ORANGE COUNTY IN BANKRUPTCY : Cuts Leave Many Asking: ‘What Am I Going to Do Next?’ : Layoffs: The news comes as a shock even for those who braced for the worst.

Norb Puff has spent the past 17 years of his life working for the county, most recently as an analyst for the county administrative office. Thursday, he found himself sitting in his Newport Beach home doing business for himself.

“I just happen to be entrepreneurial. I knew I wanted to do more, and had fun doing more,” said Puff, who launched his own product development company seven years ago, and was thinking of retiring from his county job so he could dedicate more time to it. “This was an opportunity.”

Puff was one of 25 workers laid off Wednesday by the county’s new chief executive officer, and one of the few who was able to find a silver lining.

The abrupt housecleaning at the county administrative office left other workers anxious about the homes they had just bought, or knocking on doors in search of new opportunities. Still others were despondent, adjusting uncomfortably to free time they weren’t quite ready to enjoy.

Thursday, Puff woke up at 4 a.m. and, unable to go back to sleep, went for a pre-dawn run. By early afternoon, he had already placed a host of phone calls about future projects. Among them, Puff said, was a call to explore the possibility of doing consulting work for the Orange County Business Council on a defense conversion strategic plan.

The county had planned to seek a federal grant to oversee implementation of a defense conversion plan, which Puff had been working on, to help defense businesses and their workers explore other lines of work. But because any such grant would be conditioned on matching money, the Business Council may now apply for it instead, Puff said. He realized he was in a position to offer his expertise.

“Your mind is churning, even in my situation,” he said. “What am I going to do next? Who am I going to call?”

Workers in the office where the ax fell Wednesday morning were shepherded down a hallway to a conference room shortly after they arrived for work. Along the way, there was gallows’ humor about the trek to the gas chamber.

But their knowledge of the county’s dire financial condition didn’t prepare most of them for the shock. They were given just hours to pack up and leave. When they emerged from the conference room, their computers were dark, deactivated to prevent any attempts of sabotage.

Rick Bishop, manager of intergovernmental relations for the county administrative office and a 10-year employee, said he and his wife had talked about the prospects of layoffs, and were convinced that someone with his experience would be tapped to help out elsewhere in the county.

His wife had put her career on hold to care for their three children, ages 7, 4 and 15 months. “When you’re on one salary and you’ve got three kids, I’ve basically got no cushion financially,” said Bishop, 31, who also teaches some local college courses in geography.

His children have not been spared some of the anxiety of recent weeks, so Bishop and his wife opted not to tell them that their dad was laid off.

“My son has been listening to me talking. He had gotten to the point where he would see people in suits on TV, and he’d say, ‘Are those the people who are going to fire you?’ ” Bishop said of his 7-year-old. “I think it would be traumatic for him.”

His 4-year-old daughter noticed a change Thursday.

“When I was taking her to preschool, she asked me if it was the weekend,” Bishop said. “I told her I was just taking the day off, so I could be with her.”

Bishop said he didn’t sleep at all Wednesday night, but stared at the ceiling and unsuccessfully tried to rationalize his layoff. He got up at 5 a.m. Thursday and went for a run. After taking his daughter to school, he drove out to the annual meeting of the Southern California Assn. of Governments in Cathedral City to pass out resumes.

“They were all happy and having a good time,” Bishop said. “I came rolling in there, trying to tactfully talk to them about a job. It was kind of like a dark cloud rolling in through this happy club.”

Others were careful to shield their spouses from the shock. One 17-year employee, who asked that his name not be used because he fears it would dampen his job prospects, opted not to call his wife once he got the news. Instead, he just packed up his desk and drove home.

“I knew she was going to go out to lunch, so I didn’t want to ruin her lunch,” said the employee, 51, who supports his wife and two children, one of them almost college age.

Thursday, he reseeded part of his lawn, trying to beat the rain. And he plans to do a little painting inside the house in coming days.

“My expectation is I’m going to have to do a combination of things, maybe a little work here, a little work there, and collect my retirement,” he said. “Between that, I’ll piece it together.”

For Maria Mendoza, the change was unsettling.

After Mendoza got word Wednesday that she no longer had a job as the county’s homeless issues coordinator, she called her son and asked him to come help clean out her desk. Then she went home.

“I just sat on the living room couch,” said Mendoza, 65. “I couldn’t get myself to do anything.”

Thursday morning, she called her voice mail to check messages that she won’t answer, and wondered if anybody else would, now that her position has been eliminated.

“It was so strange to get up and not have anything to do,” she said.