Chapter 14: When You Lose Your Position

Thirty Years and a Short Letter

Harald is fifty-eight and has worked for thirty years at a factory that makes glass bottles. He started on the production line at twenty-eight and worked his way up to supervisor of the furnace section, one of the most demanding and skilled jobs in the plant. He knows the furnaces the way a farmer knows his fields. He has trained dozens of younger workers. He has rarely missed a day.

Last month, the factory's owners announced a reorganization. Some of the work would be moved to a newer plant elsewhere, and the furnace section would be run with fewer supervisors. Harald was called into an office and given a short letter. His position would end in three months. He would receive the payment required by his contract. The manager who gave him the letter was polite but uncomfortable, and the meeting lasted ten minutes.

Harald walked out of the factory that day feeling as if he had been struck. He did not feel only the loss of an income, though that worried him greatly. He felt the loss of a place, a purpose and an identity. For thirty years, he had been "Harald from the furnaces". He had been needed, respected and trusted. Now, at fifty-eight, he did not know who he was or what he would do. He was ashamed to tell his friends. He could not sleep. Some mornings, he did not want to get out of bed.

Losing a position is one of the hardest experiences in a working life. It can happen through dismissal, reorganization, the closing of a business, a demotion, the end of a contract or a project taken away. It can happen at any age, to anyone, often through no fault of their own. And it can shake not only our finances but our sense of who we are.

Machiavelli knew this experience from the inside. He did not write about it as a distant observer. He wrote about it as a man who had lost everything he had worked for, and who spent the rest of his life trying to recover. His story, and some of his ideas, may offer companionship and some practical wisdom to anyone who has lost their position.

Machiavelli's Own Fall

As we saw in Chapter 1, Machiavelli served his city-republic for fourteen years as a senior official and envoy. He was good at his work and proud of it. He had travelled to the courts of powerful rulers, written important reports and organized a citizen militia. Then, in 1512, the republic fell, and the family that had previously ruled the city returned to power. Within weeks, Machiavelli was dismissed from all his posts.

Worse was to come. Early in 1513, his name was found on a list of people connected with a plot against the new rulers. He was arrested and imprisoned. He was questioned harshly and subjected to a painful form of torture that was common in that time. He had not taken part in the plot, and he did not confess to anything. After some weeks, he was released as part of a general pardon. But his career was over. He was in his forties, with a wife and young children, without income and under suspicion.

Machiavelli withdrew to a small farm outside the city. In letters to a friend from those years, he wrote of his poverty and of feeling useless, and of his strong wish to be employed again in serious work. In the famous letter of December 1513, which we met in Chapter 1, he described his days of idleness at the inn and his evenings of study with the books of ancient writers. He also explained that he hoped the little book he had written, The Prince, might show the new rulers his ability and lead them to employ him. He said that he would be willing to start with even the humblest task, if only he could serve again (letter to a friend, December 1513).

The new rulers did not employ him for many years. Machiavelli spent this long period writing, thinking and keeping in touch with friends. His most important works came from these years of exile. Eventually, he received some smaller commissions, including a request to write a history of his city. But he never regained the position he had lost. And when, in 1527, the republic was briefly restored, its new leaders distrusted him because he had sought employment with the family they had overthrown. He died that same year, without the recognition he had hoped for.

Machiavelli's story is not a simple story of triumph after loss. It is a story of a man who lost his position, suffered greatly and never fully recovered it. And yet, in the years after his loss, he did the work for which he is remembered five hundred years later. His evenings of study, his writing and his refusal to stop thinking about the things he cared about turned the worst period of his life into the most productive.

The Same Spirit in Every Fortune

In the Discourses, Machiavelli wrote about how strong people respond to changes in fortune. In the thirty-first chapter of the third book, he observes that excellent people, like strong republics, keep the same spirit and the same dignity in every kind of fortune. If fortune raises them up, they do not become arrogant. If fortune throws them down, they do not become abject. Weak people, by contrast, are made proud and insolent by good fortune and humble and fearful by bad fortune (Discourses, Book 3, chapter 31).

