Employment Anxiety Abound

Count this one as a personal journal entry.

Complete with ranting and raving about the job market, health insurance needs, and the state of political and economic affairs.

It’s my blog and all write what I want to.

I came across a work assignment, not too long ago that instantly brought anxiety and fear, followed by lingering mental health concern about my own employment.

The assignment name: “How to manage depression after a job loss.”

Well, fuuuuuuuuck.

Thankfully, then and since then and now and for as much as I can predict any day into the future, my job security appears to be intact. That’s not saying much these days, and it’s about as predictable and guaranteeable as the Michigan weather in March or November.

(See also: not at all.)

For context, my career position is a mid-level edger and writer for a health information site. By and large, I’ve been doing much of the same thing in a similar way since 2012, with team and focus shifts on a semi-periodic basis since 2022.

There were acquisitions and paycheck-signer switches a few times over the years, but for the most part, my remote home office has been a stable spot.

Anyhow, when this anxiety-raising assignment came my way, it followed a series of company layoffs. These were small and large, over the 3 years prior.

Somehow, I had managed to survive each of those rounds.

I procrastinated on the article for a bit, but I finally took care of it and put the anxiety behind me as much as possible - even as the country was continuing to slide down the economic toilet, and increased anarchy by the current leadership was making job losses, a common mainstream news nugget.

(Hey, hey you! Yeah you, orange-stained ass 🤡 in the White House…. Fuck off.)

Ranting aside, I did the work. Then suddenly, about three months after I’d wrapped up that assignment, sudden mass layoffs materialized out of nowhere.

This was a shockingly large round of cost-cutting, with people at all levels and across all teams getting the axe.

This included some people that I had worked directly with and under in recent years, and or in no way unproductive or not stars of the editorial content side of the company.

It struck everyone hard, and those of us left were in a dizzying fog without clear direction or reassurance of what was ahead.

Again, I found myself on the surviving side. Of course, this once again brought survivors guilt.

My imposter syndrome was in full swing. I suspect that it also played apart in my mental health and overall health dip there for a bit.

Now, weeks later, I see many of those colleagues and professional all-stars on LinkedIn and other social media platforms. Some share their stories and how they’re doing. Some have been more tightlipped and quiet, even if they privately share how much stress and fear they’re experiencing.

It all breaks my heart. But it also makes me nervous about my own career path ahead.

Now, in my late 40s, I have no dissolution of early retirement. My career choice has never been a high paying one, though we’ve managed to do well enough through the years.

Even in an ideal world, I’d have another 20 years of professional work. Thanks to my T1D, health insurance is a necessity and guiding factor in decision-making - whether it’s through my wife’s or my own employment.

Yes, side-writing gigs and freelancing and starting my own content creation are always intriguing possibilities.

But realistically, these are probably not my option for full-time work… simply because of the health insurance side of everything. Sure, the money matters, too, because we have to pay the mortgage and the bills, but health insurance is always the key.

Anyhow, the state of affairs these days it’s not an optimistic one for so many people.

Journalism is all I’ve really known and done in my professional adult life, from college to current. That’s included print newspaperIng, magazine, writing, advocacy journalism, and digital health content creation. I’ve maintained a bit of creative writing in small doses in other places, but mostly my writing and editing career has been journalism focused.

Yes, newspapers have been dying and journalism has been taking its dying breath, since before I even became aware of it and set my sights on this path in middle school.

Our profession has evolved, but it’s certainly not going to die. Even if truth has become a twisted puzzle of conspiracy, disinformation, and billshit in the past decade or so.

Still, what’s next for me? When will that shoe drop? Will it come unexpectedly and suddenly, or will I have an opportunity to plan and ease into it as I’ve mostly had the privilege of in my adult career?

I’m secure for the moment, and there’s no obvious sign that 2026 will change that. But again, the theme is no one really knows.

Only time will tell.