The Daily Recruiter

Many of my close friends as well as my sister recently took voluntary separation packages from the large newspaper company for whom I toiled for 14 years.

I was long gone, but I still kept tabs on the shocking demise of my former industry, so the announcement of a buyout offer for anyone employed in the newsroom for at least five years didn’t take me by surprise.

What did surprise me was how many people had the guts to take the deal—seventy-five—and how many of them, especially my sister, Susan, who had edited the food pages for 18 years, handled the evaporation of their careers.

Yes, there were tears. But weeks before her last day arrived my sister embraced the idea of starting a whole new professional life as a cookbook author, slow food activist, restaurant consultant, recipe developer, magazine writer, Web site entrepreneur and whatever other opportunities should come her way.

How did she manage such a positive attitude when she was losing a job she loved?

She drew inspiration from those who were driven from New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. Many landed in Atlanta. They were dazed, confused, sunburned and grateful to have gotten out. Several said they wanted desperately to go home, but they had no home to return to, so they were instead planning a new life in Atlanta. A few said they had wanted to make changes for a long time, but it took a hurricane to push them out of their comfortable existence.

My sister and her colleagues were in a stunned state of disbelief as they packed up their desks and said their good-byes. They knew the decision was final. The newspaper business no longer holds opportunities for them. They can’t return to the comfort of the newsroom if life on the outside is harder than they imagined. They can’t go to another paper in another city, because the same problems of plummeting readership and ad revenue have hit all newspapers. This isn’t a cyclical economic downturn, it’s the disintegration of newspapers as we knew them. New media opportunities will take the place of the old, and no one from the old guard is guaranteed a job.

So, what can you do? Laugh, cry, get out the Rolodex, make lists of things you might want to do, set up a Facebook page, hook into LinkedIn, learn some new computer tricks, rework your résumé, join associations, order business cards, figure out how to stretch the severance money and have faith that somehow things will work out. There is no home to return to but, after so many years or writing and editing food stories, winning awards and knocking out cookbooks on the side, my sister has the tools to build a new home. I can’t wait to be invited over for dinner.