Machiavelli gave the example of an ancient Roman leader who was exiled by his own city, then recalled in a moment of crisis to save it, and who behaved with the same calm dignity in exile as in triumph. His spirit, Machiavelli says, did not change with his position. He knew who he was, whatever others did to him.

This idea connects with something we have seen throughout this book: the difference between what is truly our own and what is borrowed. A position, a title, a salary and a desk are, in a sense, borrowed. They are given by an employer and can be taken away. But our skills, our character, our knowledge, our relationships and our dignity are our own arms. They go with us when the position goes. A person who has built their sense of self on their own arms, rather than on their position, is better able to keep the same spirit in every fortune.

This is not easy, and it is not meant to suggest that losing a position should not hurt. It hurts a great deal. Machiavelli himself was clearly in pain during his years of exile, as his letters show. Keeping the same spirit does not mean feeling no grief. It means not letting the loss decide who we are. Harald is still a skilled furnace supervisor, a trainer of young workers and a reliable, hard-working man. The letter took his position. It did not take those things.

Machiavelli's own evening ritual is a powerful example of keeping one's spirit. Stripped of his position, poor and under suspicion, he still dressed in fine clothes each evening to enter his study and converse with the great minds of the past. He did not do this to deceive anyone. Nobody saw him. He did it for himself, to remind himself that he was still a serious person engaged in serious work, whatever fortune had done to him.

Harald's Evening Study

For the first few weeks after receiving his letter, Harald was in a dark place. He stayed at home, avoided friends and spent long hours watching television. His wife was worried. She encouraged him to talk to their doctor, who listened carefully, asked about his sleep and mood and talked with him about support that might help. She also encouraged him to talk to a friend who had lost his own job a few years earlier and had found new work.

The friend's advice was practical. "First, find out exactly what you are entitled to," he said. "Then give yourself a little time to be angry and sad. Then give yourself a routine, because without one, the days will swallow you." Harald contacted an official advice service to understand his rights and the support available to him, which gave him some peace of mind about the immediate future.

Then he thought about the routine. When Harald read about Machiavelli's evening ritual in a book a nephew had lent him, something about it moved him. He decided to create his own version. Each morning, he would get up at the same time as when he worked, dress properly and spend the morning on his search for new work: updating his records of experience, contacting people, looking at opportunities. In the afternoons, he would do something physical: repairs in the house, walks, helping a neighbour with his garden.

And in the evenings, like Machiavelli, he would study. He had always been interested in the science of glass and furnaces, but had never had time to learn more than his job required. Now he borrowed books from the library and began to read about materials, heat and the history of glassmaking. He found it absorbing. For those hours, he forgot his worries. He was not an unemployed man. He was a craftsman deepening his knowledge of his craft.

Six months later, Harald was offered a position at a technical college, training young people in the operation of industrial furnaces. It paid less than his old job, but he found it deeply satisfying. His evening studies had made him a better teacher, because he could now explain not only how things were done, but why. "I lost my position," he says, "but I did not lose myself. Those evenings with the books reminded me every day that I was still the same man, with the same skills. The factory could take my job. It could not take that."

Constance and the Demotion

Constance is thirty-four and was, until recently, the manager of a team of eight in the customer service department of an insurance company. After a reorganization, her team was combined with another, and the other team's manager was put in charge of both. Constance was offered a role as a senior team member, with the same pay but no management responsibility. She accepted, because she needed the job, but she felt humiliated.

Constance's situation was in some ways harder than losing her job entirely. She now had to work every day under the person who had taken her position, among the team members she had once led. She felt that everyone was watching her, waiting to see how she would react. Some days, she felt like crying at her desk. Other days, she felt angry and was tempted to criticize the new manager behind her back.

Constance thought about Machiavelli's idea of keeping the same spirit in every fortune. She realized that the way she behaved now would shape her reputation for years. If she became bitter, resentful or obstructive, as Machiavelli's weak people did in bad fortune, she would confirm that she had not deserved to be a manager. If she behaved with dignity and professionalism, she would show that she was the same capable person she had always been.

Constance decided to be what Machiavelli would call excellent in bad fortune. She was courteous and helpful to the new manager, offering her knowledge of the team and its work. She did her own work to a high standard. She did not complain to colleagues. She did allow herself to talk honestly with a trusted friend outside work about her disappointment, which helped her carry it. And she quietly began to develop new skills and to look for management opportunities elsewhere in the company.

