Redundancy was the pivotal push I needed

Thoughts from a time of change

Mountain chalet dreams

£30,000 didn’t seem much of a send-off given that they no longer wanted me and I’d been at the advertising agency for over seven years. I’d even had to haggle to reach that neatly rounded redundancy sum, the maximum payable to a UK citizen before tax is due. The rule is the same today; it hasn’t moved a penny.

My new plan in the early 2000s seemed vaguely sensible once the shock of being sacked had registered. I was going to start another business, not sure exactly what, but I’d rely on the lump sum to keep my family fed and watered for the next 12 months. If I was down to my last bean, it was a sign that it wasn’t working, and I needed to find a proper job.

I always found the word proper in this context irritating. It’s a pejorative term used by friends and family who didn’t understand, could see nothing but trouble ahead and feared the degree of risk involved - I don’t know how you can sleep at night.

I was nervous in a good way, even with the increased responsibilities. Ten years earlier, when my first business failed, my only concern was paying a flat mortgage in Barnet and returning the money I’d borrowed to my parents.

The first time, I’d been naive and stupid, swept along with the romance of fulfilling a dream, part owner of something. The business plan took a year to write, and the financial information was detailed. It was worthless nonsense when our first video about E-Type Jaguars failed to sell. The company was ludicrously undercapitalised with no way of trading out of a flop even though we tried, oh did we try. Thoughts of insolvency were pushed out of mind until someone else decided to call time. That’s how it works when you owe people money. You lose control. We’d taken on far too much debt with too little reward, a mistake only realised when we were up to our necks in our neatly dug hole.

The experience was enough to have me running for cover. No more of this own-business nonsense. Debts needed to be paid. I was after a proper job and stuck at it when it arrived. I got comfortable as my salary increased and my cars roomier, every new job added to my pension pot, generous company contributions, Christmas parties, six weeks holiday, until finally, an advertising agency with too much fizzy water and a licensed bar decided they didn’t want me anymore.

No hard feelings, mate. Take a couple of days off, and come back at the end of the week when it’s sunk in. We’ll sort out the paperwork then.

I was gone by the end of the week, too. I might not have liked it, but they were right. They had a business to run. With a group of underperforming UK agencies, disgruntled bosses in New York were asking questions and wanted action. The easiest solution was to run the ruler on the more expensive headcount amongst the hundreds of employees. What dead wood could be chopped without impacting the business? I could defend my position more, but this was an opportune time to reduce the overhead, including me.

I’d had advanced warning that I might be in someone’s sights. The UK Chairman had gently warned me about a brewing westerly storm long before it arrived. But I’d got far too comfortable. I also believed I could avoid any cull. Indeed, they must have also seen where the future of advertising was going and the value I offered. I still naively held onto that thought until it was too late, and I was gone. If there were pieces to pick up, they’d find a way later.

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I think redundancy was more of a stigma then than now. I felt ashamed and kicked myself for a while that I hadn’t done something sooner to avoid the black mark on my CV. The career mentor, part of the package when I was cut adrift, reminded me in the one entitled session that redundancy doesn’t equal failure - thanks for letting me know. She was also correct. Nor did I have time to wallow; there was much to do.

My first reaction was to cling to the chance of landing another proper job like a baby attached to a dummy, but my timing was poor. Before long, all my energies focused on the new business, and thoughts of a proper job were forgotten.

As Mrs H will attest, I am the procrastinator in our relationship, but waiting had been the better move this time because of the payout. There were many more trials to come, but I never returned to someone else’s employment, and the much-needed cash kept heads above water when needed most as I found a way to make a living without a job.

It was a pivotal moment that took me down a different path, which I didn’t regret, even before much had happened.

I was self-employed again, which hadn’t exactly gone according to plan last time. It’s a significant step that most of us will never entertain. I enjoyed knowing that every decision from here on either benefited the business or it didn’t. Sticking to the positive stuff is more complicated than it looks, especially when your service or product is new, and you're early in the market. Many of the opinions you bump into are at odds with your own, which I’d argue is encouraging. It also depends on whose opinion you are listening to.

I was earning a living again, but not a particularly good one. I still had to face the ignominy of a second business failure and a divorce before Mrs H and I finally started CitNOW.

The road after redundancy and that second failure straightened me out. I’d been an overpaid salesman past his sell-by date working for a giant agency monolith. I believed there would also be excellent opportunities for new agencies to capitalise who were swifter of foot, given time. It also meant that money, position and fizzy water would have to take a back seat. My circumstances had changed, and I was happy to put a lid on what remained of my bruised ego. What became more important was to own the direction of travel than to be an overpaid boss. The time for real rewards would come later when there was something of value to sell.