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October 26, 2020 2:00 am
Human Resources Professional Dale Kreienkamp talks about the variety of emotions a person feels after being laid off. Kreienkamp, who was let go from his job in the healthcare industry after 25 years, says shock is typically the first reaction, regardless of the reason for the layoff. This is usually followed by hurt, anger, shame, embarrassment and fear. He reminds those who are unemployed that it's going to be okay, but it will be hard, with emotional highs and lows. You'll be surprised when you see God's hand of provision in your life.
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Dale crime camp spent many years as the head of human resources for a large company company was facing a layoff 25 people working to be let go and it was Dale's job to have to break the news I was with my chief operating officer Vi reported to at the time he was with us about a year and he stood behind his chair and said thank you and then he said, by the way your name is on the list and in those six little words, I became the 26th person and for me, I'd been there 25 years so six words ended 25 years. This is family life today. Our hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson hi Bob Lapine you can find us online@familylifetoday.com a lot of people in the last several months of experienced what Dale experienced being laid off from a long time job you deal with that.
Talk with Dale about that today. Stay with us and welcome to family life to Max for joining us.
You never have this happen. I've had this happen to me so I don't know what you're talking about was a Monday morning, I came to work working of the radio station and the boss said can you come in the office firmament messenger so I came into his office and sat down and he took a deep breath and sighed and said, I've decided it's in your best interest, and in the best interest of the station for us to let you go completely out of the blue had no idea no clue I'd been like salesman of the month, two months before you sign it was just a complete stunner shocker called my wife and say will be home early today and be there tomorrow and be there the next day you have kids at the time. Oh yeah, in fact, we had one and we found out a month later Marion was pregnant with her oh so that's even more scary right away it was disorienting writing and then couple years later another situation I have a employer call and say we don't think this is working out and what I learned was that he had hired me for a job. The guy he really wanted for the job was not available and nine months later, the guy he really wanted for the job became available so the fact that it wasn't working out was really know the other thing was working out but I I've been through you. You've never been the first that I had as I had a job in high school you and I do know this. I was a dishwasher and Marathon oil company in Findlay, Ohio. I got fired because I wasn't very good dishwasher. I was 16 I was on my first jobs ever and I loved it anyway.
I guess I'd wasn't very good at all.
I think I was there about a week. I told my kids that if I were there, boss. I would fire them anytime yeah I heard her say that they had a lawn business you know the Wilson boys lawn and deck business and she would be at their yelled and worked well today. I could well a lot of our listeners over the last 12 months. Oh, have have this new experience. This unexpected experience of finding themselves disoriented because they're no longer working where they thought they were secure and ensconced in and working to spend some time digging into that today with an old friend yeah this is an exciting we've got a buddy from high school yeah Bob Lapine said did you graduate.
The senior same year, this, this is Dale crime camp you will come to family life to thanks and Dale's wife Deb is joining us welcome. Yet we we were class of 74 back at Kirkwood high school in St. Louis, home of the fighting pioneers sign here and now we can meet you guys know each other.
We yeah I mean it was a big class. We had 800 people in our graduating class of 5800, so there were some people you knew really well and some people you knew because I don't remember do you know if we had classes together with some classes, but not much gets this all I know Dale is did you know Bob tell us about Bob or what was his rep she had any materials about anything lingers or not. It is the coolest I was invest $20 I ever spent like there was to slip that today I Avandia hair right there did back then.
Yeah, Dale has since graduation going on. You spent 25, 30 years in the healthcare industry is that right actually closer to 40 with two different organizations in and involved in HR yes so you been on both sides of this issue were talking about. You had to call people in your office and say I'm sorry this isn't working out yes and then you've had your employer call you in and say will make a shift. Yes, so you know a little bit about the disorientation or taco absolutely winded dawn on you as a part of your career that this is a significant life altering moment in anybody's life when what they thought was solid is no longer solid underneath them was relatively early in my career. It is, we begin to make some changes periodically I would get involved in that. It's not one of those things they taught you in school in terms of okay here's how we say goodbye to people but for me became very important not only how we said goodbye. But how do we support those people as they exit because most often they did nothing wrong. Things were people that were faithful to the organization faithful to the work that they did and for whatever set of circumstances. Often economic there just wasn't the need that there was before and we needed to make a decision and we needed to make a move that it's a different situation. If you're terminating for cause, but if there's a downsize or if there is a change in direction and you got good, faithful people in your heaven to save this doesn't work for the corporate objective anymore. That's gotta be one step job. Once your job is what nobody wanted it. Yeah nobody wanted it and it's not one that she'll ever get people that will walk up to you and say thank you you did that really nice that's not what happened. I've had people come back later and say you know you did about the best that you could. I was angry but not you with the circumstances. Sometimes it's even the source of blame. So when something happens to those who want to blame somebody who do we blame while working to blame the people that had the conversation with us. The middleman that the messenger right there and is you process this and Becky written a book a very helpful book a devotional for people who are unemployed and for those who are married to the unemployed.
