Forty Things to Do When You're Fired (Career)

Go for a walk

A long walk. Preferably barefoot on a very long strip of beach. Imagine you're leaving the past job and past life behind you with every step you take. Throwing pebbles and large stones into the ocean optional. Avoid swimmers even if they resemble old colleagues.

Career

Make a list of Everything you hated about your job

Keep referring to it when you feel like screaming.

Career

Make a list of Everything you hate about yourself

Burn that list in a little bonfire in a midnight ritual - you are now ready to resume life as a new, improved YOU.

Career

Go to your favourite restaurant

Order everything you've ever wanted to eat there and eat it all at once. Then order some more.

Career

Go for a long swim in the ocean

Pretend you're never coming back - but make sure you can. Alert lifeguard on duty before you embark on this exercise.

Career

Go for a cruise in your car blasting your favorite song at full volume

Then sing along at the top of your voice and don't mind the stares you get from scared or concerned motorists. If your boss sees you, all the better...

Career

Take up kickboxing in the evenings

A great way to vent your anger and frustration and at the same time network with other angry overworked, underpaid or unemployed professionals.

Career

Go somewhere you've always wanted to go

Whether it be that 5-bedroom motel in a neighbouring village, a riverside shack in Thailand or a 5* hotel in Switzerland now is the time to indulge. Make sure you stay long enough to unwind without depleting your hard-earned savings.

Career

Get your finances in order

Make sure you are on a sustainable budget and that your savings are invested at the optimal risk/ reward ratio given your age, state of unemployment and expenditures.

Career

Buy a trashy novel and read it all in one go

Comfy pillow and assorted junk food items need to be at hand.

Career

Call your best childhood friend

Cry to her/him about the injustice and degradation of it all.

Career

Go window-shopping in the most expensive part of town

Make a mental inventory of all those items you will buy when you land the next job.

Career

Open a cook book and make a lavish dinner for 20

Invite everyone you can locate at short notice. Tell them all when they come that you're looking for a job.

 

Career

Go for a manicure/pedicure

Whine to the manicurist about the perils and boredom of unemployment.

Career

Go for a long massage

Then have them remove you supine, on a stretcher.

Career

Go through your old photographs

Remember what it was like when you had your whole life ahead of you and the world seemed plush with opportunities. Stay in that mind-frame.

Career

Buy all the flavours of your favorite ice-cream brand

Then invite one friend to a comedy movie night.

Career

Organize all the cupboards in your house

Purchase fragranced tissue lining paper, line your clothes closets and put one fragranced tissue paper on top of each meticulously folded item of clothing. Colour code your closets and tissue paper for an added sense of achievement.

Career

Put fresh flowers in every corner and crevice of your house

Nothing like that fresh scent and the sight of live blooms to lift your spirits.

Career

Take up a new hobby

Now is the time to discover and nurture the nascent Botticcelli or Tchaikovsky in you. Make sure to offend. Practice musical overtures on anyone who will listen (or won't) and make sure your artistic endeavours grace everything from the milk bottles you hand back to the milkman every morning to the t-shirt your best friend lent you, the window that most overlooks the neighbours' living room and the dining room ceiling your husband took pains to plaster.

Career

Go to Disneyworld

Regress to that time in your life when only the important things mattered. Local variation on Disneyland will do if finances/ visa requirements/ state of nervous breakdown don't permit travel.

Career

Learn a Language

Buy a beret and enroll in an intensive French course or pick up German to go with your newly found infatuation with Beethoven. Make sure the course is a daily one and that you take pains to immerse yourself in the language and the culture.

Career

Buy a Goldfish

Name him after the manager who fired you. That way when the goldfish is deceased - and they have a horrible habit of doing that - your grief will be short-lived. In the meantime, admire the miraculous peace and serenity of this life form in your house. This is NOT a recipe for sushi.

Career

Enrol in a Charity

Nothing like doing good things for other people to lift the spirit and give you a sense of achievement and fulfillment. You don't need to feel very strongly about the charity - just do something that unselfishly puts you out on a limb for someone else's sake.

Career

Open a stock trading account and try to beat the indices

Move aside back issues of Cosmopolitan and Archie and start collecting finance and trade literature. You will also need spectacles (rectangular brown tortoise shell), a coffee maker and a computer in the bedroom. Can be done in your Tintin pajamas but make sure you only put your bowling money on the line at this stage.

Career

Take up Photography

Then redecorate your hallway with a series of bleached wood framed black-and-white photographs of your favorite person or scene.

Career

Find a Friend with a Baby

Nothing like spending time with a candy-wrapped bundle of innocence and laughs to recharge your batteries and remind you of what matters most.

Career

Read Proust's Remembrances of Things Past

And console yourself with dreams of buying a French chateau, complete with bubbles, when you succeed in your next job.

Career

Do a thorough self-analysis

Who are you really? What makes you tick? What do you really like and enjoy? What are your strengths and weaknesses? Where would you like to be? Put this self-analysis down on paper and use it to plan your next career move.

Career

Take a Course

Hone your skills whether they be business, finance, marketing or other by enrolling in the best course available, in or out of town, and giving it your all.

Career

Start polishing your Job Search Skills

Sift through job hunting articles on a major site's Career Center and read everything you can get a hold of on job hunting skills.

Career

Learn to bake bread

An endangered skill and one that is a conversation-stopper in cocktail parties and a sure winner if you are inviting your other half to an intimate dinner for two at home.

Career

Exercise your body back into shape

Who says you can't look like you did when you were twenty? Join a gym and attend daily for an hour; you should see results within 3 weeks.

Career

Post your CV on the best regional internet job site

Then lie back while the site's Saved Search does all the work.

Career

Practice your interviewing skills on anyone who will listen

Read Interview Tips and Interview question on www.pcds.co.in

Career

Don't waste time

No time like the present to network, research companies you want to work for and apply to all the positions you find attractive on a regional job site.

Career

Spread the grief

Join a Workstyle Community Forum where you can share your experiences, ideas, hopes and aspirations with other professionals.

Career

Plan for Success

Repeat 100 times:- You WILL succeed in your next job, you WILL succeed in your next job, you WILL succeed in your next job... envisioning yourself as a high flyer in your field. Then pick up a pen and paper and plan in intricate detail for that success.

Career

Read industry literature

Now is the time to catch up on all those trade magazines and periodicals you haven't had time to read on your job. Bringing yourself up to speed on the latest developments in your industry is sure to impress in your next interview.

Career

Remember, the sky's the limit

You will work hard, play fair and be good to those around you. In short, you will SUCCEED wildly, extravagantly and beyond your wildest dreams. You just need to get started...

Career