On the scrapheap? - Brian Parry tells us his experience of being made redundant

With the Chancellor’s budget in April it became obvious just how serious the financial difficulties facing our country are.

According to government figures in May unemployment was at 7.1% for the first time since 1996. It has seen the biggest quarterly rise since 1981. These percentages translate into 2.2 million people currently unemployed. Some sources are talking of three million unemployed by the end of this year.

Unemployed

What is it like to find yourself unemployed? How is a Christian to react? Here is my own experience of redundancy, and how the Lord helped me to face it. It may help someone in a similar situation.

My job in engineering services was declared redundant on the eve of my 60th birthday. My younger daughter was still at university. I had served 34 years with the company.

Several changes in ownership and restructuring had occurred over the years. I started as a draughtsman, progressed to project manager and was eventually promoted to managing director of the facilities management unit. Over 15 years this expanded from a modest support department to a subsidiary company.

During a difficult trading period for the main group it became the only profitable entity and had to be sold to a larger competitor along with the customer base, staff and myself. I continued as a regional manager with the new company for three years, when my name was put on the ‘hit list’.

What it felt like

I was in denial for most of the three months leading up to termination date. I found myself in the uncomfortable position of having to introduce my successor to the customers and acquaint him with the contracts and the staff I had worked with for years. These were some of my feelings:

* Injustice

It seemed unjust that all the good work I had done to grow the business was going to be handed over to someone else to run. I also thought that the selection process — whereby I was to be replaced with a much younger person having excellent certification and computer skills but minimal hands-on management experience — was unfair. How did I cope? It helped me to reflect that our Saviour suffered unfairly ‘the just for the unjust to bring us to God’. Jesus knows all about injustice.

* Loss of control

For years I was used to supervising a team of over 100 service engineers and admin staff, controlling their daily activity. As an elder at my local church I was privileged to be responsible for the oversight of church members. The loss of control over my personal circumstances therefore rocked me. I started to doubt God’s ability to cope with my situation until I remembered something once said earlier by a fellow director. We had been poring over a set of disastrous performance figures at a board meeting. As an unbeliever he said half mockingly, half seriously, ‘It’s alright for you, Brian, even if the worst happens, you’ve got someone up there looking after your interests’. This challenged me to trust afresh in God’s unfailing love.

* Punctured pride

The previous year I had completed my term as chairman of our trade association, with which I had been involved in trying to improve standards and implement training schemes. Thereby I became a fairly prominent member of the industry and being made redundant was thus a great embarrassment. ‘What would others think?’ My pride took a bashing. But Psalm 73.17 helped me get things into perspective. It speaks about the final destiny of the lost. I had lost my job, but at least I was not eternally lost. This puncturing of my pride also helped me gain insight into the humility of Jesus, ‘who for our sakes made himself of no reputation’.

Preserving a good witness

I noticed lots of doom and gloom, accompanied by unhealthy gossip, occurring in the workplace as the redundancies were being implemented. I could see how it was bringing out the worst in people. I was fearful of being dragged down into all this and damaging my witness for the Lord.

Therefore, when tempted to join in all the complaints and criticism floating around, I tried to practice God’s Word; ‘Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is lovely, think on these things’ (Philippians 4.8).

Being a very motivated person, I found the redundancy experience stormy and it was hard to let go and trust God. It was a battle. But deep down I retained my faith in his sovereign power. According to his promise, ‘the Lord shall provide’, thankfully, I was awarded a new job with another company within seven weeks of leaving the old one.