Fired! Downsized! Unemployed! Done?

By Dan Smith

Sometimes it’s a funny game and sometimes it isn’t. Always, it is memorable and helps form the rest of your life.

Losing your job—whether you’re fired, downsized or simply storm off in a huff—is often traumatic. It is also frequently the first day of the second chance you really needed.

According to a zippa.com survey, 40 percent of Americans have been laid off (or fired) at least once and 48 percent of workers have “layoff anxiety.” Zippa also reports that American layoffs have run between

21 million and 25 million annually in the past 20 years, with the exception of 2020 (Covid) when it spiked at 41 million.

FRONT asked a number of people in this region to look back at their losses and consider their gains from those losses when applicable. The responses ranged from funny to philosophical—and all of them are real. Here is what we found.