Panic about redundancy

[Ava1999]

In my working life I’ve been at risk of, or made redundant four times. The last time was just before the first lockdown and I just managed to get a new job before my advance warning period ran out. I am the main wage earner in my family. I love my new job, I work with a great team, I get great feedback about my work but every time my boss asks for a chat I panic she’s going to tell me I’m at risk of redundancy. Like today, first thing this morning she popped into my office to mention a few things she needed me to do like rearranging a meeting and some website corrections and followed up with, oh there is something else but it’s a longer conversation so I’ll schedule a catch up. Rational me is pretty sure it’s about the recruitment for her replacement as she’s leaving and I’ll be organising it, irrational me thinks it’s about redundancy as I know we are meant to be reducing costs and our whole budget goes on payroll so we can only save there. So I spent all day in a panic and left with no catch up meeting yet in my diary.

Thanks for listening

[.Poppy.]

I have the same issue - I have a good job and it's very secure but still, any time a supervisor says they "need to talk" I'm just sure it's bad. My work hired on a new boss and we had a get to know you meeting set up, and it turned out to be just that - but all week I was fretting and afraid that he was going to lay me off or change my role substantially.

If you know your boss well, maybe ask if she can give you a topic for chats she's putting off? Just something like "oh, we'll need to talk later, but don't fret, it's just about scheduling". If you don't think you can make that request, maybe try the trick where you set aside five minutes to worry and fret, and when that time is over it's over. No more mulling it over or fretting, just shove it out of your mind and get on with it.

Best of luck with your meeting, I'm sure it will go fine.

[Rad1]

I hope all went ok since then