My stages of loss

I was driving to a Boy Scout function last night (I recently agreed to take over as Scoutmaster of my old troop), and I had a realization, which lead to my thinking about the stages of loss, and how that fits into my loss of my job...now granted I understand that my loss isn't the same as someone who looses a loved one, or finds out that they are going to die themselves, so I get that I may not have all the classic 5 stages.

First, my realization; I was thinking about what I wanted to say to a potential employer in an interview, and I was thinking about how I have performed over the last 5 years at my previous company and one thought came to mind, something I have said and thought about several times. Family is the most important thing to me and protecting my family is one of my most important jobs. (That isn't the part I wanted to say) To that end, I have always thought that doing my best and giving extra to my company to help them be profitable and successful was important to meet that goal. By my company staying afloat, I'd have a job, and my family would have money coming in, and all would be well. As I was thinking about this, I realized that I had done all of that...I worked on Holidays, I spent countless overnights at the office, or at home connected into the office, fixing things, working on things, putting in tons of overtime (that I wasn't paid for) to help the company succeed...I even gave up vacations and put them off because I was asked to for the good of the company/project (when I was laid off, I had 3 weeks of PTO that I had been asked to hold off on using; and I wasn't given that in cash on leaving..that time/money just disappeared)...so I did my job, I did my part, I did what I was supposed to...I didn't fail the company...but in this instance, someone in the company failed the company, and since I'm the one out of the job, they failed me.

Perhaps I'm moving towards the Anger stage of loss, but if in fact the reason for my layoff was because of the economic times and the company (after securing a big 3 nationwide player and four new clients in the past four months) was in a need to reduce expenses, then someone failed, with all these big and new clients, we should have been rolling in the money and hiring new people. So why didn't the person who failed the company get fired...well probably because it falls on one of the companies officers, and they aren't about to fire themselves, I get that, but it just doesn't seem right that I worked so hard and gave up so much to keep the company successful, then I'm kicked out.

I know I'm not the only one who feels this way, I've heard others say similar things; and it isn't reasonable to think that the owner of the company should or even could be fired...in the end, the owners are the ones who invest the most...they started the company and without them I wouldn't have had the same last five years...and if the company fails, they loose everything...all I loose is my source if income....

Ok, enough of that, I have it out of my system. Life sucks sometimes, all you can do is work through it and move on and it helps that I have so many good friends and family to offer encouragement and reassurance.