FINALLY.........I got a new job today!!!! [View all]

[swayne]

Last edited Thu Feb 28, 2013, 09:59 PM - Edit history (1)

It has been a hard, hard road these last 2 years. I was in sales making well into six-figures. I was doing well in a 20+ year successful, corporate career. What I have found is over the last four or so years, person after person in my various circles has lost their job to layoffs. Most of these people have been in their 40's 50's and 60's....in other words, they have been put out to pasture by their respective companies. This nonsense (corporate layoff) happened to me in March 2011.

There are a couple of things that I want to stress...

I don't blame Obama or the gov't necessarily---I blame them for not putting enough emphasis on the matter. I blame a culture of corporate greed and their conservative benefactors for their failure for allowing this to happen and continue to happen. The company that laid me off was 5th or 6th in the market and was just mucking up in terms of product offerings and service. Oh, I meant to say royally mucking up. Because of THEIR mismanagement and not being able to meet Wall Street numbers, they thought that they way to get good press and better numbers was to lay folks off. Quite a common occurrence these days. The company's failure has NOTHING to do with the government or Obama. So how did they do it? They decided to scuttle EVERYONE over 40 or so in the company who was NOT at director level or better. The insidious part is that they made SURE to have one person UNDER 40 laid off for EACH of the OVER 40 crew. Today, in this company, there aren't any people over 40 below director level. Mind you, this is a Fortune 1000 company. Despite the layoffs, their products and service continue to get worse every quarter--to the point where none of their competitors will ever merge with them or buy them out of their misery, they'll just wait to pick the bones when the bottom falls out. Secretly, this failure on their part partially kept me going...

Anyway, I used up all of my and my wife's savings and had to file Chapter 13. Embarrassing and humiliating to say the least, but when you can't find a job to replenish money you HAVE to spend on housing, bills, food and utilities--it goes that much quicker. No one (that offers decent pay) has been hiring. No. Let me restate that. No one was hiring where I would feel it worth my time and effort to get up in the morning to go to work and make enough money to take care of my family I made the hard decision to wait for something that I could get back to what was "normal" for me. Working for barely over minimum wage in the jobs--that I could possibly get--would have destroyed my soul. For me, it was better to wait, work hard to get something worth my time than to work at a job that would have been soul-crushing, with crappy pay to match. I would rather go down fighting for what I want and needed. In my mind, this kind of fight was better even if I exhausted my savings in the wait to get a better job. A lot of people say just get a "job." I want to live life....

I say this to my fellow unemployed friends:

Don't give up....PLEASE, PLEASE DON'T GIVE UP! Whatever your religion, charm or belief system is you will always find it beneficial in a situation like this to NOT GIVE UP. I have felt every kind of emotion over the last 2 years from anger to sadness, relief to borderline suicidal. Some company out there wants you and needs you. I found that position. It was hard, but they are glad to have ME and I am glad to have THEM. I wish that someone in Congress or President Obama would move in an effort to make unemployment discrimination a crime. Today, almost no corporation will hire anyone over the age of 50 after being out of work starting at about 3 months (and many even sooner). These companies HIDE their layoffs, because they don't want to deal with the bad press that might come with it. My layoff with 5000 was never, ever mentioned in the press. There is zero shame associated with laying people off. I grew up in a time, where companies took pride in their people. No more. You are as disposal as a kleenex.

If they did it to me, they will do it to you if they get the chance...

Just promise yourself, your family and those who love you, that you will NEVER give up. (Galatians: Chapter 6 verse 9)

If you aren't working....reinvent yourself while you have the time....you are more than you think you are.

Today, my principled stand paid off with perhaps my best job ever......and man, does it feel really, really great!!