I just lost my job — what do I do this week?

Four pages in this library are cited here. Call the temp agency this week is the search, the benefit your wages paid for, and the papers you may be handed on the way out. Give yourself the basics first is for the week when getting up, washing and eating are the hard part. A job does not sell you the kit is the recruiter who offers you a role that costs money to start. Is it too late for my GED? belongs here only if you are in the United States, out of work, and never finished high school. One of them puts a line above everything else, and it comes first here.

If you are thinking about ending your life, talk to someone now. Give yourself the basics first puts that at the top: in the US call or text 988, in the UK call Samaritans free on 116 123, day or night, and elsewhere your local crisis line or emergency number. If you are in danger right now, call 911 in the US or 999 in the UK. And if you have stopped eating, or you are losing weight fast, that is a medical problem and not a discipline problem: see a doctor today, or call 111 in the UK, or go to urgent care in the US. The page says the rest of it can wait until you are safe. Call the temp agency this week carries the same pair for the slump that has turned into thoughts of not wanting to be here: call or text 988 in the US or call 116 123 in the UK, any time; elsewhere, your local crisis line.

This week, register with a temp agency and ask two local businesses directly whether they need help, instead of only applying online. Call the temp agency this week has two things for the first days. It also says that if you cannot get out of bed, wash or eat most days, the job search is not the first step, and the basics page, further down, is written for where you are.

The papers. Some people gave the same warning: do not sign separation papers on the spot. Take them away, read them, and get advice if you can. In the US, if you are 40 or older and the papers ask you to give up age-discrimination claims, federal law gives you at least 21 days to consider them (45 if a group is being laid off together) and 7 days after signing to change your mind, and the papers must advise you in writing to talk to a lawyer. In the UK, a settlement agreement only counts if it is in writing and you have had advice from a named, insured independent adviser. Either way, the time to read them is before you sign.

The claim. Some people said unemployment benefits and food assistance are there for this, and taking them is a strategy for getting back on your feet, not a moral failure. In the US, each state runs its own program under federal rules, and the benefit is for people out of work through no fault of their own, as the state defines it. Losing a job because there was no more work usually qualifies, as long as you also earned enough, or worked long enough, in the months before you claim (each state sets that test, usually over about the past year), and you stay able to work and keep looking. Quitting sometimes does, if the state accepts your reason as good cause, and one warning is blunt about the other case: resigning just so it looks better on your résumé can cost you the benefit. Others warn that registering a business or taking contract work while you claim can affect it too, so ask your state unemployment office before you do either. File as soon as you can; the Labor Department’s own advice is to file promptly. The Resource Bank here has CareerOneStop, a US Department of Labor site with a state-by-state tool that shows exactly how to file for unemployment where you worked. In the UK, New Style Jobseeker’s Allowance depends on the National Insurance you paid as an employee, usually over the last two to three years, and you may be able to get Universal Credit alongside it or instead. If you left the job without a good reason, or lost it because of your behaviour, the government’s guidance says those payments can be stopped for up to 91 days the first time.

Food assistance (SNAP) in the US has its own work rules: an adult who can work and has no children at home may get only three months in three years unless they work, volunteer or train about 20 hours a week, so ask your state office what applies to you. The Resource Bank’s SNAP entry is the official page that shows how to apply in your state. Call the temp agency this week says its benefit and severance rules are general, were checked in September 2026 against the US Labor Department, the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, GOV.UK and ACAS, and are not legal advice; your own state or country decides what applies to you.

Then the search. Some people explained the silence after online applications the same way: cold applications fail on sheer volume, and direct contact works better because it makes a personal connection and gets past the filters. One person said that for entry-level work, walking into a business with a résumé and asking for the manager works better than any website. A hiring manager named the limit: in some fields, particularly tech, turning up unannounced reads as strange, and a message first is better.

Some people recommended registering with several temp agencies at once and calling them regularly: the work keeps coming, your skills stay current, your résumé shows recent jobs while you look for a permanent one, and it gets you out of the house. One warning comes with it: temping can mean staying in office admin work to get regular assignments, which may feel like a step down if you are overqualified. And one check the US Federal Trade Commission adds: honest placement firms do not usually charge the people they place, so walk away from an agency that asks you for a fee, especially up front.

Food, water, sleep, a wash, and anything a doctor has told you to take come first every day, and you do not have to earn them. Then do one small thing. Give yourself the basics first is drawn from young adults stuck at home and out of work who called themselves lazy. One person behind it withheld vitamins, food, soap, underwear, comfort and fun to force themselves into action. Corrections from others, both about a supplement one person was denying themselves until they had cleaned, say the thing you need to feel better comes before the effort, not after it. Small means smaller than feels reasonable: stand up, wash your face, make the bed, eat one thing, put on shoes, send one application, wash five dishes. At the very lowest, even ‘start small’ can sound out of touch; the answer the people there gave was to go smaller still, three minutes of stretching, or to take it as the sign that this is a medical question and not a willpower one.

