I quickly grabbed my notebook and rushed after her to the meeting room. As she leads the way I didn’t even realize we were going downstairs, to the place we usually receive suppliers, and to be honest I didn’t even care, I was too busy making small talk, I was really keen on listening to what she as saying.
When we stepped into the room I have been interviewed on three different occasions, and the same place I received the position I held back then, only then did I realize that it was not good news.
The minute I sat she began the rehearsed speech she probably was giving last night by HR. Highlighting how that was a strategic decision and had nothing to do with my performance, blah blah blah. Being the largest retailer in Brazil, you can imagine my settlement was, to say the least, satisfactory.
She instructed me to go straight to the room at the end of the hall, where HR would handle the bureaucracy of things. I arrived in a room filled with about thirty to forty people, some of them crying desperately, others just had a perplex look in their eyes, while reading the terms of the settlement put in front of them to be signed.
Nineteen years .— a voice whispered behind me — That’s how nineteen years of devotion to a company ends. — The lady behind me would try to make sense of her own situation by talking to herself.
I wasn’t alone at least, two hundred employees were laid off that morning. My company was one of the first examples of a retailer to use this solution (laid off its committed employees) to save money, on what would come to be one of the most severe crises that are on-going in Brazil. Despite that, just like I was laid off, some of my colleagues were not, and that sense of failure didn’t take long to appear.
The void that is formed by a sudden change in routine can be overwhelming. I broke the contract on the apartment I had just rented, I had to say bye bye to the CrossFit gym I went every morning, and painfully I had to say so long to my monthly paycheck. Overwhelming as it was, internally a transformative power came to be. That day I decided I was going to leave Brazil for a new country, and so the journey began.
I connected with a cousin living in Canada, who was not short on making a case for me to move here. I exhausted every source of Youtube channels on Brazilians residing in Canada. I created a plan, to convince my boyfriend at the time, now husband, to embark on that journey with me. I boarded the plane on August 10, 2016, and flew to what is my new life of success in Canada.
This is the end of Part I…stay tuned for Part II
