By Joan Passarelli

Photo by Monique Schoenfeld, Town Crier

How local casualties are confronting endemic downsizing

The career of project manager Susan Slakey, 41, was enviable last November. After being in a stable position for four years, she had just left to take a great job as a consultant. The future looked promising.

Then, in February of this year, Slakey was laid off. Undaunted, she immediately started a job search with the same persistence she had brought to her work.

Four times since then, Slakey has emerged from a grueling interview process as the top candidate and accepted a job offer. Each time, she was laid off before ever working a day.

“I felt horrible,” said Slakey. “I was shouting, crying, angry. I’d won the contest, only to find the prize taken away - I felt devalued.”

Nationwide unemployment is at a four-year high. Silicon Valley has seen thousands of layoffs this year alone, and is waiting for more from the HP-Compaq merger. A slump in the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 may bring more hard times.

Many people in our community are suffering from the economic downturn. Maureen Wadiak, director of program management at the Community Services Agency of Mountain View, confirmed that money is growing tight for many households. CSA is seeing a rise in the number of people coming there for food.

Wadiak also described a ripple effect of the downturn: those who are laid off then reduce the extent to which they employ others. For example, Wadiak described a woman who worked as a nanny for a high-tech professional. When her employer’s hours were cut, her own were cut to match. With fewer hours and less pay, this woman now goes to CSA for food.

Debbie Villa, chief operating officer of the Mountain View Chamber of Commerce, noted a similar ripple effect, from big companies to smaller businesses. Hotels now have rooms open during the week; restaurants serve fewer meals; and local companies, like printers, do less business.

“I don’t see it bleak, though,” said Villa. She noted that during the recent boom, businesses often went after only the biggest customers and ignored the rest. “Now we’ll be getting back to basics,” said Villa.

“Businesses will have to focus on good customer service, networking with other businesses and taking care of valuable employees. This is good news for the customer. I’ve seen it every so many years,” said Villa. “This is just another cycle. We’ll weather it.”

Slakey is weathering her own cycle by volunteering to help others through her church. “This is the only thing I’ve been able to do and feel good,” Slakey said. “Helping others helps me put things in perspective. Listening to the oncologist telling my friend about her chemotherapy made me feel like, hey, I’m not that bad off.”

The Rev. Dr. Jim Thomas, with 30 years’ experience as a psychologist and now an Episcopal priest, agreed about looking at the bigger picture. “It’s about developing a bigger plan than just getting a new job,” said Thomas. “It’s about creating a new self.” Thomas said that if one can see a job loss as a window of opportunity for change, one can reassess priorities and improve life overall.

Thomas is leading a group called Transitions for those who have lost their jobs in the downturn.

Thomas and others present different topics each week to the group, which numbers about 25 so far. Themes range from specifics about resumes and interviewing to emotional and spiritual well-being.

One of Thomas’ co-workers on the Transitions series is Karen Purtich, herself a victim of the downturn. Purtich was a director of human resources in various companies for over 20 years. She made it through one layoff a few years ago and found a job, but was laid off again in March of this year.

This time, Purtich said, “I knew God wasn’t going to forsake me. So I didn’t feel the trauma, the terror, of a few years ago.”

Instead, she decided it was time to give something back to the community with her newly free time. Purtich is working with Thomas to bring her human resources and teaching experience into the curriculum of the Transitions group. She continues to look for a new job.

Ivan Temes is another person hurt by the downturn. A former director of customer care, or customer service, for over 20 years, Temes lost his job in May.

Temes had already been laid off twice in recent years, despite glowing reviews from his employers and customers. When his employer Privada closed, without giving severance pay or health coverage, it was the final blow.

“It’s used up all our savings,” Temes said.

Temes, however, feels supported through this difficult time by a recent spiritual experience. In April, just before Privada closed, Temes was hospitalized with an infection. As he lay in the emergency room, attached to intravenous tubes, he saw a flash of bright light.

“It was as if the light was being put right into my body,” Temes, a Jew, said. “And I saw clearly the words, ‘Organizational Healer.’ This is what I’m called to be.”

Temes volunteers to speak and write articles about his specialty, improving customer service, as a way to heal organizations. “I want to help build organizations where people are cared for,” said Temes. “They need to nurture their customer-care employees, then the customer benefits,” he said, echoing Villa’s remarks.

Temes is broadening his job search to other parts of the country.

“I couldn’t uproot my wife and children from their community and schools,” said Temes. “I’m thinking of going somewhere [else] to work and sending money back here.”

Jimmy Kang, home mortgage consultant at Wells Fargo, is intimately familiar with the finances of Silicon Valley workers in this slowdown.

“Consumers are refinancing their mortgages, and not just to take advantage of lower rates,” said Kang. “They want to consolidate debt or pull out cash … People are also selling their houses and moving away entirely.”

Kang is optimistic, however, about the current downturn. “I see a silver lining here, unlike in the early 1990s. People are bouncing back faster, they have more resilience. Unemployment in Silicon Valley is still below the national average,” he pointed out.

Professor Andre Delbecq teaches and researches organizational analysis and management at Santa Clara University and heads the Business and Spirituality Program there.

Delbecq meets with alumni from this program, CEOs, MBAs and senior executive at a weekly meditation session. Several of them have lost their jobs and even their companies.

Delbecq said, “I’ve been so impressed, just awestruck, with the spiritual capacity of these individuals. In some cases they’re facing virtual bankruptcy, and one person lost his home and moved out of the area. But they say they’ve seen it as an opportunity to let go of their illusions of control and grandeur, pride and vanity.”

Delbecq has seen the same phenomenon in his meditation partners as in Slakey, Purtich and Temes: increased caring about others. “When they pray, it’s not for themselves, but for the suffering of their colleagues and friends. Their pain has increased their sensitivity to others’ pain.”

These people who have lost their jobs have found a window of opportunity in their economic hardship. Through faith and helping others, they are creating new and different lives for themselves and finding new meaning in them.