Hello Readers. I am Joey Parshley and its been 3 moths since my last (and first) post. Things have been really busy and I have not been able to post as much as I wanted. Hopefully I will be able to post more frequently.

Well, as many of us have been experiencing, I was laid off on December 17th. The funny thing about that (I have been told to use ironic but I think its funny) is that it was the 1 year anniversary of my last lay off. I actually mentioned that fact to my wife as I was heading into work that day. At least then the first company shut its doors. This time around, it was a “Workforce Reduction”. I am not a big fan of euphemisms. I feel they are used to comfort the giver, not the receiver.

My point of this post is that us Dad’s (and Mom’s) are still gainfully employed even if we get laid off. It is a time that we can teach our children how to deal with adversity. Show them that not everything is hunky dorey but at the same time, it is not the end of the world. Teach them that, yeah it sucks and it is ok to feel down for a little bit, but moping around is not going to get you your next gig.

My daughter Maddie is 10 years old and my son is 7. They absolutely keep me grounded during these times. You simply cannot feel bad for yourself when they are such an important part of your life. They asked me all the tough questions like “will we lose our house” or “are we poor” and I tried to answer them all as truthfully as possible knowing that sometimes simply telling them that I do not know, but what I do know is that we will always have each others support and no matter what happens, together we will be happy. It always brightened up my day when after interviewing and picking up my kids, my son would always remember to ask “How was you meeting, Dad?”. And sometimes, just sitting on the couch with each of them in my arms made it all just melt away.

I am happy to announce that I was quite fortunate in this scenario. I start my next gig next week. This time around it was a great opportunity for me to show my children that in times of uncertainty, as long as you do all you can do, you can feel good about your situation. Things that are out of your control are exactly that, (out of your control). So if you cannot control it, remove it as far from your mind as possible. This was a horrible time to be laid off. But I had no control over that and I stopped dwelling on it. What WAS in my control was how I pursued my next gig and I took complete control of that. I started networking on day one (the moment I got home). Most may have taken off for the holidays knowing that there were not going to be many contacts. But I figured that would help me stand out more. I feel it may have given me a leg up on others I felt may be flooding the market after the holidays. In any case this is a situation that I will always be proud to talk to my children about. It is a valuable tool that I hope I can use to help them in case they ever find themselves in a less than ideal situation.