Happily ever after starts with a layoff
At Chris Steuart’s wedding reception Nov. 9, to mounting hilarity, his best man toasted him. “Here’s Chris when he’s happy,” he said, making a face. “Here’s Chris when he’s mad,” and he made another face. He conjured up several other good/bad scenarios, ending each with a facial expression of how Chris would react.
Each reaction was identical -- straight-faced, not too high, not too low.
It was a fun night, because I’d known Sara, the bride, since she was in junior high. For the couple’s first dance as man and wife, they did a number on the hardwood befitting “Dancing With the Stars.” The reception proceeded with the usual mix of laughing, dancing and impromptu singing.
We all left happy.
Four days later, Chris was laid off from the Costa Mesa architectural landscape firm he’d worked for since 1998. The 31-year-old groom became a statistic, part of California’s unemployment rate that’s now above 8%.
With a long-running stake in Sara’s happiness, I checked in on him this week to see how he’s holding up. I asked if the wedding seems like a long time ago. “It’s pretty distant,” he says. “I’ve just kind of been overwhelmed rethinking my career path, rethinking everything. I was just so devastated by this. It’s been a part-time job being Mr. Homemaker and applying for jobs and sending out cover letters.”
If that sounds like he’s wallowing, he’s not. He could sleep in but doesn’t, still getting up at 7 because his mind is geared to working at that hour. Before breakfast, he puts in some networking time on the computer.
He went to work for the firm right out of college, recalling how they’d told him they’d match anyone else’s offer. He was a project manager, but also had a hand in graphic design, websites, technical support and in developing marketing brochures.
He thought his long tenure would protect him from ongoing layoffs. Like millions of other Americans, he’s found you can’t always take that to the bank.
I ask what he misses the most.
“It was just fun to be creative,” he says. “Putting your ideas down on paper and seeing something built, seeing dreams built. Seeing your imagination built is the most rewarding part for me.”
Now, lots of options are on the table. Maybe put architecture on hold for a while. Maybe a new career. Maybe graduate school.
Hopeful? Discouraged? “A combination,” he says. “You get promising phone calls and then you get discouraging phone calls and e-mails. Then you don’t hear back from people, so you get discouraged again, but you keep moving on.”
Complicating things is that he and Sara bought a house six months ago in Aliso Viejo. Their top priority is keeping it, but they’re also committed not to ask their parents for financial help, he says.
Chris, who’s competed in Half Ironman events and might gear up again, chuckles when I remind him of his best man’s toast, about being so temperamentally even. “You always have that worst-case scenario in the back of your mind that pops in at least once a day,” he says. “What if I never find a job, what if we lose the house. You have to keep that in the back of your mind, to keep you motivated.”
Surely, I ask, you must have railed at someone.
“It’s natural to be a little bit angry at the question, ‘What happened?’ ” he says. “I was a little angry with the company. Why choose me over other people still there? The only thing I can point to is it was a financial decision. I’d been there 10 years, so I probably was paid more than a lot of people still there.”
But life at 31 is about looking forward, not back. And so . . .
“I am pretty surprised this happened to me,” he says. “And that panic does set in, like what’s going to happen. But life holds surprises, so you have to accept what’s thrown at you and roll with it.”
And somewhere in all of it, he says, you might even have to laugh at the fact that you got laid off the same week you got married.
I don’t say it, but that’s exactly the kind of attitude I want in the guy who married Sara, who’s a schoolteacher and now the sole bread-winner, except for Chris’ unemployment checks.
Unless she’s keeping secrets, he says, she’s not fretting unduly about the future. “I’m normally upbeat,” he says. “I’ve noticed that what helps me is having a solid home life, a loving companion. It’s definitely saved my sanity. I’m glad she’s so positive.”
And the male psyche that sometimes gets rattled when a husband loses a job?
“I thought about that,” he says. “I didn’t want to seem like the deadbeat husband not trying to find a job and sitting around watching TV. I’ve discovered I’m a pretty good homemaker, doing the laundry, the housecleaning, the cooking.”
That prompts a laugh, but in this economy, you either laugh or cry yourself to sleep.
I think we can assume he’ll work again. I ask for his scenario. “I haven’t really had a scenario,” he says, “because I was so blindsided by this. I shouldn’t have any expectations, because life can throw anything at you -- a better job or a turn for the worse.”
When his boss laid him off, he gave Chris some advice. “He told me to fine-tune my skills and design my dream house, using this software program I’ve been learning over the last few months. I haven’t quite gotten to that part, but I’m using my creativity to fix things around the house, work around the backyard. But eventually, I want to throw my ideas into the dream house.”
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