Community Essay : ‘Sleepless Nights and Cold-Sweat Days’ : Economic statistics are a lot less dry when it’s your own job that’s taken away, but being cut loose isn’t all bad.

As I stare uneasily at my reflection in my home computer screen each morning, it is a constant reminder that today’s economic statistics take on a real, human dimension when one becomes their victim.

No longer are they dry numbers about joblessness and economic torpor in Southern California. They represent my blood, my tears. For the first time in 27 years I have no employer, no office to which to go.

The irony is that I am finally doing exactly what I have longed to do all my life. After a forced “early retirement” at age 51, I am independent and self-employed. But I come to this independence as the result of a macro-economic phenomenon over which I have absolutely no control. It carries an incalculable mental strain.

A few months ago when my good-paying job was eliminated, I remember co-workers looking at me (as an upper middle managememt employee among the company’s “top 100”) as if I were a walking cadaver. Their eyes were filled with pity.

I felt lost, unwanted, used, worthless. And worst of all, I felt like I had no real identity anymore without the company affiliation and a high title. It stung me right in the gut.

Although no one would have admitted it if I had called it to their attention, fellow workers--particularly people at my same level and status in the organization--shied away from me. Very few people called me to ask what had happened or how I was feeling. The people who did are etched in my mind as real humans.

I began a full-time work career in 1968, the year national news magazines carried cover stories proclaiming “God is Dead.” At the end of 1994--after 27 years of continuous employment--those same national news magazines now declare “The Job is Dead!”

But luckily for many of us the age of the “independent consultant” is just beginning. So now I hope to help companies make up for the shortage of middle management that the current economy is causing. In theory, fewer jobs at banks, aerospace factories and utilities will mean more small businesses providing services larger companies no longer want to provide for themselves.

I went through many sleepless nights and cold-sweat days before adopting a basically sanguine outlook on my situation. Within a month of my job being eliminated, a long-time, close personal friend died in Chicago. That reminded me of life’s unpredictable, fragile duration. During “severance” negotiations with my employer, my wife, who has been very supportive, began to have reservations about our financial situation. I experienced two consecutive days of the first clear, deep depression I have ever suffered. For the first time in my life, I felt like I had no viable options.

Fortunately, I have always wanted to work at home, free to set my own schedule and rules. And of course I dreamed of lucrative pay and public recognition.

But dreams rarely include the “marketing” part of successful one-person businesses. Consulting is first sales. And I have never viewed myself as an astute salesperson. Everybody, it seems, is a “prospect” for business. Few, however, turn into paying clients.

Nevertheless, today I sit in my converted guest room in my home, a makeshift office hoping to become the real thing. I am close to a combination phone-fax-answering machine that is fresh out of the box. My computer and laser printer are poised for work. A mini-copying machine is close by, plugged in and freshly dusted.

The future is unclear, but I know one thing: What happens will depend entirely on me--no corporate hierarchy or fickle executive.

If only the phone would ring.