On taking any job to force some structure, the page carries both sides. Some say take any job going, even one below what you trained for, because the schedule, the people and the movement break the cycle faster than anything done alone at home. Others say that looking for work while your sleep, food and mood are in pieces tends to end in anxiety and failure, and some people suggested spending about a month getting sleep, eating and your state of mind steady before going back to applications. Neither side settled it. What decides it is how much you can manage right now and how much the money presses: if you can get up, wash and eat most days, a simple job may be the structure that helps; if you cannot, the basics come first. Cautions on the page noted that some of the advice assumes energy, money or a car you may not have, and that is worth remembering before you blame yourself for not following it. Some people said it plainly, and others said it in their own words: the pattern is worth taking to a professional, because it can be a health problem wearing the costume of a character flaw; the people there named depression and ADHD, among others, and the NHS’s own list of depression symptoms includes having no motivation or interest in things, and getting no enjoyment out of life. Whether medicine is right for you is a question for a doctor, not for a page or for strangers online, and one warning stands on its own: do not start, stop or borrow a medicine on the strength of what strangers say worked for them. If money is the barrier, community health centers in the US charge on a sliding scale by income, and some people pointed to free community programs from mental-health charities; in England you can refer yourself to NHS Talking Therapies for low mood and anxiety without seeing a GP first. Some people said this does not get fixed alone, because the part of you that would normally push is the part that is worn down, and named the hard version plainly: telling your parents or family where you actually are, when you have been hiding it.

If you have to buy anything from the company before you can earn from it — a starter kit, stock, a training fee — you are its customer and not its hire, and the answer is no. A job does not sell you the kit is built from people’s experience of recognising these schemes. Some of them say the targets are students, recent graduates and people desperate for work, because they are trusting, inexperienced and need the money; some people add retail workers who want out, and one person warns people with comfortable lives fall too. Three separate conversations give the test three times over, about kits, about inventory, about training fees: a job pays you, and a company that needs you to pay it first has told you what its business is. One person keeps the test honest: buying your own ordinary tools, from anyone, is not the same thing; the tell is buying the company’s kit from the company as the price of working for it. Before the kit, four separate conversations say the first contact is an unsolicited recruiter praising a vague, transferable skill and pitching a sales team, and one person says the hurry, ‘come by tomorrow’, is there so you cannot ask anyone. The US federal consumer-protection agency’s page on multi-level marketing adds a step people did not: read the disclosure documents and the contract as you would for a small business you were buying, and check with your state attorney general for complaints. If you are weighing a deceptive job against no rent at all, people split: one says it beats homelessness or debt, others say it is exploitative and damaging enough that it is not an answer, and to look for other options first. The page picks neither. Some people say that if you take it, keep looking, and one person warns a recruiter turned down aggressively can turn hostile, so leave the room plainly.

You can still earn a high school equivalency as an adult, free classes to get you ready for it exist through adult education programs and libraries, and it counts wherever a job or a college asks for a diploma or equivalent. Is it too late for my GED? is not about losing a job; it belongs under this question only if you are an adult in the United States who left school without a diploma. Some people say a diploma or its equivalent is the minimum many employers set, and the GED clears that line on an application even before it has taught you anything new; one person is honest that it will not raise your pay at a job that never asked for it. Its step for today: find out which equivalency test your state uses and where your nearest adult education program is, from the US Labor Department’s CareerOneStop site or the front desk of your public library, and write down three questions for the program: is the class free, what does the test cost here, and can I take one subject at a time? One warning, from the Federal Trade Commission: a real equivalency test is given on set days and at set times, not on demand; you pay for classes and tests, never for the diploma itself, and a website that promises ‘no classes, no tests, done in a day’, or a diploma for ‘life experience’, is a scam. Five separate conversations say its biggest value is the next door: community college, which is affordable, open to you, and a way into better-paid work or a degree. The federal student aid rules require a high school diploma or a recognised equivalent, and they name the GED and state-approved tests like the HiSET as that equivalent, so passing meets the diploma rule for federal student aid, including the Pell grant, which you do not pay back; the grant also depends on your income and on being a US citizen or an eligible non-citizen; the page says the student-aid rules it quotes were checked in September 2026 and can change.

Who these pages are not for. The temp agency page says that if you cannot get out of bed, wash or eat most days, the job search is not the first step, and the basics page is written for where you are. It says that if you work in a specialised field with few openings, the walk-in, the phone list and the temp agency are built for general and entry-level work; that outside the US and the UK, benefits and severance papers work differently and your own government’s guidance decides; and that if you have no car, none of its accounts said how to reach temp jobs without one, a gap it names. The basics page says that if you are going without food or basics because you cannot afford them, that is a money emergency and not a self-punishment one, and the USDA National Hunger Hotline is the right first call; and that if you are between jobs, resting and honestly fine, it is not your alarm. The kit page is not about a job that says sales in the title and means it: some people say selling is an honest trade, and the line people draw is that hiding the selling is the tell, not the selling; and if you have already paid and signed, how to get out is a gap in its conversations, and so is a friend or a family member inside. The GED page is written for people who have already left school, not for a student thinking of leaving to take the test: its decider is whether you are still enrolled, where staying is the easier road, or have already left, where the test is the way forward. Outside the United States the GED and the HiSET are not your tests: in England, if you are over sixteen and have left school, English and maths courses up to GCSE level are normally free, and the National Careers Service (0800 100 900) can find you one; Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland run their own routes, and elsewhere your education ministry or local college can say what yours are. And if you have work you like and a wage you can live on, and you are only asking because a form or a relative made you feel small, its fourth question is for you, and it does not end in ‘you need it’.