The Day I Got Made Redundant Was the Best Bad Day of My Life

Nobody tells you that redundancy can be a relief.

Everyone expects you to be devastated. And for about ten minutes, I was. Thirty-plus years in office administration, and suddenly the structure that had shaped every single one of my days was just... gone.

But underneath the shock, something else was sitting there quietly. Relief.

I hadn't let myself feel it before, because I'd been so busy being useful to everyone else. Busy doesn't leave room for honesty. It took losing the job entirely for me to admit I'd been ready to leave it long before it left me.

Here's what nobody prepares you for when you've spent decades in one kind of work: your identity gets tangled up in it, whether you meant it to or not. I wasn't just "someone who worked in admin." Somewhere along the way, I'd started believing that was simply who I was — sensible, reliable, behind the scenes, not the type to do anything different.

Redundancy cracked that open. Not gently. But it cracked it open all the same.

In the months before, I'd broken my wrist and ended up off work on ACC, filling the unexpected downtime with personal development books and podcasts. I wasn't looking for anything specific — just quietly restless, the way you get when you sense there's more to you than your job title suggests.

So when the redundancy actually came, I wasn't starting from zero. I'd already been circling something new, even if I hadn't fully admitted it to myself yet. The job ending just removed my last excuse to keep circling instead of landing.

I want to be honest about the fear, too. Starting something different later in life is genuinely scary. There's a very specific kind of fear that shows up around it — not just "will this work," but "is it too late for me to be anyone other than who I've already been."

I don't think that fear ever fully goes away. I still feel it sometimes. But I've learned it's not a stop sign. It's just what change feels like when you've been the same thing for a long time.

What actually got me moving wasn't confidence. It was being fed up enough with letting other people and circumstances decide the shape of my life. I wanted to set my own hours, work from wherever I chose, and build something that was mine — not because I had it all figured out, but because I was finally ready to find out.

That's the part I'd say to anyone sitting in their own version of my redundancy moment, whatever that looks like for you: you don't need to feel ready. You just need to be done waiting to feel ready.

The business I've built since — Caring Abundance — came out of exactly that decision. Not a five-year plan. Just one honest, slightly terrified "right, this is it" moment, followed by a lot of small steps after it.

If you're in your own quiet moment of circling something new, unsure whether it's really for you, or whether it's too late, or whether you're the "type" to do something different — I'd gently say: you probably already know. You're just waiting for permission you don't actually need.

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Jeanne Dickson spent over 30 years in office administration before starting again, later in life, with Caring Abundance — a personal development business built on the belief that it's never too late for a brighter tomorrow. Find her at caringabundance.com.