Let Go

"There I was at the age of 36, in the middle of an IVF treatment, jobless and with many plans that would now be on hold for who knows how long." - Claudia Camargo

From The Noodler

Mass layoffs feel like a daily occurrence lately, relentlessly flooding the job market with highly skilled candidates looking for work. Over the past year, job searches for people in mid/high-level careers are averaging 5 months - for many it’s far longer - causing immense emotional, mental and financial stress to hundreds of thousands of people across the US. Many of those experiencing layoffs have taken to social media to candidly share their stories - offering catharsis, support and solidarity to others and ultimately helping to lift the stigma once associated with unexpected job loss - Claudia Camargo is one of them.

Claudia is a Creative Director based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Despite being a bilingual woman of color in an industry that purports to embrace DEI - and where only 35% of creative directors, nationally, are women - the road to finding new employment after she was laid off last summer, was longer, more nuanced, and self-expanding than she had expected. Her story reflects many of the hard, complicated, and heartbreaking decisions women are having to make in the current job market and political climate as it relates to women’s access to healthcare and reproductive services across the US.

Essay

Sitting here writing this article for the world to see feels surreal. But it always does when you overcome big obstacles in life, and you glance back at them.

Like many people in the last few months, I was faced with being laid off as an Associate Creative Director back in July of 2022. It was my first time leaving a job not by choice after 15 years in Marketing, and I don’t think I can put into words the emptiness I felt.

I also saw it coming. The company I was working for at the time had a lot of gaps (and they only accentuated with time) sending them into a spiral. Since I saw it coming, I had already started my “casual” job search months before I was laid off, and sure enough, I had a dream job as a content strategist with one of the biggest social platforms almost lined up for me. Or at least that’s what I thought.

It was late at night when I received the “Role Discussion” meeting that involved HR and my old boss. I knew immediately what that meant, but even if I knew it was coming, my stomach dropped. Not only for me but also for my team who were all laid off as well. The following morning we had THE TALK, and that was the end of that short chapter in my career (I was there for only 9 months). All I remember that day was being unbothered because, according to me, I was getting the job offer from the other place any minute.

The offer never came. They decided to move on with someone else.

There I was at the age of 36, in the middle of an IVF treatment, jobless and with many plans that would now be on hold for who knows how long. That was when it hit me like a ton of bricks.

I am not going to lie, I thought I was hot shit; I had worked myself up from a Jr Art Director, devoting hours to understanding the industry, what made work good. I had been a social butterfly for the biggest chunk of my early career, so I was sure I had the contacts. I had both agency AND client experience - I had stepped into a corporation and completely re-done their entire multicultural process.

I am bilingual, I am a woman of color, I am a woman in the creative field. I thought everybody wanted me, how could they not pick ME?! I kept telling myself that this was going to be brief, that I was a unicorn and any company would die to have me join them.

As a child of immigrants, we are taught very early on that your job equals your value, so naturally, I made it a point very early on to ALWAYS be successful in my career, and I had successfully done it for 15 years, until now.

Well month 1, 2, and 3 came by, frantically obsessing for 4-5 hours a day about finding a job. At this point I had applied to probably 60-75 jobs perhaps, but was being completely ghosted by recruiters. Not one interview lined up, and I was beginning to doubt absolutely every piece of who I was.

As a child of immigrants, we are taught very early on that your job equals your value, so naturally, I made it a point very early on to ALWAYS be successful in my career, and I had successfully done it for 15 years, until now. Now, I was sitting on my backyard deck stairs with my head on my hands, crying and feeling absolutely empty. Who was I if I wasn’t this overachieving woman of color breaking stereotypes, kicking ass in corporate America, and creating generational wealth?

Eventually, some interviews started trickling in, a lot slower than I would have liked them to. I started internally bargaining my worth as I went from one interview to the next. Was I asking for too much money? Maybe I can expand my range. Am I applying to the level of jobs I truly am vs. what I believe I am? Ok fine, let’s apply to less senior roles. Should I stop thinking that finding a great remote job is possible? Fine, let’s be open to a move. I applied to ACD jobs, Creative Director jobs, Sr Art Director jobs, social creative jobs, Content Strategist jobs, content creation jobs. Heck, I even considered moving to account management at some point.

I became obsessed with LinkedIn. A rush of anxiety came over me every time I opened the app. While the job postings were pretty detailed, I noticed that the compensation more often than not either did not match the amount of responsibilities or was non-existent on the post itself. They also felt like a lot of them were looking for a jack of all trades, and to me that business model simply doesn’t work anymore. Because I had been bargaining so much with myself, I was convinced that applying for jobs that I was overqualified for was a safe bet.  