It's a book called how long the Lord how long Psalm 13 I think is the one that starts with the Lord. How long will you forget me that it's that whole feeling and you you talk about anger and anxiety and embarrassment. Your sense of identity, purpose, your self-confidence, your questioning despair.
I mean, just a few things. Yes, this triggers such times of emotion that really doesn't and they are two motions that people think they're going to experience when they get that that message so Bob, when you were told we no longer need you were making a change a decision. We often think okay I'll find something. This will be good. I got it.
I'm in control were fine.
All of that and then as time goes on, especially if that journey lasts longer than you expected to because we often have expectations that are okay, I'll find something in three months of Ophir. Four months into it. You're starting to say okay what's wrong with me and that's in those emotions just creep in and we don't know what to do with them so we cannot even deny that there really there and so those emotions are what can trip us up. Let's go back to the moment when sure when the earthquake happens talk about how you process that news and what's going on inside of somebody and what they do. If out of the blue they get a call. I guess sometimes people are aware, they can kinda sense things are happening here at the company.
Things are changing. I don't love my job secure where they could read it in the paper like I did believe I made it sort of funny but it is and I mean I was Detroit Lions chaplain 33 seasons is not a paid job. It's a volunteer and have really and you know when a new coach comes in and you always have okay's new coach going to keep the new chaplain type deal and yeah I was in my 33rd season and through 12 coaches you know because Detroit Lions did win a lot of football game so there always change coaches. So anyway I'm getting ready.
They just hired a new coach, get ready going to meet Eamon talk about that, the future and I'm pickup the Detroit Free Press and I read a headline ends in the kitchens on my phone and I read a headline that said I Detroit Lions hair higher character coach just like the patriots in our new head coaches come from patriots who were doing what they did and I wonder what this is and as I read it I see the name of their chaplain who I know is there character coach for the patriots, Patriots and Mike.
I know he's a character coach I thought is their chaplain, which then I read the name of the new guy for the Lions and like I yelled to the kitchen honey I think I just got fired and I did and to this day. Never got a call or email around in the newspaper. So again, it wasn't my number one job if it would've been all the things that we had talked about every experience. I didn't experience him. It was hurtful as I can at least give me a phone call or an email, but if it's my source of income. Oh boy yeah man, hurt, anger, all the things you talk about in your book. The grief process is a real deal is and it really is and it is so much more so because you didn't make that decision. So if you walked in and said I know this isn't working.
I'm leaving you feel like you had some control over the decision when someone else makes that decision for you even if you wouldn't disagree that maybe it was time. There's just something about us not being able to control that decision that just starts us in a spiral catches us by surprise when the earthquake happens when the explosion goes off what's going on in somebody's heart and soul in that moment when they're trying to process what just happened. So I think the first thing I'll just say is in shock for most people it is to shock, even if you had an understanding that it could happen.
It's still the shock that it did happen in all this and that's the reality that it changes so mine was probably in some ways, like a lot of other people get a little bit different because I'm on both sides of that equation, so I was at a large medical center and is head of human resources. I had three responsibilities going into a restructuring. So we were we made the decision.
The 25 leaders were going to lose their job and it was gonna happen.
The following Monday and so I had to prepare those leaders to have conversations with those 25 people I had to figure out how do we support those 25 people that got that unexpected message of I don't have a job and then how do we communicate to an organization which had 4000 employees probably a thousand on the medical staff, volunteers, what does this mean because once that gets announced everybody saying what's next and what what is this me and I was with my chief operating officer who I reported to at the time he was with us about a year.
He was the one pushing this and I, laid out here all the plans and he stood behind his chair and said thank you and then he said, by the way your name is on the list and in those six little words, I became the 26th person and then he said you can stay through this event next week and finish your work. If you want if you want to leave today. I'll figure out how we deal with that he walked out the door and no thank you know you've done a great job.
