One minute, engineering designer Bernard Teo was a model employee of 12 years, whose smiling face emblazoned the sales brochures of his oil and gas company.
The next minute, the 55-year-old was asked to leave and not given the annual bonus for his previous year's service.
'I was shocked and very disappointed, especially after being made to work so hard,' he says of his retrenchment in June. 'I was calm but very unhappy.'
Suddenly, Mr Teo, who is married to a 50-year-old personal assistant and father to two sons, aged 24 and 18, felt lost and out on a limb.
'After being in the same job for so long, I'd lost touch. I didn't know how to write a resume anymore or what to do at a job interview,' he says.
His wife was calm upon hearing the news, as he could still fall back on his severance pay of $18,000 and savings while he was jobless.
Thankfully their older son was working in the air force, so they needed to support only their younger son, who was studying at a polytechnic.
For terminating Mr Teo's employment, his former company put him on a one-month management course to retrain him to get another job.
But it was small comfort at first.
The pain and uncertainty was too much for him to take and he broke down during an interview with a consultant from the course.
But the training proved essential in putting him back on his feet. It helped him regain his confidence and taught him how to construct his resume.
'I tried to find jobs through The Straits Times and the Internet every day. At the beginning, I found it hard to get a job, but after completing the course, finding one was easier,' he says. He sent out more than 50 job applications.
Two months ago, he found himself a job as a marine designer and is now happily employed.
'I fell but I learnt to get up and carry on. The economy is bad, so you have to be hardworking and change yourself or retrain. There's no choice, you still need to eat,' he says.
He is due to receive his CPF savings soon, but retirement has never entered his mind.
'I'm still fit and young. Why should I retire?' he says.
'Now I feel as good as before. With a new environment, I get to learn new skills and I plan to upgrade my skills. I feel I still have many more years to go,' he adds.
This article was first published in The Straits Times on December 7, 2008.
