Career Relaunch®
Joseph Liu
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Taking a Step Back with Ana Wagner
Getting laid off from your job can be one of the more jarring experiences in your career. When it happens to you twice, how can you bounce back? And how can a career setback help you clarify and redefine what’s important to you? In this week’s Career Relaunch podcast episode, automotive industry professional Ana Wagner explains how she dealt with being laid off when she was eight months pregnant and once again during the Great Recession of the late 2000s. We’ll talk about a range of topics including how to avoid being defined by your job and why career detours can give you an opportunity to reevaluate your priorities and gain some healthy perspective. During the Mental Fuel segment, I address a listener’s question from Japan about how long you should hold onto a job you don’t like. Key Career Insights You have the freedom to NOT define yourself by the title you have or the company you work for, as tempting and natural as that may feel. While you may not like every aspect of your job, you need to enjoy the majority of the work you do for a living. Otherwise, it’s miserable. Being laid-off doesn’t necessarily hurt you in the long run, and in fact, can be a blessing in disguise. Similarly, taking a step down in role and/or salary can actually serve you in many, less obvious ways. Tweetable to Share You may not like every single colleague, boss, or project at work, but you need to like what you do most of the time--otherwise, it's miserable. Ana Wagner Tweet This Listener Challenge During this episode’s Mental Fuel segment, I addressed a listener’s question from Tokyo about what to do if you don’t like your job and aren’t sure how long you should stick things out. If you’re stacking up the opinions others have of your career against your own desires, I’d challenge you to take a step that honors who you are and how you want your life to look. I don’t think it’s easy to completely disregard what others think of you, but I’m just encouraging you to take one step that will move you closer to what YOU want, even if it creates some temporary upheaval or turbulence in your life with the people around you. Because sometimes, you have to prioritize your own happiness, which will hopefully allow the people in your life to eventually feel happier for you too. About Ana Wagner, Global Segment Director at PPG Industries Ana Wagner is a mom to two teenagers, wife, and proud native Colombian, currently working as Global Segment Director at PPG, where she is responsible for driving global alignment and defining long term strategic direction for the automotive parts segment. Ana has spent most of her career in the automotive and chemical industries in positions ranging from engineering to market development to marketing strategy. Ana has a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering form Xavier University in Bogota, Colombia, and an MBA from the University of Michigan, Dearborn. Did You Enjoy This Episode? Please Let Us Know! Tweet: If you enjoyed this episode and have a few seconds to spare, Tweet to let me and Ana know! Tweet a thank you! Review: I’d also love for you to leave a positive review and rating for the podcast on Apple Podcasts, which helps my show reach more people who want to relaunch their careers. Subscribe: Be sure to subscribe to Career Relaunch podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or Android so you can automatically get each new episode on your device. Full instructions. Stay in touch: Follow Career Relaunch on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow host Joseph on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Comments, Suggestions, or Questions? If you have any lingering thoughts, questions, or topics you would like covered on future episodes, record a voicemail for me right here. I LOVE hearing from listeners! Leave Joseph a Voicemail You can also leave a comment below. Thanks! Thanks to BrandYourself for Supporting Career Relaunch A2 Hosting allows you to offers simple tools and services to help control what people find when they Google you. To clean up, protect, and improve how you look online, visit BrandYourself.com and use promo code ‘RELAUNCH’ to get 50% off a Premium membership. Episode Interview Transcript Ana: I’m going to find something I really like, and now I live by the rule that I have to like what I do at least 70% of the time. I’m not going to like all of my bosses or my co-workers or every single one of my tasks or my projects, but I have to like what I do most of the time. Otherwise, it’s miserable. Joseph: Good morning, Ana, and welcome to Career Relaunch. It’s great to have you on the show. Ana: Hi, Joseph. Thanks for having me. Joseph: I am hoping to talk through a few things with you today, including some of the career transitions you’ve been through and also how you’ve managed through