No, no, nothing like that. In fact, the year before I done a project and save the organization. $1 million. Okay so dad he comes home that night and for that day. Did you walk out that there no I stayed I really wanted to make sure that we did it well. We handle that as best we could and so I didn't. I think I called her and my heart just sunk in more sunk for him than for me. I felt like he was so stressed in the job that enough.
This was God talking to him that he need to get out of there but but then it with the reality of the motions and everything that put us on this roller coaster of what's next. So when when you got the call. Your first impulse was in a panic, how we gonna pay the bills or what's gonna happen or how does this affect me you were thinking. How does this affect my husband.
Oh yeah oh yeah his emotions, his sense of self dignity. All that yes definitely is is that common.
Do you think Dale for all a wife or a spouse who learns about their husband or wife getting fired that they do they react with empathy or do they react with protection for themselves or maybe both impulses are there and I think it depends upon that relationship and where it is so the character the man looking at you Devon. I think you trusted Dale in terms of his character is privation and who he was as a man in the Afghan that can intelligently definitely. I knew he was not altogether.
I needed that time he cared about the people I needed that he worked so hard that he would find something else, but I knew it would be so hurtful because he loved the organization and I'm guessing that every wife response is admirable is dead, no know they don't end for me. I'd been there 25 years so six words ended 25 years.
You know I more or less grown up there and so there was a lot to process as well as trying to figure out how do we still hold it together to make it good for the people that we had to meet with the menu and in the back of your mind. Had you thought at all.
With the 25 people being removed that maybe your job was on the bubble.
So I've always known that.
But again the project the year before and then this chief operating officer, was looking at efficiency statistics in my division was in the top 10% of every benchmark we looked at so it wasn't like you'd have a reason, right and ultimately he told me later he said you know you have a great team and you have a good number two and you make more money than them, so I'm saving money while class through the stages in the emotions that you went through because I'm assuming you are angry and hurt, especially at first. I may be shocked yeah I was hurt. I was hurt because I'd given my life to that place, and to see it and that way just didn't seem right.
I'm angry for you and that it's in then it's how do you tell people and so I had a meeting the following Monday with my staff and the rumors started to swirl that there was something else going on that was coming up and that was hard to tell people that had come from other organizations to work for me or that I had brought into their career and mentored enormous on the say I I'm not gonna be here was hard in my position so Dave it's good to hear your there's only so many football teams that have chaplaincy. I really wanted to continue a career as a chaplain where you go to do football as a chaplain and all the other teams are call me right just said that nobody was God and so we were one of the top 35 employers in the metropolitan area so you just knew the type of job that I had those you know don't grow on trees, and I wanted to stay in St. Louis. That's where family was. That's where kids and everybody else were in at that time I had.
We had two sons in college and one in the private high school, so these were what we call the heavy cash flow years yeah it's our feeling sorry it just there's just so much that goes through your head. At that point in time.
I remember when I got fired the first time from a job. First of all calling Marianne in the back of my mind is this thought if she can think there's something defective about me Michigan I think. What did you do this is your fault.
You admit I'm I'm feeling the weight of keeping my job is my responsibility and I just dropped the ball in the she can think less of me as as a husband and then telling friends.
He's embarrassing sure it's embarrassing. And they say what happened in and there's this instinctive want to say one me that I didn't know but you also don't want to be saying well. This lousy company at night and it's a very awkward place to be and people don't talk about Bob. That is the challenge.
That's why unemployment kind of the elephant in the room. People know about it, but the person who loses their job doesn't talk about and why is that I think it's the embarrassment, the shame that it happened so I got cut from the baseball team in high school it was before social media so I didn't have anything to post but I wasn't gonna come home, pick up the phone and start calling all my friends to say hey guys I got cut from the baseball team. You just kind of let that information drift out when it can, and so people just don't talk about it. They just kind of let it go and and then those conversations aren't easy conversations. How do you say I'm okay because you know they're worried about you. How do you say I don't know what's next but I'm okay with that. Even maybe when I'm not okay with that because you're trying to reassure other people as I think we just have this instinct to want to reassure everybody that were okay and then inside you're going to what's next.
