On November 29th 2008 this blog began with the following post:Unemployed and blogging under my own blog
Well after 3 years blogging at the HiWired blog and nearly 4 years doing tech support at HiWired my circumstances have changed. I along with the entire staff of HiWired (except for Deb who is doing the final tax paperwork) are kaput. I am now blogging here. What does this mean?
Later that day I posted about the closing of HiWired, the tech support company I worked for. You can read about it here. The process by which it died was remarkably similar to the process that was followed when my former employer gradually shrunk and then eliminated their operations in Massachusetts, the biggest difference being that HiWired had been a startup in 2004 and closed outright while our corporate owner simply moved our operations to other warehouses in the south and west joining the great exodus from blue states where it’s more expensive to operate to red states where it is not.
But the bottom line is the same. I am as of today for the 2nd time in the last 20 years unemployed because the business I worked for no longer exists as least where I live.
Now I’m in a slightly better position in one respect in that I have a severance package that can carry me for a couple of months if necessary but in a worse position it that I’m just a few weeks shy of 63 which might make me a tad less desirable to employers.
But here is the thing that really hits me.
At the time of my layoff in 2008 I was not all that worried, as you might have noticed by the tone of the blog post. While I still had teenagers in the house, with a good degree and an excellent work record I was sure it would not be long before I found something.
You might recall the coming of Barack Obama. It produced an insane level of optimism. The media/left was shared a rapturous joy over the country he would create. I didn’t have that same optimism always seeing Obama for the cheap Chicago Machine Pol he was but as I said I thought my credentials & word record would be enough.
Alas I had the dubious pleasure of experiencing the result of the Obama economy first hand because I had to try and find a job within it.
From the time he was sworn in to January of 2010 I had a total of one job interview. Absolutely nobody was interested in me. I supported myself on doing the occasional tech work for people in need but was completely unable to find permanent work in the Obama Economy.
Little did I know that Robert Stacy McCain would change my life beginning on January 15th 2010 when I picked him up at the train station and we covered the final week of the Scott Brown campaign together. Before the week was over I had members of the media filing from my dining room table, my first press credential at the Brown victory party with my press badge in my fedora. On January 28th 2010 he posted his piece: Send DaTechGuy to CPAC Much to the surprise of DaWife the money came in, I was packed for CPAC and my life was changed forever, A Radio show, A NY post op ed, a TV appearance, the magnificent Seven bloggers but I digress…
Alas 6 years later my blog and radio fortunes changed to the point where I ended up taking a 3rd shift warehouse temp job for 45% of what I was making eight years earlier. Within a couple of years I was hired full time and eventually reached a point where was (without adjusting for inflation) making what I was before & again in a job I enjoyed (Inventory control team) making enough that a secure if modest retirement was before me.
Then the bomb dropped in January and I discovered I’d have to go through finding a job all over again.
But this time I would be doing it in a Trump economy rather than an Obama economy so the question on the floor is: What are my prospects for finding work this time around?
Well let’s put it this way. As already noted in the 13 months that proceeded my rendezvous with Stacy McCain and destiny I had a single job interview and no job offers.
As of today I have already had three job interviews and I have a fourth scheduled for Wednesday & a fifth scheduled for Thursday. More importantly unlike the single job interview that I had back in 2009 for a position that paid 75% of what I had been making every job I’ve interviewed for pays at least 5% more than what I was making this morning.
Of course an interview isn’t the same as employment. It took my oldest son took six months to find work which came after a dozen interviews and there is no guarantee that I will be offered any of the positions I interviewed for & have been rejected for one of them already
There is one other wild card in this situation.
At the time of my previous layoff my digital footprint was almost non-existent. My blog posts for HiWired were almost all tech in nature (other than one of a family trip which had the odd effect of making a photo of my wife and kids the #1 result of Yahoo for “World’s Greatest Family for two years) I never joined facebook & if you searched for me on the net you wouldn’t find much.
Now I’m a very public Catholic conservative with definite opinions over 1000 videos on Youtube and a long twitter history. While some have decided to scrub their internet history for job searches I have decided, despite living in a very blue state not to do so. I am who I am and will not pretend otherwise. I trust my reputation at work and even in the blogosphere for honesty & straight shooting to, with God’s help carry the day.
So tomorrow I spend the day with my youngest, Sunday I spend time with DaWife on Mother’s day and starting Monday my focus becomes finding a new job to employ me till retirement at 70.
Despite the gas price spike I find myself confident both in the Trump economy and my prospects within it. We will see if that confidence and my natural optimism is rewarded or if as before it will be crushed until fate throws a curve.
If nothing else it will be an excellent practical measure of the Obama way vs the Trump way.
Wish me luck.
(Note if you want to wish me more than luck feel free to either hit DaTipJar and/or subscribe to my youtube channel as I’m only 12 subscribers away from being able to monetize it.
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