some of the tradeoffs you’ve had to make with each of your career moves. I was hoping you could start us off by just telling me what’s been keeping you busy in your career and your life the past few weeks. Ana: I work in B2B market strategy, and so I’ve been very busy travelling the world actually. It’s been a lot of travel and juggling with a couple of teenagers. I work for a big company in the chemical space, and so that takes a lot of my time. Joseph: I think you also just got back from Colombia. Is that right? Ana: That’s right. My native Colombia. I was there attending on my high school reunion. Joseph: Very cool. Let’s just start with what you’re doing right now. You mentioned the work that you’re doing. You’re at PPG Industries. What exactly do you do there as a Global Segment Director? Maybe we’ll start there, and then I’d like to jump all the way back in time and then go through your career history. Ana: As a Global Segment Director, I am in charge of a segment, which is Automotive Parts and Accessories Functional. It’s coatings for automotive parts that go directly into companies that actually make parts for automotive called the tiers – the tier suppliers here in Detroit. In that role, I am responsible for the long-term strategy of the segment as well as global alignment between the regions. Joseph: Now, I’d like to go back in time because I also know that you started off in the automotive industry as an automotive engineer. Could you just tell us about your time when you started off as an automotive engineer, working, and then we can go forward from there? Ana: Yes, absolutely. I have an undergrad in industrial engineering. That’s how I started at Ford Motor Company here in Detroit. I worked there for a few years, and then I was part of a spinoff from Ford. The parts division of Ford spun off as a company called Visteon. All in all, I was there for almost eight years. Joseph: What happened at your eighth? What exactly happened that resulted in you moving on from Visteon? Ana: The company had been spun off as a very large company. In 2004, it was facing decisions in terms of downsizing. I happened to be eight months pregnant. I had mentioned to my boss that I wanted to take a long maternity leave which was something that the company offered as a benefit, like up to a year. You wouldn’t come back to the same job, but you would have a job. I had mentioned that a few weeks before, but then one day, they had massive layoffs. Hundreds of people got laid off on a Friday morning. I’ll never forget. I was eight months pregnant, sitting at my desk, and somebody came, tapped me on the shoulder, took me to a conference room where HR talked to me, gave me a folder and told me I had a few minutes to pack up my things, ‘Here’s a box,’ and they escorted me out of the building. Joseph: Wow. That’s just like what you see in the movies pretty much. I guess there’s a couple of aspects of this that I’m interested in. I guess I’m first of all interested in what it was like to get that very sudden tap on the shoulder, that exact moment when that happened. I’m also interested in what it was like to be eight months pregnant and getting that tap on the shoulder. Ana: I was going to say it’s horrible, pregnant or not, but it’s even more horrible when you’re not expecting it. Interestingly enough, about three weeks before, I had had a performance review that was outstanding, and I had been told I was a high potential employee and all these. Something happened in between. I think, theories after the fact, word kind of going around that maybe I got on the wrong list. Maybe somebody was meant to really sit down with me and ask me if I wanted to take a package, but the truth of the matter is I got on the list. It’s pretty brutal. It’s pretty brutal, especially when you’re not expecting it. That same morning, I was talking to co-workers there, ‘Come on. You’re pregnant. You’re a woman. You’re Hispanic. There’s no way.’ It happened. Joseph: The aspect of being pregnant right before, I guess, you’re about a month out from delivery, I’m guessing that must’ve affected your psyche at that moment. I’m wondering how that might’ve affected you at that very moment. Ana: I actually almost went into labor that day. That day was very, very difficult. I almost went into labor that day. Thankfully, I didn’t, so the baby wasn’t born too early. It was very upsetting. It was very upsetting, especially at the beginning. Within a few days, I said, ‘Ok. This is a good opportunity. I was looking to spend a year home anyway, and here it is. I got a severance check. I’ll take this time to think things through and just actually be with my baby.’ It ended up working out in the end. Joseph: How was maternity leave for you? Ana: It was really nice, but at the same time—this was in my early 30’s—I was really afraid of missing out on what was happening in the workp
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