A year later, a new management position became available in another department. Constance applied. The new manager she had worked under wrote her a strong recommendation, describing how professionally she had handled a very difficult change. Constance got the position. "The demotion was the hardest year of my working life," she says. "But I learned that how you behave when you lose something says more about you than how you behave when you have it."

Emre and the Project Taken Away

Emre is forty-five and works as an engineer in a company that designs heating systems for large buildings. For two years, he led the design of a major new system for a hospital, a project he cared about deeply. Three months before completion, his manager announced that a more senior engineer would take over the final phase, because the client wanted someone with more experience in hospital projects. Emre would move to a smaller project.

Emre was devastated. He had put his heart into the hospital project. He felt that his work was being taken from him just as it was about to succeed, and that someone else would receive the credit. He was tempted to argue, to complain loudly or to make the handover difficult for the senior engineer.

Emre's partner reminded him of something he had said years earlier, when a colleague had behaved badly in a similar situation: "The way you hand over is the way people remember you." Emre thought about this, and about Machiavelli's warning that weak people become abject or resentful in bad fortune. He decided that he would not let the loss change how he worked.

Emre prepared a thorough handover. He wrote a clear document explaining every part of the design, every decision and every remaining problem. He spent several days working with the senior engineer, answering questions patiently. He told the senior engineer honestly that he was disappointed to leave the project, but that he wanted it to succeed. The senior engineer was grateful and, when the project was completed, made a point of telling the client and the company's directors how much of the design had been Emre's work.

Emre still feels a little sad when he passes the finished hospital. But he is proud of his part in it, and his reputation in the company has grown because of how he handled the loss. The following year, he was given the lead on another major project. "I could have made that handover a battle," he says. "It would have felt good for a week, and it would have hurt me for years. Instead, I gave the project the same care I always had, even though it was no longer mine. That was the only part of the situation I could control."

Ndidi After the First Job Ended

Ndidi is twenty-nine and recently started her first job after finishing her studies, as an assistant in a company that manages properties. After three months, her manager told her that her trial period would not be extended. The manager said that Ndidi worked hard but was not yet fast enough for the role, and that the company needed someone with more experience. Ndidi left that afternoon.

Ndidi was crushed. It was her first real job, and she had wanted so badly to succeed. She felt that she had failed, that she was not good enough and that every future employer would see her as a failure. She did not tell her friends for weeks. She stopped applying for jobs, because she was afraid of being rejected again.

Ndidi's aunt, who had worked in many jobs over her life, helped her see the situation differently. "One job did not work out," she said. "That is all. It does not tell you who you are. Machiavelli lost the most important job of his life, and he went home and wrote the books we still read. You lost your first job. Go home and learn something, and then try again."

Ndidi took the advice in her own way. She asked her former manager, politely, for specific feedback about what she could improve. The manager mentioned that Ndidi had been slow with the property management software and had sometimes hesitated to make decisions without checking. Ndidi enrolled in a short free online course on the software and practised it for several weeks. She also asked her aunt to help her practise making quick, sensible decisions in role-plays. Then she began applying again.

Two months later, she found a position at a smaller company. This time, she felt more confident, and the job went well. "I thought losing that first job meant I was a failure," Ndidi says. "Now I think it meant I was a beginner. Those are very different things." Her story shows that losing a position early in a working life, painful as it is, can become a turning point, if it is met with honesty, learning and courage rather than shame.

Practical Steps: After Losing a Position

The first step is to find out where you stand. If you have lost your job or your position, find out your rights and the support available to you, from your contract, from a trusted official source or from qualified advice. Knowing the facts about your immediate situation, such as payments, notice periods and support services, can reduce some of the fear.

The second step is to allow yourself to grieve. Losing a position is a real loss, and it is natural to feel sad, angry, ashamed or frightened. Do not pretend that it does not hurt. Talk with someone you trust about how you feel. If your low mood is deep, lasts a long time or affects your sleep and daily life, please talk to a doctor or another qualified professional.

