Laid Off: On Becoming Another Casualty of Trump's DOGE Cuts, the Eternal Power of Story, and What the Hell Comes Next

Politics is always personal, but when political shenanigans land you with a layoff notice the story shifts once again.

Many of you may have noticed that I've been very quiet (for me, at least) for the last few years. I’ve written here and there, grappling with the notion of mortality and grief and my own unwillingness to be perceived.

However, most of you probably don't know that my retreat was partly because (for a million and one complex reasons) I took a "real grownup" (read corporate and full-time regular person) job for only the second time in my adult life.

Those who know me well (or at all) can likely guess that working full-time in a corporate job is not my ideal—far from it, honestly. But this job came with the stability of income, health insurance for the first time in seven years, and a chance to pull back on the constant pressure to hustle my art (and my heart) at a time when I had experienced some major trauma and really needed some space and some ease. It was an invitation to my nervous system to take a break from the constant uncertainty that is creative self-employment.

If you know me well enough to know a full-time job wasn’t my dream, you also likely understand that my passion and purpose will always lie in my personal work—writing, teaching, coaching, doing whatever I can to convince the souls in my sphere that our voices and stories and wisdom have the power to save lives (because they do, ya’ll. they really do). I consider myself among the luckiest humans alive to know what I am here to do and to feel powerfully suited to doing it.

That being said, I’ve never quite managed to make it financially sustainable. As an unpartnered, single mother without a nearby family or safety net, the passion that fueled me also took a toll in the form of perpetual financial insecurity (prolonged financial instability IS a form of trauma, but that’s another story for another day).

Still, I knew that if I was to leave that work behind, even for a season, it was imperative that my skills in storytelling, content marketing, and digital media would support work that really mattered.

And then one day, at the exact right time, that job just kinda fell in my lap. So I took it.

Although I’ve fought mightily against its confines and wailed about its lack of creativity and the distance it has created from my true work, I have also been grateful for it.

The job was in corporate marketing for a federal government contracting company in Washington, D.C.* I knew absolutely nothing about the industry, but I knew the company did important, life-changing work in the areas of health equity and innovation. Work like providing mobile cancer care to rural veterans, analyzing data to improve support for access to HIV treatment for urban transgender women of color, improving care and treatment for suffers of Substance and Opioid Use Disorder in rural America, and utilizing virtual reality headsets to create immersive training aimed at reducing sexual harassment at the VA.

*Spoiler alert: based on current events, you can likely guess where this story is going to wind up.

This was work I could put the weight of my words behind. Work that made a difference.

Unfortunately, as of today, it is also work I will no longer be doing. As of today I can count myself among the hundreds of thousands of federal government (and federal government adjacent) employees who have become casualties of the mass slashing of federal contracts and jobs under the direction of DOGE and the Trump Administration.

I knew it was possible—we’d already experienced one round of massive layoffs since the cuts began—but advance hints and rumors don't make for any less heartbreak or panic when the news arrives. It turns out that the advance warning system for a tornado doesn’t make the swath of destruction any less severe.

It also turns out that, especially in our current clusterfuckery of late-stage capitalism-intersects-with-the-dystopian-movie-flashback-scenes, the enduring concept of a ‘safe and secure’ job is founded on more myth than meaning. One can know a thing and not truly know it, not until one has had one's head forced out of the sand and is forced to look reality straight between the eyes.

By one, I mean me. And by reality, I mean that I am currently, as the sole provider for my family of three, two weeks from being without income, insurance, or a safety net.

Over these last few years of employment, I took a mostly welcome break from the hustle—indeed, I took a giant step back from all public-facing work. I’ve not published much, I mostly vanished from social media, and I have done next to nothing in the name of marketing or promotion.

Translation: My creative self-employment income is pretty much nil.

What that means is that, right now, no matter how much my soul is calling me to return to the work of my heart (and my god, my soul will always be making that call), I need to seek another job(s), and along the way, I will need support, and connections. That is why I’m here today.

Because I need you all.

So here’s the elevator pitch:

You can call what I do marketing, you can call it coaching, or teaching, or consulting. You can call it brand voice work, or communications, or content strategy, or any number of much-hyped buzzwords you see in job titles or resume bullet points. You can call me a muse, a word witch, or a sovereignty catalyst.

You could even get fancy and say it like I do on LinkedIn:

But if you strip all the fancy words away, what I am—at the heart of it all—is a storyteller.

I don’t care if I’m telling tales around a campfire, through a 2200-character caption on Instagram, or on a Superbowl ad broadcast to millions. I believe in the power of telling stories—stories that matter, stories from the margins, ordinary everyday stories, extraordinary, unbelievable stories, stories of individuals and companies and organizations doing important, disruptive, life-changing work, stories of hearts and souls and breaking and becoming, and stories of all the ways we choose to survive and create and go on.

I don’t just believe in stories: I am in the business of telling stories that matter (sidebar: I believe that all stories matter).

Because I so deeply believe that stories matter (like I’d-stake-my-life-on-it-deep-down-believe-right-to-my-core), I am also in the business of helping others use their words (and use them well). Along the way, I also help the brave humans who come to me access their wisdom (and their heart and soul and grit and grace and spirit and goddess-given moxie) to do the same. I help them dig into the hard-packed earth of their lived experience and show them how to magic-archeologist all those stories safely above ground and carefully tend them until they find a life of their own.

