Small Talk After Redundancy: How to Not Make It Weird
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Small Talk After Redundancy: How to Not Make It Weird
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About this listen
Small talk is meant to be harmless. Weather chat. Mild nodding. A quick “busy week?” and everyone carries on with their life.
But in redundancy it can feel like a contact sport. Because one minute you’re making conversation at “the things” (kids clubs, dog walks, community stuff, awkward queues) and the next someone drops the trapped question:
'So… what do you do?'
In this episode I unpack the unspoken social contract of small talk and why redundancy makes the usual script feel loaded. We’ll cover:
Why 'what do you do?' can feel like a landmine and the three ways people answer it (ghost job, honest answer, humour smoke bomb)
Forced optimism (often genuine, sometimes… not what you need in that moment)
Oversharing, and why 'how are you?' is basically code for 'please say fine'
Then I share a simple redundancy specific tactic: pre building one sentence you’re comfortable with, plus a few practical small talk tips you can use anywhere — including the days you’d rather throw a social smoke bomb and ninja roll your way to the biscuits.
And if you’re asking yourself now what, you’re in the right place.