Give Your Pink Slip a Silver Lining

For many overworked employees, the meltdown of dot-coms is a psychological blessing. What is traditionally overlooked by out-of-work careerists is that a rapid return to monetarily gainful employment may be the worst thing that could happen in terms of their long-term psychological health. Instead, for anyone laid off who can afford it, an intentional hiatus from work can work wonders for their self-esteem.

Laid-off workers would do well to use their current status as an opportunity to invest in their legacy, regardless of how old they are or the stage of development their career was in when temporarily interrupted. Their pink slips can be exchanged for lifetimes of psychological satisfaction if they engage in a process known as generativity.

According to the psychoanalyst Erik Erikson, generativity is a concern for establishing or guiding the development of successive generations through intellectual and spiritual support. This has nothing to do with producing offspring and everything to do with making contributions to social activism, education or mentoring that promote a psychological connection to the whole of mankind.

Generativity is a difficult concept for American careerists to embrace because we so often find ourselves measuring self-worth by what we do for a living. This attitude remains entrenched despite countless examples of successful people who, when forced to retire from stellar careers, clamor desperately for a “personal legacy� that has nothing to do with job performance.

The good news is that without foreclosing a single option for future career success, many victims of dot-com demises can pursue one of the following generativity sabbaticals:

* Be charitable with your mind and body, not your checkbook. Every person angered by a social injustice can contribute. When lawyer Barry Scheck does pro bono work for the Innocence Project, which seeks to overturn wrongful death sentences, he aims to better the world in a way appropriate for his values and skills.

* Teach. Workers often have talents that could be put to use in any one of hundreds of agencies modeled after Head Start or the Peace Corps. Big Brother or Big Sister agencies are tailor-made for the person seeking to fulfill the goals of a generative lifestyle. These efforts are labor-intensive and typically not headline-grabbing, but the goal is to feel good while doing good. Will the creators of Pets.com be remembered a decade from now for anything other than the brief stardom of their sock puppet?

* Find religion. Tom Monaghan, founder of Domino’s Pizza and former owner of the Detroit Tigers, established Legatus to help Roman Catholic executives study, live and spread the faith in their business, professional and personal lives. Latin for ambassador, Legatus is patterned after the Young Presidents’ Organization, an international support group for business leaders. But while the latter group is devoted to making its members better executives, Legatus aims to make members better Christians. While you need not endorse Monaghan’s personal goals, which include using his fortune to finance Catholic schools and to support politicians who oppose abortion, his aspiration to recognize the value inherent in working toward an ideal is laudable.

Granted, employed and well-off people like Scheck and Monaghan are able to pursue altruism more easily than are laid-off middle-income programmers with mortgages. But since many employment counselors advise it can take six months to a year to find a new job, why not use the time between dispatching resumes to better the world--and yourself as well?

The Bible’s Book of Proverbs warns, “He that trusteth in his riches shall fall.�

Those who use the opportunity that being laid off from a fast-track career has given them to pursue generative activities can develop trust in themselves as people, not merely as producers.

That will yield psychological riches beyond their wildest expectations.