The third step is to create a routine. As Harald's friend said, without a routine, the days can swallow you. Get up at a regular time, dress properly and divide your day between practical tasks, such as searching for work, and activities that restore you, such as exercise, time outdoors and time with people you care about.

The fourth step is to keep your own arms sharp. Use some of your time, as Machiavelli did in his evenings, to deepen your knowledge, learn new skills or study your craft. This keeps your mind active, builds your confidence and makes you more valuable for your next position.

The fifth step is to keep the same spirit. However you have been treated, behave with dignity. Hand over your work carefully. Avoid bitterness and public complaints. Speak honestly with trusted friends about your feelings, but act professionally in your working world. How you behave in bad fortune will shape your reputation for years.

The sixth step is to keep in touch with people. Machiavelli kept writing to his friends throughout his exile. Former colleagues, people in your field and friends can offer support, information and opportunities. Many people find new positions through people they know. Let others know, without shame, that you are looking.

Dignity Is Not Pretending

Keeping the same spirit in bad fortune does not mean pretending to feel fine. Machiavelli's letters show a man who was suffering: poor, bored, frustrated and longing to be useful. His dignity was not the absence of pain. It was the refusal to let pain decide who he was. In the same way, you can feel the full weight of your loss and still choose how you behave.

It is also important not to blame yourself for losing a position that you lost through no fault of your own. Reorganizations, closures and economic changes affect many people who have done nothing wrong. Harald did not lose his job because he was a poor worker. He lost it because his employer moved the work elsewhere. Seeing this clearly can ease the shame that often comes with job loss.

At the same time, where there are lessons to learn, as Ndidi found, it is worth learning them honestly. The aim is not to blame yourself, but to grow. Asking for feedback, reflecting on what you might do differently and building new skills are acts of strength, not admissions of failure.

Finally, if losing your position has left you feeling hopeless, or if you ever feel that you might hurt yourself, please seek help right away. Contact a helpline or a medical facility, and in immediate danger call your local emergency number. Losing a job can feel like losing everything. It is not everything. Help is available, and many people who have felt this way have found their way to a new and meaningful working life.

A Short Exercise: Your Evening Study

This exercise is inspired by Machiavelli's evening ritual. It is useful after losing a position, during a long search for work or at any time when your working life feels uncertain. It takes about thirty minutes to plan, and then a regular time each week.

First, write a short list of what you still have, despite your loss. Your skills, your knowledge, your experience, your character, the people who care about you. These are your own arms, the part of you that no employer can take away.

Next, choose one area of your craft or field that you would like to understand more deeply. It might be the science behind your work, its history, a new technique or a related skill. Find a way to study it: books from the library, free courses, conversations with experts or practice at home.

Then set aside a regular time for your study, perhaps two or three evenings a week, for an hour or two. Make it a small ritual. You do not need to dress in fine robes, as Machiavelli did. But you might clear a table, make a cup of tea, put away your phone and sit down with the intention of doing serious work. During this time, you are not someone who has lost a position. You are someone deepening their craft.

After a month, write a few lines about what you have learned and how the study has affected your mood and your confidence. Harald wrote, after his first month: "I know more about glass than I did in thirty years at the furnaces. And for three evenings a week, I forget to be afraid."

Chapter Summary

Machiavelli lost his position when his republic fell in 1512, was imprisoned and harshly treated in 1513 and spent many years in exile on a small farm, hoping to serve again and never fully regaining his place. Yet in those years he wrote the works for which he is remembered, keeping up an evening ritual of serious study (letter to a friend, December 1513). In the Discourses, he wrote that excellent people keep the same spirit and dignity in every fortune, while weak people are made arrogant by good fortune and abject by bad (Book 3, chapter 31).

Harald after thirty years at the factory, Constance after her demotion, Emre after his project was taken away and Ndidi after her first job ended all found that, while they could not control the loss, they could control how they met it: finding out their rights, allowing grief, creating a routine, keeping their skills sharp, behaving with dignity and keeping in touch with people. Dignity is not pretending that loss does not hurt. Where loss leads to hopelessness, help should be sought right away.

In the final chapter, we will look at one of Machiavelli's ideas about renewal: that institutions, and perhaps working lives, can be restored by returning to their beginnings.