Loss of jobs resets values

By Samantha Gross

Associated Press

Eighteen months without a job. Fourteen months. Twelve. It’s been a long, dry spell for many Wall Streeters who were handed their pink slips before hardly anyone was talking recovery.

But a handful of ex-finance industry workers volunteering to work for free as interns in a city-sponsored retraining program seem almost ... happy.

In the current economy, it’s an uncommon reaction to the loss of a job. But for some finance workers the sudden stop has offered a time to reflect.

“It’s really easy when you take that first job and you start building some work experience, to get stuck in a pattern,” said Matt Gatto, a former Lehman Bros. investment manager.

Gatto, 35, called the 14 months he’s been jobless “exciting” and “liberating.”

After years of little more than work, the one-time philosophy major has taken over much of the child care for his 2-year-old son, gotten his MBA, gone back to the gym and learned how to cook. And when he heads back to the office, he wants a life that’s aligned with his values — with a nonprofit or in a company focused on social change.

Successful spouses, princely savings and lucrative severance packages have made self-exploration an attainable luxury for some laid-off employees.

For Agatha Melvin, roughly 18 months of unemployment have offered the global-operations consultant a chance to look ahead.

When she was working 15-hour days, she said she had no clear vision of her future. In what she calls the “pressurized environment” of finance, she had little time to think. Now she has a new sense of what’s important.

She may go back to working long days, but she’ll be carefully considering whether the work is satisfying enough to be worth the hours she pours into it. This time, she’ll be evaluating job offers on more than money. After all, she says, “time is a commodity you can never get back.”