2019 was an exceptional year for us. Both my wife (then fiancee) and I started careers with new employers, got engaged, and visited India together for the first time. By the end of the year, we had also seriously begun planning for our Indian wedding ceremony. We had barely finished our engagement photoshoot in March 2020 and started planning for our wedding website when COVID-19 established a new normal. The pandemic didn’t impact most of our loved ones’ health, and we are thankful for that! We had to postpone our Indian wedding ceremony indefinitely- it was a bummer, but it didn’t bother us for too long. However, COVID-19 did bring a stressful period for us- in October 2020, there was a month when both my wife and I were unemployed. My wife works in the events industry, which was decimated by the pandemic, and her employer furloughed 90% of the workforce. However, my reason for losing my job was not that straightforward. Because of lockdowns, USCIS (the regulatory authority in the US that oversees and processes visas) was running at a reduced capacity and that led to delays in the processing of my visa paperwork. This paperwork was necessary for me to remain employed (on a skilled immigrant visa, named H-1B). Since it didn’t arrive timely, I had to separate from my firm. After reflecting on the time when both of us were unemployed, I’ve documented the following lessons:
Lessons learned from losing my job
Lessons learned from losing my job
Lessons learned from losing my job
2019 was an exceptional year for us. Both my wife (then fiancee) and I started careers with new employers, got engaged, and visited India together for the first time. By the end of the year, we had also seriously begun planning for our Indian wedding ceremony. We had barely finished our engagement photoshoot in March 2020 and started planning for our wedding website when COVID-19 established a new normal. The pandemic didn’t impact most of our loved ones’ health, and we are thankful for that! We had to postpone our Indian wedding ceremony indefinitely- it was a bummer, but it didn’t bother us for too long. However, COVID-19 did bring a stressful period for us- in October 2020, there was a month when both my wife and I were unemployed. My wife works in the events industry, which was decimated by the pandemic, and her employer furloughed 90% of the workforce. However, my reason for losing my job was not that straightforward. Because of lockdowns, USCIS (the regulatory authority in the US that oversees and processes visas) was running at a reduced capacity and that led to delays in the processing of my visa paperwork. This paperwork was necessary for me to remain employed (on a skilled immigrant visa, named H-1B). Since it didn’t arrive timely, I had to separate from my firm. After reflecting on the time when both of us were unemployed, I’ve documented the following lessons: