Unemployment is temporary, but mismanaged friendships can be permanent

When I quit my job in 2021, I had a year’s worth of savings to take care of myself. No one knew that of course. Yet, that time taught me everything that I needed to know about what it is that the people around me at the time valued about me. It was a very sobering life experience that I wish everybody to have, if only for the heightened sense of ability to read people and situations with astonishing accuracy.

The missed call is now not just a missed call. The change in attitude is not due to some random event. That joke is not actually a joke but a dig at you. One such incident happened very early on and I caught it.

An acquaintance and I were getting on along very well. We were having great and meaningful conversation, until I revealed to them that I had resigned from my job. Their change in attitude towards me was so swift that it could not be mistaken for anything else. Our interactions immediately turned superficial in a way that stunned me, but that also forced me to finally start seeing the things that were happening right under my nose but that I had been oblivious to for years. The said acquaintance, I have since personally ensured that our interactions remain superficial that way, in case I am suddenly re-liked. My younger self would never have noticed this and would have taken them back oblivious of the fact that the renewed friendship was because of getting back into employment.

Which is why I ask: Why it is that when someone is out of work, even for a split second, we suddenly throw away everything that it is they are, and cannot seem to regard them at all, just because they do not have work anymore?

This is not even about friends, relatives or colleagues who we know are particularly unable to hold down a job because of some deficiency with regards to their own work ethic. I am talking about good, decent people who are honest and hardworking. People who pull their weight with regards to their own responsibilities. People who actually work hard, save money, share their little resources and contribute to the welfare of people close to them and even those that are not their direct responsibility. Those are the people that I am talking about; those very ones who share their little earnings with you; the ones who you call when you need “a ka 20k urgently”, a loan, or some other form of financial bailout. Why is it that we suddenly change our attitude towards them and toss them out when they cannot find work for a brief period of time? Why do we not incline ourselves to help the people who helped us out during our own time of need, but instead distance ourselves from them the only one time they are in need themselves? Why do we act as though by being out of work, these people have asked us to adopt them and shoulder their every responsibility?

Good people, human beings are so much more valuable than their job or their earnings. Train your relationship palate to value people for who they are and not what they do or what they have in material possessions. The inherent wealth that people carry within themselves owing to their character, life experiences, personality and so many other things are worth holding on to. There will always be work to do and your friends will soon find it. You cannot say the same about honest and loyal friends. Your friends will not be unemployed forever. Neither is there guarantee that you too will always have work. Yet that should not be the motivation to care for our friends when they are having a period of being unemployed- voluntary or involuntary. Caring for them and comforting them for its own sake is reason enough.

Let us build communities of mutual support. Offer comfort. Not advice and criticism on how they should get serious and look for a job, no. Believe me, they are trying, it just has not come through yet. Just offer comfort. It is only for a while. Re-affirm to your friends their own worth and value. Let them know that they are still valuable to you, with or without their work and corresponding income. If your friends are honest, trustworthy and loyal, they probably already know how to respect boundaries and not ask more from you than you are able to offer.

Otherwise what we are having now are trails of scarred people. People who were so eager to help others out but could not find a single hand of help when they were in need themselves. Now many have made the decision to look out for themselves only, everybody else be damned. Let us do better for our unemployed friends and family.

Regards,

Anna Grace.