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It was the day she thought would never come. Candice, a 32-year-old marketing manager, was let go when the foreign firm that had hired her caught the Asian flu and was forced to abort their expansion.

“I was a victim of rotten planning,” she says now. “They were very careful to spell out that it wasn’t my fault; they wrote me glowing referrals and gave me a hefty separation package. I’m happy for that—but after giving up a good job to come here, and six years making work my life, suddenly I had nowhere to go.”

In the past, “fired” meant just one thing: you weren’t good enough. Today, it can still mean that; but it can also mean, “Your boss lost a power struggle and you’re all going with him.” Or it could be as simple as, “We guess wrong when we hired you. Sorry.”

In today’s shifting, frantically cost-cutting business environment, many people are losing their jobs through no fault of their own. With economists forecasting a recession that could continue throughout 1999, some very bright, capable people—precious assets to any company—are going to find themselves looking for a job again. Can you try to keep your job? Perhaps. Consider a change of departments, part-time work, or other arrangements. But suppose, despite everything, you find yourself starting 1999 unemployed? Here, some Cosmo musings—and a plan for preventing pink-slip panic.

First Things First: The Plan
No question, job loss is an emotional upheaval—and like any other upheaval, it can make you feel small, powerless, like you’ve completely lost control. What will I tell my family? Oh, I wish I hadn’t bought those shoes. How will I face my friends? Like any overwhelming task, try breaking it into manageable parts: what to do before leaving your company, and what to do after. Check out our step-by-step coping plan.

Breaking Up is Hard to Do
“It’s hard not to feel like it’s your fault,” says Marissa, 24, a researcher at a medium-sized local bank, she was retrenched recently when her office merged with another struggling company. “Even if you know in your head that it has nothing to do with you—tagilid na yung kompanya, you just lost a major account, you were already sick of worrying—you can’t help feeling that if you had just worked harder or been more brilliant, you’d still have a job. It doesn’t make sense but you feel it anyway.” Many career counseling articles refer to the “job loss cycle”: the rollercoaster of emotions, not always reasonable, that you go through when you’re fired. It’s no coincidence that the cycle has the same stages as those of mourning. In her book The Practical Job-Search Guide: Your Action Plan for Finding the Right Job in Today’s Market (Ten Speed Press, 1996), human resources manager Donna MacDougall Ferris outlined eight stages: denial, frustration, anger, negotiation, apprehension (about an unknown future), depression (when you finally start to see reality). Then it climbs up, into acceptance and, finally, anticipation (when you recognize the future’s opportunities). Ms. Ferris notes, “There’s no standard time frame for working through each phase. It may take a few hours, days, weeks, or even months.” The important things to remember are: you’re not alone, it won’t last forever—and your panic is actually the most normal thing in the world.

Identity Crisis: What are You Besides Your Calling Card?
“I’ve always considered myself a career girl—my job didn’t even feel like work, and even my off-hours barkada are all colleagues or people from the industry. Even now, I still don’t feel like I sacrificed anything for my career; it was always just the most interesting thing going on. Now it’s gone, and I feel completely lost,” says Candice.

Once you get over the initial shock, most people’s immediate worry is money. But while everyone expects the financial fallout, many women are unprepared for the emotional kick in the gut that losing a job can bring. Why is this? Isn’t a job just a paycheck, and isn’t family supposed to be the real fulfillment? That’s the traditional expectation. But many Pinays in today’s workforce already grew up with mothers who worked outside the home. We watched Charlie’s Angels, played office just as often as we played house, and dreamt of our brilliant careers just as we did of marrying Prince Charming. Even for the most marriage-minded among us, “gusto kong mag-opisina” was almost always part of the dream.