I never once stopped to think; What does Claudia truly want? I was the main provider in my family and felt the need to keep filling those shoes. A very mean voice inside of me kept saying, “beggars can’t be choosers”. I think this stems from being an immigrant.

I needed to do better for my future baby. After all, that is why my parents brought me to this country; to find a better life for us. I owed that to my children too.

The process was hard. I felt so much shame, hopelessness, and uncertainty. Had it not been for my amazing husband, I truly would not have come out the other side. It surprised me how hard I was being on myself, and I could not shake off the feeling. Therapy, journaling, reading, and exercising became my best friend, but no matter what, the feeling of disappointment was still there. Like there was something wrong with ME.

I had an opportunity in my hands with a big corporation (job stability) in the South. The process took 3 months for the offer to get to me (because that is how big corporations operate), and a lot of things happened in between. Right in front of my eyes, the region became the epicenter of a battle against both women rights and LGBTQIA+ rights (I am a huge ally). The 3 month wait helped me calm down, take a step back and realize that I could not see my kid growing in a place that does not foster diversity and is not open to different ways of thinking and backgrounds. I needed to do better for my future baby. After all, that is why my parents brought me to this country; to find a better life for us. I owed that to my children too.

I had to turn the offer down.

As a woman nowadays, many of our rights are being put into question, I don’t think it's very visible to society how this will impact industries and the economy everywhere. I just could not see myself bringing our embryos where women's rights were not a choice.

I clearly remember getting closer to month 5 and being terrified. I had to have a pep talk with myself and really start to look for what were non-negotiables for my next gig. So I made a list:

• Staying remote is important. It's been 3 years of me working remotely, and I do enjoy it. A LOT.
• We have embryos from our IVF treatment. We need to protect our family. Red states were out.
• My 15 years of experience are worth what I am asking. This will be my bottom line and I will not consider anything below.
• I need the company that I work for to align with my personal values.

The list also came from interesting interviews and even job offers that were disappointing, not flexible, and from my research on potential employers. It's amazing what a quick Google search can show.

Getting laid off is hard, but what was harder was accepting help, being humble to open up to my friends, family, and network - and simply getting over the shame that inherently is attached to losing a job.

In the midst of all this chaos, my husband and I did everything we needed to keep our lifestyle as untouched as possible (with obvious cutbacks like going to restaurants 4 out of 7 days), and with an ok savings account we decided to move forward with IVF.

That’s right; I got an embryo transfer with no job in sight.

It was a leap of faith, knowing that we were doing all the right things and that our future baby should not be a decision from fear but of love. Money would follow. EXTREMELY idealistic and very romanticized, I know, but I had gone down every other rabbit hole, why not try this one?

Ironically the moment I surrendered to this new journey for us as a family was the moment where I started to feel some sort of control over my job search. I erased LinkedIn from my phone, I started putting a limit to the amount of hours I was investing into job searching and started reaching out to people with a more specific intention.

Getting laid off is hard, but what was harder was accepting help, being humble to open up to my friends, family, and network and simply getting over the shame that inherently is attached to losing a job.

After about 100+ job applications, 50+ interviews, plenty of rejections, and a handful of jobs turned down by me, the journey ended 7 months later with a happy ending.

Everytime I posted on LinkedIn about my looking for a job - still - felt like torture, but I knew it had to be done. My network was all I had to keep me going and open new doors for me. Some decided to ignore me (which hurt like a MF), and some strangers did unimaginable things for me. I created a community with a few peeps going through the same experience, I started to identify key people that could potentially help me, I became quite good at finding the right people. Eventually, one of those “commenting for visibility” comments (finally) landed on the right eyes.

After about 100+ job applications, 50+ interviews, plenty of rejections, and a handful of jobs turned down by me, the journey ended 7 months later with a happy ending. At 3 months pregnant, I was hired at a great small agency, where I am paid well, I am remote and they had no issue with my pregnancy. Actually, they were pretty stoked.

Being laid off forced me to look inward, to face my deepest fears and look shame straight in the eyes and say “I will show you.” Doing inner work is not easy. Most of us dread it, but it was necessary in this transition period of my life where the typical “You will be off the market so soon! You are so great!” or the “Just take this time to rest.” advice was not useful.

I am still a work in progress and my biggest lesson that seems to come back again and again is: my job is not who I am, my job is a part of who I am.