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Sheri was describing the ongoing conflicts that occur once the new beginning is made. Although she had turned the corner on her beginning, her work was thrown back to an earlier stage by economic developments she had no control over. Like Judy Tooley, she wanted to work for herself, but her opportunities continued to be iffy in the current economy. So far, she was living through setbacks, holding on.
Ethel Harris -- Doing It Right or Not at All
Ethel Harris faced conditions similar to Sheri Hood's, but in her transition she chose a path that put her in daily contact with people who were in work transitions themselves.
Ethel is from the steel magnolia tradition, and has had to face overlapping tragedies in her own life as well. Two of the greatest were the loss of a child and a re-structuring/lay-off from an employment company that she had helped make successful. She later established her own employment temp agency, ethel harris incorporated.
From the beginning, Ethel took special pleasure in helping people build back their confidence in temp jobs. She seemed to know what kind of jobs people could take to accomplish that. When I talked to her, someone who had been a top accounting executive with a six-figure income was getting jobs through her agency. He would take anything that came up, even one-day jobs, she said. He was just glad to be able to put his skills to work in the interim, to get up in the morning and have a place to go. Ethel knew that feeling. She had been through it herself. But she found, like Judy and John, that longtime experience and seniority with a company and high salary can work against you.
"The [employment] company I was with merged and my salary was too high," she explains. "They could get rid of me and hire three people to handle my position for the same salary. But they didn't have the contacts. The corporation didn't have a clue what was really going on in this small company. They didn't realize that I was one piece of the pie that made things work. The owner ran the company but he didn't know all of the contracts. I made a list of all the contracts for him. "
After the some time off, she decided to establish her own company. She was determined to use what she had learned and to run the new temp staffing company very much her own way.
"I wanted to operate with quality rather than quantity and have candidates feel the personal touch. Also, I didn't want the same thing to happen to me again in five years. You see the handshake (pointing to the company's logo). That's our trademark. We do everything personally."
Ethel also said, with quiet conviction that seemed to come out of the pain of a long, thoughtful struggle, that she didn't want to "settle" -- not in her work, or in her life.
Does the neutral zone last forever?
Judy Tooley, John Doe, Sheri Hood, and Ethel Harris were all at different stages of transition after being fired or laid off at the time of these interviews. Still, their stories help map the territory that they and many others have to travel. They help us see what happens in the "neutral zone" between losing one's livelihood and getting another -- and they make more visible the courage it takes to go through that transition.
The neutral zone is often accompanied by anxiety and depression. It is often hard to let go of the old to take hold of the new. Paradoxically, it's in this place that people begin to get an idea of what their new lives might be.
During his time in the neutral zone, John was doing more for his daughters and his family than he knew. Judy was working with a Rainbow AIDS group connected with the Methodist Church uptown. Sheri had worked as a committed volunteer with a wildlife association, which helped her see ways to put her love for nature and the environment into an ecologically aware business. Ethel regrouped, using her established skills to start her own business helping others with their own job transitions.
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