And then, after those stories have been told, I am in the business of getting those stories out into the world and in front of the people who need them, where they can do the good and honest and life-giving work they are meant to do. Because a story cannot save a life unless it is written and unless it is read. And yes, I am also in the business of saving lives, so all of this falls within my domain.

Yes, I am approximately 13 years younger in this photo, and yes, it has been nearly that long since my website, jeanetteleblanc.com was overhauled, but the work remains the same.

Here’s the thing. Regardless of the myriad areas in my life where my self-confidence may get precarious, slippery, or downright rocky (and woah, there are many), I know I am DAMN good at what I do*.

*Want receipts? You can view my testimonials here, and here, and my LinkedIn recommendations here.

So, why am I telling you all this? Well, aside from hoping for love, condolences, and maybe a pity party chocolate delivery on a really shitty day, I’m here to ask for your help with three specific things. Even if continued full-time employment is not in my immediate future, it will take some time to ramp up my public presence again in a way that will bring in meaningful income, so the hustle starts today.

1. I’m here to (once again) hang out my shingle:
   You can immediately support my work through my Etsy shop, by subscribing to this Substack. You can also help by sharing my writing and coaching services with others or purchasing my book and the courses on my website. I’m also open to new coaching/mentoring clients, teaching/retreat opportunities, and podcast interviews.

2. I’m here to network:
   Would you consider hooking me up with the humans and companies in your network who are doing important work and might need a human/writer/word witch like me who can see straight through to the heart of the story and give it life? You can point people to my website, LinkedIn, Instagram, or right here to Substack to learn more about who I am and what I do.

3. I’m here to find work:
   I am open to freelance / contract work and full-time positions. I would be so grateful if you could keep your eyes open for any roles and opportunities that might be a good fit for a gal with an eclectic resume, a really unconventional skillset, and the ability to weave words into worlds?

My heart hurts for all the souls impacted by these cuts (I want to use the word unprecedented, but I fear we used up our lifetime allotment with that word over the course of COVID). So many dedicated employees. So many families. So many souls devoted to work that mattered to them or to the world, or work that helped them survive, or work that paid the bills while they figured out the calling of their own hearts. It IS unprecedented, what is happening right now. And even with all the language at my disposal, I can’t find a word that fits better at this moment.

If there is one thing we learned from COVID, it’s that unprecedented times call for unprecedented vulnerability, unprecedented honesty, unprecedented community and connection, and unprecedented mutual aid. Just this week, even before I knew my time would come so soon, I have been buoyed to see offerings of free headshots and spontaneous peer support groups. From pro bono financial planning to ad hoc babysitting spreadsheets, the community is rallying in D.C., and I can only imagine the same is true across the country.

Hell, yes, I want to be a part of that. So this is me, inviting the support and offering it too, and letting you know I’m here to do what I can for anyone else impacted by this wave of loss, directly or as collateral damage a few steps removed.

As cheesy and overused and trite as it may sound, I also have no better way of saying that we are in this together than by saying we are in this together. Sometimes, we lean into overused language because there is simply no better way to say what needs to be said. And so this is me, reaching out my arms and trusting—KNOWING—that I’m reaching for a circle of support that already exists, that has formed and reformed a million times already, and that will never truly vanish because it is part of the fabric of our universe.

Yes, I’m scared today, and worried and numb and anxious and all the usual emotions one would expect at the loss of income and livelihood. But I’m determined not to feel all of those things alone. Part of the power of stories is in the way they connect us, the way they refuse to let us believe we live an isolated and solitary experience. The way they insist on knitting the disparate threads of connection into something strong enough to grasp onto and hold tight when the void comes-a-calling.

I've always said that part of the reason I write is so that my past self can remind a future me of what she already knew (but tends to easily forget).

I write to drop breadcrumbs in the forest so I can trace my way back to the truth. And so today, I'm going to end with my own words, a reminder to myself and to anyone else who needs it that we will, indeed, land on our feet.

We will, without a doubt, rise again.

there is a girl
she is wise
and wary of flames
but still, she knows
she will survive the fire
life scorches sometimes.
she has been a phoenix before
and every time
she burns to ashes
she knows
exactly how to rise
again.

Excerpt from Girl On Fire

I know I’m not the only one in this position right now, and things are feeling dark and grim for many. Know that I appreciate any and all support as I make my way to whatever adventure comes next.

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6 ways you can support my work and life right now:

1. Subscribe to this Substack
It’s just $7 a month or $70 for the whole year, and I’m about to have a whole lot more time to write.

2. Go buy some powerful word art, stickers, or apparel on Etsy
I believe that all words are spells, and everything I make is infused with this magic.

3. Purchase my book

4. Check out my writing/voice unleashing/believe in the holy power of your story courses and prompt collections.

5. Let folks know I’m accepting new coaching and mentoring clients
I offer free exploration calls and would love to talk about how I can help support you as you bring your story to life.

5. Help me network:
Keep your eyes open for open positions or opportunities and pass along my name or LinkedIn profile to anyone you know who is hiring in my area