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.

Disappointed by a job rejection, a “thanks but no thanks” email, or life generally pressing the nope button? Same.

In this episode of Now What: Life After Redundancy, I talk through how I handle disappointment in real time from the job hunt trenches. Over the festive break I spotted a role that felt like a perfect fit, tailored my CV and cover letter like my future depended on it… and got rejected the next day. Which felt less like “careful consideration” and more like I’d been politely denied by an AI screening robot.

This isn’t a definitive guide to emotions (I am not the Jedi Council), it’s a “here’s what helps me” framework you can try when rejection stings and you still need to keep moving. I share a practical set of steps to process disappointment, separate facts from the spirally story in your head, take the lesson without turning it into self punishment, and do the next small thing even when your motivation is buffering like 90s dial up.

In this episode:

• How to process disappointment without pretending you’re fine

• Coping with job rejection and application ghosting

• A simple mindset shift: facts vs the story your brain invents

• Turning rejection into useful data (not a personal verdict)

• The “next tiny step” method to get back on the application horse

If you’ve been disappointed recently, leave a comment with what happened and what helped or just type a single word like blomonge and I’ll know you were here.

If you’re asking yourself now what… you’re in the right place

New year’s resolutions are meant to feel hopeful but somehow they often land like a performance review you did not ask for. In this episode I unpack why we love a fresh start, why January pressure is so loud and what a healthy resolution actually looks like when real life is tired, messy and occasionally held together by snack based optimism.

We talk about the difference between gentle intention and unnecessary self punishment, why most resolutions fail because they rely on motivation not systems and how this all hits differently when you are going through redundancy and trying to rebuild confidence without turning January into a second job.

You will leave with practical ways to set resolutions that support you, not ones that judge you, plus a few geeky pop culture detours because it would not be my podcast without them.

If you would like to support the show and help keep it going you can join us on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/cw/lifeafterredundancy

If you find yourself asking “now what?” you are in the right place.