State of the unicorn - Breaking the silence
It's been at least three months or so since I've posted anything here of note. Due to recent events in my life I am now prepared to talk about what has been going on and share it with all of you. This may be short and to the point or I might get long winded so please just bare with me.
On February 14th of this year I was pulled into a meeting with our district manager and a representative from HR. Initially I assumed that this was to discuss the other two employees in the project office who were slated to lose their jobs around the June or July time frame. At the very least I assumed it was to discuss one of them who had been labeled a bit of a problem employee and whom I was responsible for reviewing. Cue the shocked look on my face when I found out the meeting was about me and that I was basically being told to leave the premises immediately and that my services were no longer needed. o.O I was dumbfounded. This came with absolutely no warning, no real justification other than lack of upcoming work and as a huge surprise to my managers and co-workers.
Unemployment. I had not faced something like that in nearly 15 years and I was ill prepared to go out and find work since the last few positions I had held were basically given to me by an engineer whom I've know since way back in the mid 1990's. Mind you I was well qualified for all of these jobs but I did not have to really go through the traditional interview process to get them. Let me just say that finding a job in this market would prove to be more of a challenge than I could ever had imagined. Over the course of the last 3 months I have sent out countless resumes from Alaska to Texas to New York and even Florida. I pretty much covered the country with my search but all the while focusing my energy here in Texas.
To date I've only managed to get four interviews, all of them local, with just one nibble nationally. The one job that presented itself outside of the state was in Silver City, New Mexico. Look it up. It's a wide spot in the road and one of those kinds of places that you can't get there from here. Needless to say it was not very high on the attractiveness scale as a potential place to live, work or try to commute weekly to and from. Two of the local interviews came very early on in the job hunt and they went very well. In the end though they declined to hire me since the had no work. o.O What the fuck, you interview me, waste my time and yours and you have no intention of hiring anyone? The third interview came about two months in and was a very good prospect. Sadly after several weeks of waiting and wondering I hear that they got their hiring budget slashed and instead of hiring seven they are only hiring two. I was not one of the two. >.< The fourth and most recent interview came but two weeks ago and was one that caught me by surprise. I had applied for this job way back at the beginning of April it seems like and had heard nothing in return in regards to interest or even when they were hiring.
During all of this time Kevin and I have been keeping ourselves busy with chores around the house. Many, many, so very many projects have seen their completion due to me being home all the time. We've finished out his home office (countless hours of me painting the french doors), we've completed our patio addition, the exterior of the house has been completely repainted (this took a solid month), the yard landscaped (front and back) and we've even managed to somewhat fix the retaining wall at the back of our house. At the end of this I've managed to drop 20 pounds down to around 180 and I have a helluva tan going on. :D
I can't even begin to explain to you how frustrating the job search is or how hard it is to sit back and wait on people to get back to you. Some days it almost drove me insane. I think that is part of the reason so many projects were completed. I simply had to have something to work on while waiting to hear about work. It's also pretty hard for me to explain the prospect of losing your home and having to move back in with your parents after being on your own for 20 years. We faced that very real prospect....
As of Friday I received my first real job offer and if all goes well I will be starting work mid June....and yes, it's local to DFW. :D
I know a lot of you had no idea this was going on. Don't feel slighted that you were left out of the loop. There are plenty of my closests freinds that don't know or didn't find out until VERY recently. Heck even my own father didn't know for the first month. I saw no sense in spreading the news, I know all too well how hard it can be to read depressing journal entries. As such I've pretty much kept my muzzle shut about the whole thing until I had something positive to share.
No idea how much I will come back to blogging here but I would say that it will certainly become more frequent and I'll try to write something at least weekly.
Storm
Cross posted to http://shadow-stallion.dreamwidth.org/9036.html
On February 14th of this year I was pulled into a meeting with our district manager and a representative from HR. Initially I assumed that this was to discuss the other two employees in the project office who were slated to lose their jobs around the June or July time frame. At the very least I assumed it was to discuss one of them who had been labeled a bit of a problem employee and whom I was responsible for reviewing. Cue the shocked look on my face when I found out the meeting was about me and that I was basically being told to leave the premises immediately and that my services were no longer needed. o.O I was dumbfounded. This came with absolutely no warning, no real justification other than lack of upcoming work and as a huge surprise to my managers and co-workers.
Unemployment. I had not faced something like that in nearly 15 years and I was ill prepared to go out and find work since the last few positions I had held were basically given to me by an engineer whom I've know since way back in the mid 1990's. Mind you I was well qualified for all of these jobs but I did not have to really go through the traditional interview process to get them. Let me just say that finding a job in this market would prove to be more of a challenge than I could ever had imagined. Over the course of the last 3 months I have sent out countless resumes from Alaska to Texas to New York and even Florida. I pretty much covered the country with my search but all the while focusing my energy here in Texas.
To date I've only managed to get four interviews, all of them local, with just one nibble nationally. The one job that presented itself outside of the state was in Silver City, New Mexico. Look it up. It's a wide spot in the road and one of those kinds of places that you can't get there from here. Needless to say it was not very high on the attractiveness scale as a potential place to live, work or try to commute weekly to and from. Two of the local interviews came very early on in the job hunt and they went very well. In the end though they declined to hire me since the had no work. o.O What the fuck, you interview me, waste my time and yours and you have no intention of hiring anyone? The third interview came about two months in and was a very good prospect. Sadly after several weeks of waiting and wondering I hear that they got their hiring budget slashed and instead of hiring seven they are only hiring two. I was not one of the two. >.< The fourth and most recent interview came but two weeks ago and was one that caught me by surprise. I had applied for this job way back at the beginning of April it seems like and had heard nothing in return in regards to interest or even when they were hiring.
During all of this time Kevin and I have been keeping ourselves busy with chores around the house. Many, many, so very many projects have seen their completion due to me being home all the time. We've finished out his home office (countless hours of me painting the french doors), we've completed our patio addition, the exterior of the house has been completely repainted (this took a solid month), the yard landscaped (front and back) and we've even managed to somewhat fix the retaining wall at the back of our house. At the end of this I've managed to drop 20 pounds down to around 180 and I have a helluva tan going on. :D
I can't even begin to explain to you how frustrating the job search is or how hard it is to sit back and wait on people to get back to you. Some days it almost drove me insane. I think that is part of the reason so many projects were completed. I simply had to have something to work on while waiting to hear about work. It's also pretty hard for me to explain the prospect of losing your home and having to move back in with your parents after being on your own for 20 years. We faced that very real prospect....
As of Friday I received my first real job offer and if all goes well I will be starting work mid June....and yes, it's local to DFW. :D
I know a lot of you had no idea this was going on. Don't feel slighted that you were left out of the loop. There are plenty of my closests freinds that don't know or didn't find out until VERY recently. Heck even my own father didn't know for the first month. I saw no sense in spreading the news, I know all too well how hard it can be to read depressing journal entries. As such I've pretty much kept my muzzle shut about the whole thing until I had something positive to share.
No idea how much I will come back to blogging here but I would say that it will certainly become more frequent and I'll try to write something at least weekly.
Storm
Cross posted to http://shadow-stallion.dreamwidth.org/9036.html