Edgar Tang, 50, lives in Singapore and was laid off from his job as a video editor at Netflix in March. Rather than immediately looking for another corporate role, he began creating content about rebuilding life after 50. The following has been edited for brevity and clarity.
When I was laid off at 50, I realized I had been preparing for that moment for nearly two decades.
The thing that helped me respond to the situation started years earlier, when I was diagnosed with cancer.
At 32, I was working abroad, and suddenly I was diagnosed with stage three Hodgkin’s lymphoma. That reset what I thought were life’s guarantees. There was trauma from getting cancer at such a young age, and also survivor’s guilt that came from seeing my peers not survive.
I returned home to Singapore to get treatment. After that, I was soul-searching, and ironically, I actually got depressed when my oncologist told me, “I think you are in the clear after three years of testing.”
Usually, people would get excited, but until that point, I thought, “I could get cancer again, so I’m going to live my life to the fullest.” And now the doctor tells you you have a lot of time. So when I realized I had such a long runway, I felt even more lost.
After that, I had a friend who struggled after moving to a new city and ended his life. That really scared me. I decided two things: One was that if I am directionless, I’m going to learn something. Two, if I’m scared about something, I should take incremental steps toward it.
I also feared loneliness, but then I moved to New York, and it was the most amazing thing I’ve ever done for myself — just learning and immersing myself, getting to know so many new people. That gave me the confidence to then move to LA. There are incremental increases in your confidence level when you put yourself closer to your fears.
Later, I realized I had to return to Singapore to care for my elderly parents. That meant I had to rebuild again.
The best job I ever had
The layoff wasn’t a huge surprise because leaders had given us a heads-up that restructuring was coming. On the day it happened, it was still rather emotional because I could mentally prepare for losing a job, but I wasn’t prepared to lose the opportunity to work with people I really enjoyed working with.
That was the best job I ever had. It was the best culture fit, people fit, and product fit. I learned that when you have all these things lined up, you don’t second-guess yourself. You don’t try to dance around egos. You want to do your best, and the people around you will help you elevate.
I had the opportunity to say goodbye to people because I had a runway after the layoff news to close the loop on projects. After the tears had run dry, I decided to try content creation.
A leap of faith
Content creation came to mind because friends had been telling me over the years that I had a very interesting lived experience. It needed two ingredients for it to work: One was a nudge, which came as a layoff. The second was the leap of faith, because this kind of communication is about putting yourself in a public space. You can lose your privacy. You can crash and burn. You can face vitriol. You can embarrass yourself.
There was a time when I thought I could do faceless content, creating things that are anonymous but still insightful. Then I realized that being the face of it would be the most authentic and vulnerable way of sharing with people.
Now, I tell my own story
About a month later, I signed up for a content-creator course. By making videos, I’m actually seeking support as much as I am trying to give support to people in the same situation.
What I did before was tell stories for a corporation’s products. Now, I tell my own story.
When you look at how disruption has been happening in almost every industry, you realize that no real corporate job is safe. So I started thinking about what I could actually own, and what I could own was my lived experience, which no algorithm can take over — at least for now.
When you go through something like a layoff, as much as the company can explain that it was not based on performance — that it was based on changes in business strategy — you internalize it, as if to say, “If I were valuable or relevant enough, I would have shifted with the changing business needs.”
Your voice is something you own. I’m going to own it by sharing it and seeing how it can be both valuable and viable, versus jumping to the next corporate job.
Recovering from cancer, moving to new cities, and being a caregiver were disparate experiences that led me to where I am today. Now, with the layoff, it was the universe once again telling me not to overstay.
Do you have a story to share about your career? Contact this reporter at [email protected].
