Ex-superintendents share experiences of grief after job loss

 

It didn't take Cory Blair long to realize what was about to happen; that his life, and those of his wife and his children were about to be turned upside down.

 

It was about 5 p.m. on Dec. 17, 2008, and he was sitting in his office at the newly opened Rarity Bay golf course outside Knoxville, Tennessee completing paperwork, when a car pulled up outside his office window. Out climbed his general manager and a representative from the Rarity Communities corporate office.

 

"I still remember it vividly. It was one week before Christmas," said Blair, now 44. "I knew the minute I saw them together that I was getting fired."

 

A lot of time has passed since that day in 2008 when Blair lost his job as superintendent over multiple properties for the now-defunct real estate development company. The memories, though, are still fresh.

 

The feeling was like a knife in the back for Blair, who just months earlier had opened the Bob Cupp-design.

 

"I was shell-shocked. I had worked for the company for five years, and we had just opened a great golf course," he said. "They gave me one month's severance for five years of service."

 

That modest settlement came with a confidentiality clause that prevented him from publicly discussing his employment separation. The way everything was handled had robbed him of some of his dignity, at least temporarily.

 

"I was scared at that point. It wasn't much, but it was a month's severance," he said. "We had two young kids at home, and I needed the money.

 

"I really wanted to bury these people because of some of the things I had seen happening, but I couldn't. I think some people use that fear against you.

 

"I was here on Day 1 driving a bulldozer when we started taking down trees, and I was here when it opened. We had build a great golf course, and that's something they can't take away from me."

 

Ironically, Blair taught a class for years at the Golf Industry Show on how to avoid getting fired and what comes next if you do. It never occurred to him that he might have to follow his own advice. His class covered coping with the grief associated with job loss and helped provide the tools needed to eventually move on and find a new job. 

 

While researching curriculum for his class, Blair discovered that many experts compared the grief experienced from job loss to the death of a close family member.

 

Executive career coach Andy Robinson agrees.

 

The symptoms of job-loss grief "are quite similar to the symptoms of death-related grief," Robinson writes.

 

"And just as a severe physical injury can take a long time to heal, the death of a loved one, a divorce, or even a job loss normally means a substantial period of grief.

 

"Family symptoms for job-loss grief may be considerably different from those for death-related grief, although there are some similarities. The two immediate tasks are the same, however. The family needs to be a primary support group and must adjust to the new situation by changing the way it operates."

 

In Blair's case, he found immediate support from his wife, Natasha, but in retrospect he admits the entire experience pulled at the thread that eventually unravelled their marriage.

 

"After I was fired, she was very supportive," he said. "I don't know who was more mad when it happened, her or me. She knew how hard I had worked.

 

"When it happened, we sat down and talked about where we wanted to live and where we wanted to raise our children."

 

In an ideal world, Blair had hoped to find work as a superintendent at another course in the Knoxville area to avoid uprooting his wife from her job as an engineer at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Eventually, they had decided they would relocate to Atlanta, which promised more opportunities in what at the time was a downtrodden economy.

 

"Finding a new job became my new job," he said. "I worked on that for hours every day."

 

Blair quickly found work with Stovall & Co., an irrigation supply company and Rain Bird distributor in Atlanta. His wife continued to work at Oak Ridge and lived in Tennessee while she sought other opportunities in Atlanta. She wasn't as fortunate, often cramming five days of work into three or four days so she could be with the rest of the family in Atlanta. 

 

"By then, the economy was in a shambles, and nobody was hiring anyone, much less a specialized engineer like she is," Blair said. "She couldn't find a job (in Atlanta). That's what started everything."

 

Nearly three years of a long-distance relationship eventually became too much for them to bear, and they divorced in 2012.

 

Blair has custody of the couple's two children, now aged 14 and 12. Every other weekend they spend with their mom, either in Tennessee or in Atlanta when she comes to watch them compete in sports.

 

"I didn't realize how much she was busting her ass, working 36 hours in three days," he said. "She was killing herself to spend three days a week with us. I didn't acknowledge that.

 

"Eventually, I came out of the divorce OK, but I wouldn't want to go through it again."

 

Anthony Williams went through a similar situation just recently at Stone Mountain Golf Club in the Atlanta area when Marriott Golf eliminated his position last year after he spent 30 years with the company. Compartmentalizing the experience and putting it away has been a challenge because his wife, Phyllis, works in the administrative offices of the Marriott hotel on the same property.

 

In fact, shortly after he was "retired" Williams was picking up his wife from work when he went past the 36-hole golf club and noticed the lake on the property backing up onto one of the courses because of a clogged intake.

 

"I was going to stop the car and get out and fix it when I remembered I wasn't responsible for that anymore," Williams said. 

 

Like Blair, Williams also is a regular on the conference speaking circuit on topics of career development and motivational techniques. When faced with a job loss, even the always-positive Williams was knocked backward. It didn't help that he received notice of his forced retirement a little more than a year after his wife had suffered a heart attack and one year to the day after he had open heart surgery.

 

Trying to put a light-hearted spin on summing up his feelings, he fell back on a1960s TV show.

 

"It was like when Batman was about to be dropped into acid, but he always escapes," he said. "I didn't escape. They eliminated my job.

 

"When your employer puts you out in the streets, it sucks. Anyone who says otherwise is lying, even if you're (professional motivational speaker) Tony Robbins. When you know you've been outright wronged, there is no silver lining to that."

 

As the newly minted head of sales and marketing of Jacksonville, Florida-based Green Technologies, he sees others of his generation who still are in the business fearing for their jobs, and others who are younger and still oblivious to what might await them in 10 or 20 years.

 

"I have loved the golf business, but it's a two-edged sword," he said. "There is some real fear out there, then there are others don't realize there is a tiger out there waiting to chew their leg off."

 

He too found the process of getting over the loss of his job not unlike mourning the loss of a loved one.

 

"It's a very personal thing, and you have to cope with the loss," he said. "I put a nice double-cut on my front yard for a few weeks because I had no function, no purpose."

 

To get through the process, he eventually took to heart the same advice he gives others during his speaking engagements. That formula includes taking a week to reflect on what has happened, writing journal notes and conducting service work to help others to "get your mind back in the right place."

 

"You have to punctuate all those sentences and do something that is right, or you will stew in a dark place," he said. 

 

"The only way to get on the saddle and put this in a positive light is to wrassle all those things up and put them behind you. When you finally get to the other end, it will be in a better place."

 

He didn't have to look far for support while trying to get to that spot.

 

"Phyllis has always been my No. 1 fan," he said. "She told me she was glad it happened and that I should find something that makes me happy. And I think she also said get something that pays the bills.

 

"It definitely puts a strain on the relationship, and if you were already having trouble, something like this would be gas on the fire. She told me 'I'm here with you, and our family is not going to end because of this.' When it comes to picking wives, I made a good choice. She has always picked me up and put me back together."

 

That support helped provide the tools he needed to get back about the task of finding another job.

 

"When you get bounced, you feel stuck in the mud, and that feeling grows like a fungus," he said. "You have to find the drive in you.

 

"Like they say in The Shawshank Redemption" 'you can get busy living, or you can get busy dying.' "

 

Initially, he hoped that new start would include another job as a superintendent, but that was a short-lived dream.

 

"I recognized if someone didn't drive up to the house in the first two months and offer me a job as a superintendent that my life was going to change," he said.

 

"You can't wait for the next opportunity when you're a 50-something golf course superintendent. You have to go create it."

 

Williams says it's not too late to reinvent himself. His plans include studying online for an MBA and after that, who knows?

 

"I'm in the fourth quarter, but I'm still young enough to make it count," he said. "If I was 62, then maybe I'd be in the 2-minute warning, but I'm not. I'm still driven and focused on success, but it's not about salary any more. It's about quality of life and putting me and my family in a good place."