There's life after layoff...

Don’t take a trip into self-pity, instead take the opportunity to see if there are things about you that others don’t like, and if you can do something to improve yourself.

Don’t take things out on your family or kids or destabilise their lives when you turn from a breakfast-table papa into a stay-at-home boss.

Put things in perspective. The job loss is terrible for you, but go talk to that grand uncle who had to leave everything behind in Partition, or took part in World War II. You are actually much better off.

Read: Take out those encyclopedias from their glass case, renew that library membership. Read. You get ideas, your mind stays in top gear.

Dust off your IIT degree in aeronautical engineering, which got buried under the IIM PGD, and make a start by helping kids in the neighbourhood with their math tuitions or projects. Better still, look around for a teacher’s job. (have you read of schools shutting down because of the downturn?)

Check out with NGOs if they need your special skills for their operations—could be accounting, could be lighting up an old-age home.

Renew hobbies. Ever thought why very few Indians have interesting hobbies like building scale models, etc.? (Collecting paintings does not count here.) Get out that high-end digital camera, locate the manual and start clicking. No film cost. Great opportunities to upload to websites that want your stuff.

Look after your health.You want to be fit when things get moving.

Check out your mug in the mirror—do you see an entrepreneur?

Network with your extended family—and why not try to build a family tree?

Oh, don’t forget to keep networked.
Keep looking for a job. Before you know, the recovery will be here, taking you back to the old busy schedules.

The two must reads for those who have lost jobs—and even those who haven’t.
For practical, comprehensive tips on job hunt

What Color is Your Parachute?
He or she who gets hired is not necessarily the one who can do that job best; but, the one who knows the most about how to get hired. That’s one of many priceless pieces of advice given by the best-selling job-hunting book in the world. What Color is Your Parachute? by Richard Nelson Bolles provides a systematic roadmap to finding the best job fit. Bolles’ conviction is that just getting a job—even ones you are good at—won’t be a wise decision in the long haul.The book helps you see your passions blended with skills, and guides you to get to the right place.
(Price Rs 730, pages 407)

To know why a layoff is not the end of life, and may even be the beginning of a new, better, one.

How Starbucks Saved My Life
A riches-to-rags story of a top advertising executive, the book teaches a few prized lessons about life’s priorities and how they can be misaligned. In his 50s, Michael Gates Gill, a creative director at J. Walter Thompson Company, was “let go” by the agency where he was employed for over 25 years. He had it all: an Ivy League Education, a hefty salary, a model family and home life. He loses his job, gets divorced, and is diagnosed with a brain tumour; with no money or health insurance. A chance trip to Starbucks irrevocably changes his life. He goes back to the basics, learns, unlearns and hands out a few lessons to his partners at Starbucks. Will soon be a Hollywood flick starring Tom Hanks.
(Price Rs 195, pages 265)