When life handed lemons to Courtney Adams and Chris Merritt, they didn’t make lemonade. They made lasagna instead.
Downsized within one week of each other last December and three weeks after signing their lease, the Harlem couple — she a former brand director in the music industry and he a former employee of a company that produced conferences — concocted an idea: Why not develop a business around Adams’ love for cooking?
“If there’s a passion you’ve always wanted to pursue, I can’t imagine a better opportunity to do it,” says Adams. “You can’t spend 24 hours a day looking for a job, so you might as well make the best of your time trying to make some money on your own.”
So they created a business plan, developed a Web site and launched Uptown Comfort (“Good Food for Bad Times”), a comfort-food catering business with favorites like barbecued chicken sliders, lasagna and cornbread.
“Being unemployed has been a truly defining experience,” says Merritt. “After so many years working with many parameters and expectations, you suddenly are free to define those parameters for yourself.”
For Dan Nainan of Chelsea, a former strategic relations manager at Intel, getting the ax meant being free to hang up the corporate suit and pick up a mike. He’d started flexing his comedic muscles by performing on weekends, as his job took him around the world doing technical demos in front of large crowds. After he was given the pink slip, the action plan became a no-brainer: Nainan pursued stand-up comedy full-throttle.
Since then, he’s been booked solid. He’s performed at the Democratic National Convention, did three Obama inaugural events in January and just shot a commercial for Apple, to name a few. And he owes it to an event that at the time seemed anything but a boon.
“I loved my job and wouldn’t have had the guts to leave on my own,” he says.
Not every layoff victim ends up finding a blessing in disguise in a pink slip, but such experiences are a lot more common than one might think, says Rachelle J. Canter, president of the executive coaching firm RJC Associates and author of “Make the Right Career Move.”
“How many of us have been miserable in jobs but afraid to make a change because we don’t know how to land a new job and are often too scared to try?” she says.
When she did a survey several years ago of employees who’d lost jobs, “the vast majority said losing the job was the best thing that ever happened to them because they needed a kick in the pants to find jobs they liked much more.”
On a roll
For Michael Dolan of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, the kick in the pants came the day he was downsized from his job as a publicist for a technology software company in SoHo.
“I was totally blindsided,” he said. “Things seemed like business as usual and then, boom! No job.”
Disillusioned and worried about paying the bills, he nonetheless realized he’d been given an opportunity to focus on his love for bicycle racing, something his intensive work schedule hadn’t allowed.
“For the past six months I’ve been training two hours a day and racing competitively on weekends. I’m in the best shape of my life, completely destressing and having a blast,” he says.
And biking has done more than tone his thigh muscles — it’s opened up a possible new career. Having discovered a love for taking photos of bike races, Dolan recently landed his first paid photography gig, and is considering pursuing that line of work full-time.
“I’ve been shooting as many events as I can, sending out my photos to magazines and Web sites, and improving my post-production skills by learning Photoshop and Lightroom,” he says.
“Getting laid off feels like you’re being pushed off a cliff. I figured I would just make the best of it. Put yourself out there and you may discover a hidden skill.”
Whether he knew it or not, Dolan was following the advice given to pink-slippers by psychotherapist Toni Galardi, the author of “The LifeQuake Phenomenon,” which addresses taking advantage of times of crisis to make life changes. If you’ve got a hobby or an outlet that you enjoy, pursue it; if you don’t, find one.
“The key during career transition is to stay passionate,” she says. “The vibe you give off will attract opportunities if you’re doing something you love every day besides job searching.”
For Suzette Banzo, being able to follow her bliss was exactly what was missing from her life during the 16 years she spent working for Verizon, first in quality assurance and then doing budget analysis.
“It was impossible to get time off from my job to pursue anything of interest to me,” she says.
Getting downsized took care of that issue, and it led her in an unexpected direction — modeling. It started when she was approached at a fund-raising event by the owner of a training program for plus-size models, who suggested she could do well in the business.
“I thought she was crazy,” says Banzo — but soon she was on the catwalk. Since then she’s shot a commercial for Kodak and walked the runway for Full Figure Fashion Week, which landed her a gig as a signature model for Hearts Desire Jewelry, and a role as the company’s East Coast sales representative.
“The designer tapped into my marketing degree, and we now collaborate on promotions and marketing strategies,” she says. Once frustrated as a “creative person in a finance job,” she says, “I’ve spent the last year being everything I had put on hold for far too long.”
Even for those who are content in their careers and aim to return to their industry, a layoff can provide an opportunity to do something meaningful. Rob Morrison, a former NBC news anchor, learned this when he was bought out of his contract last year, and found “an unexpected gift” in staying home with his 3-year-old son Jack.
Something else unexpected came out of it, when the 20-year veteran of broadcast news launched a popular blog on Huffington Post called “Daddy Diaries: Confessions of a Stay-at-Home Anchorman.”
“To have an outlet like that was key, and gave me a break from Handy Manny and Mickey Mouse,” says the Upper West Sider. Plus, he notes, it was a great way to keep his name out there.
Back on his feet, now with CBS2, Morrison looks back at his 16-month sabbatical as a mitzvah.
“I logged a lot of playground hours and got to watch my toddler turn into a little boy,” he says. “It was fascinating.”
His blog came to an end when his unemployed days did, but he’s since been contacted by a filmmaker who’s doing a documentary on the recession, and is interested in featuring Morrison, and possibly using him as a writer or narrator.
Shifting gears
As the job market opens up, what happens to blossoming side gigs? In some cases, like Morrison’s, they may fade into the background. Merritt of Uptown Comfort landed a new job at Macy’s as special-events manager, but is still helping out with strategizing for the catering business.
Adams is still on the hunt. And she hopes her experience starting and running the business is an extra selling point on her resume, where it’s listed in the skills and achievements section. In an interview, she says, “I’d present it as a learning experience that culminated from not being employed and needing to direct my talents to do something productive.”
Such ambition and drive is likely to impress a prospective employer, notes Canter.
“Is there an employer who dislikes initiative or who prefers candidates that lounged around the house or perfected their golf game while laid-off?” she asks.
While Adams hopes to keep the business going even should she land full-time work, she says she’d be quick to tell a potential employer that she’d hand over management to one of her consultants or fold the business if there were a conflict.
For her part, Banzo hopes to continue finding ways to use her marketing skills within the plus-size modeling business, and is trying other things as well, including writing for a trade magazine that covers the industry. She’s not entirely sure where this new road is headed, but has no doubt it’s a detour she’s glad to have taken, even if it wasn’t initially by choice.
“I feel like I’m finally living my life,” she says.