I don't know was looking at the back your book the Kubler Ross change curve. You know what I'm looking then and thicken. Boil boy this is that the very beginning shock, confusion, fear, denial, and then anger and it keeps going, but I might go up in their I'm sure you were there. I'm sure you are there. I mean, you know, one thing that was interesting being in the lion's locker room for 33 seasons is watching players get fired, they caught cut right in the NFL, but it's fired and it's traumatic for these young men will he also had a son had gone through it three times. Yeah Cody play for the Lions. Our youngest and was fired three different times and rehired. He has four different Detroit Lions jersey numbers as he sadly came back to give a different number in three or more injuries, and they healed and they came back but watching him go to about watching players go through all that there shocked there's confusion. I remember being in lockers before games and guides the fired up. I walk over and I do think you are like Ray to go. You think cut me last year that team cut me and I like all so this is more than just I want a football game only to prove my old employer.
They should never fired me.
It's I mean anger in lacquering so you experience that everybody expenses at right that confusion that shocked that fear. Here's the big one I want to know about fear because there's real fear that you feel special is a man. If your provider I have to provide a woman, even a single mom should have their ego yet. I think there's a that is the interesting thing is there a lot of single parents that are losing jobs and thereby themselves, which is exceptionally hard on them. Fear is there because we love certainty and being unemployed is uncertain if I told you, and you've lost your job, but you're gonna have a new job in four months should say okay that's longer than I want but mentally I can handle it. There is just uncertainty as to when that's going to be. It's when it's going to happen. We don't know when it's can happen and that brings in the fear as you try and figure it out, and people then go into what I call the will questions they start saying to themselves what will I ever find another job will pay as much as the last job will I be successful. We have to move to another city, will I lose my house and Artie answers for those questions.
And when I when I talk to people about it.
I tell them I saw a poster one time which is really good at said worry is a conversation we have with ourselves about things we can't change prayers a conversation with God about things that he can and it's kind of a reminder to people that in the midst of those fears with. Gotta give it to God because we can't do it.
We don't have answers. How did your faith help you in the midst of what you this earthquake that was going on and if I didn't have it and I didn't have Deb I been up basket case because it did it, it starts to attack everything. One of the worst things we do is we compare so if the four of us were in the same organization and we all were told on the same day. Our jobs are gone, which is happened a lot of people today with coven if they find a job in three months and you find a job in four months and in and five and I'm still there at six, I'm global what's wrong with me right. Why did they get a job and I didn't get a job and just really tears that the fabric of who we are. That's when the confidence starts to fall. We got somebody sitting right now listening to this broadcast either on a radio station or a podcast there.
You've been out of work are furloughed because a coven of the reasons for maybe months would you say you it's going to be okay. God's got you, but you're going to go through some difficult times. This is a roller coaster. So strap yourself in. It is going to be emotional highs and lows that you don't expect that God scratch and he's not gonna let you fall and out of this, you're gonna look back and you're going to be amazed at his hand and it but when you're in the barrel. It's not can it be easy, but God's got you and I look back on the two firings and that can see now that, in both of those situations, I wound up somewhere better that I never would've gone on my own, that it was God dislodging me from where I would've stayed because of what he had next for me.
You can't see that in the moment now and I'm thinking same thinking I'm sitting in this chair right here within the family of today because I'm not working with alliance, I don't think it would been able to do both right and at the moment and Mike. I can't believe they fired the best chaplain in the NFL, but he is wondering that here we are in God had a plan and the whole thing yeah and this is where in the moment to have someone who can coach you in the midst of what you're going through. I think it's so helpful in this deal is why I love what you've done in the devotional you've written how long the Lord how long devotions for the unemployed and those who love them. This is such an important book we want to make available this week to any of our listeners who can make a donation to help support the work and family life to your donations make these kinds of conversations possible. You help us reach hundreds of thousands of people every day with practical biblical help and hope for the challenges they face in their marriages and their families. The challenges like the challenge of being unemployed when you make a donation today. Be sure to request your copy of the book how long the Lord how long it will be to say you ought to get a copy of this book and pass it on to someone you know who has been laid off. Help them out reach out and give them a gift. A copy of Dale's book again. The book is our way of saying thanks when you make a donation to support the ministry of family life to a requested when you go online@familylifeto.com to donate when you call 1-800-358-6329 that's one 800 F as in family L as in life and in the word today. If you are a regular family like today Lister and from time to time you miss one of our programs because of your schedule. You can download the new family life mobile app on any of your devices and you can listen whenever it's convenient for you or you can listen to past programs.
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Think our engineer today. Keith Lynch along with our entire broadcast production team on behalf of our hosts Dave and Ann Wilson. I'm Bob Lapine you back next time for another edition of family life, family life to day is a production of family life of Little Rock, Arkansas. Accrue ministry help for today hope for tomorrow