The first day back in parliament after last week’s general election saw 140 excited new MPs travel to Westminster to start their new jobs. Less conspicuous were those quietly packing their offices and saying goodbye to the building that, in some cases, they had worked in for decades.

Of the 73 sitting MPs to lose seats in this election, 46 were Labour, seven were Conservative and six were Liberal Democrat. After the blow of being turfed out by constituents, former members of parliament are given a week to pack up their belongings before their security passes stop working on 19 December.

For Tom Brake, the longest-serving Lib Dem MP ahead of Thursday’s vote, his first task after losing his seat of Carshalton and Wallington after 22 years was to talk to his staff about the terms of their redundancy. “Two of them have worked for me for more than 10 years,” he said. “In many ways this is potentially more traumatic for them than it is for me.”

Following the announcement that he had lost his constituency to the Tories by 629 votes, Brake went home to sleep for two hours before getting up to attend a constituency surgery on Friday afternoon. “I explained to people that I wasn’t their MP but that I would take up the issue and pass it on to my successor,” he said. “On Saturday I had the prizes to present to the winner and runner-up of my Christmas card competitions, so I had to go and do that.”

He added: “I guess for the first time in more than 30 years, when I wake up at the weekend, I won’t be thinking about what I need to be doing that day. I’ve been involved in politics since 1983 and it’s quite a demanding and relentless vocation and having a bit of time to think and relax will be exciting.”

While Anna Soubry – the former Conservative who stood for the pro-EU Independent Group for Change in her Nottinghamshire seat of Broxtowe – said she hadn’t expected to be re-elected (she’d even cleared out her office ahead of polling day), she was clear that the blow of losing would come very hard to others.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Anna Soubry was so certain she wouldn’t be re-elected in Broxtowe that she had already cleared out her office before polling day. She lost to her Tory rival. Photograph: James Veysey/Rex/Shutterstock

“When you leave a job – even when you’re sacked or made redundant – you get some period of notice and, you know, you have a farewell party and a card and everybody wishes you well, but in this game you are absolutely out on your ear,” she said.

Citing the former Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson – who lost her seat of East Dunbartonshire to the SNP – as an example on the brutality of the system, Soubry said: “Her declaration was around 4am or something. She’s in Scotland, obviously … It is a real shock to her … You’ve got all that stuff to cope with, your profound feeling of loss and failure.

“And then first thing on Friday morning, the parliamentary authority send an email saying ‘you have lost your seat and you can come and see us today, Saturday or Sunday’. You have just lost your job at 4am in the fucking morning and you’re in Scotland! I mean what world are people living in?”

Departing MPs who held their seats for at least two years are entitled to a loss of office payment, equivalent to twice their statutory redundancy pay. Politico calculated in August that the former Birkenhead Labour MP Frank Field, for example, who stood as an independent and lost in the seat he had held for nearly 40 years, could receive around £31,500.

Labour’s Emma Dent Coad – who took Kensington from the Tories in 2017, only to lose the seat to them in this election – is still a local councillor in the constituency and plans to continue campaigning for justice for Grenfell residents. She also plans to see if the University of Liverpool will take her back to finish a PhD on ‘Constructing Modern Spain: politics and architecture under Franco 1939-1975’. “The earning a living bit is something I still need to resolve,” she said.

Dent Coad says she lost her seat because of claims by remain-supporting advocates of tactical voting, published by publications including the Guardian and Observer, that her Lib Dem rival – the former Conservative Sam Gyimah – was the most likely candidate to beat the Tories. In the end she lost to the Conservative candidate by 150 votes.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Emma Dent Coad remains a councillor in her former Kensington constituency and will continue to campaign for justice for Grenfell residents. Photograph: Maja Smiejkowska/Rex/Shutterstock

“Obviously I’m gutted and I’ve had complete strangers bursting into tears on the bus when they see me, seriously. I’m not exaggerating – every time I go out, people shake me by the hand, wave, hug me or burst into tears.”

As a qualified GP, Labour’s Paul Williams, who lost his seat of Stockton South, is slightly better equipped than most to find new employment. He continued to work as a doctor for two mornings a month as an MP, meaning he has kept his licence to practise. As well as continuing with medicine – and continuing to campaign for children with autism and veterans – his immediate priority will be spending time with his family.

“My family has hardly seen me over the past six weeks and prior to that I was working away in London loads of the time,” he said. “I’ve got two young kids, a five-year-old and a seven-year-old, and I got to take them to school this morning.”

Very few of the former MPs, almost all from opposition parties, say they will miss the opportunity to see Boris Johnson and his new majority government gloating from the green benches, nor the experience of working in the palace of Westminster. “It’s a horrible place to work actually,” says Dent Coad. “It’s really brutal, misogynistic and unkind … I’ve worked in very male-dominated environments before but that was the most horrible place I’ve ever worked as a woman.”

For Soubry, the election result is the definitive end of a frantic period campaigning for a second referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU, and she’s looking forward to a break before figuring out the next step.

“I’ve been working since I was 22 or 23 and – even though I’ve had two children – I’ve barely had more than a month off in 40 years,” she said. “I am actually looking forward to having a little time off, to work out what’s next and see what comes up. I’m open to offers. I want to work. I am only 63 and I want to earn my own living.”