Coming out of the closet

No, not that closet.

So, about 5 weeks ago, my department manager called me into his office. Actually to be precise, he emailed me a notice that he wanted to meet with me in 3 hours about a "work load discussion." 3 hours is way too long a notice for such a meeting, so I naturally fretted about it for 3 hours and freaked out. Look, it's not really any surprise that they don't have work. I'm in this building with 7 levels of parking...only about 4 are full of cars, when 6 months ago, if I got here after 7:30 I was lucky to find a space at all.

Oh, right, the meeting, so he called me in and told me about how things might go. Oh wait, it was this day. Basically 5 things might happen. 80% chance of lay-off on June 12. 10% chance that current job will hold over, but we don't know how long. 5% chance of being sent to Norway. 3% chance of being sent to on-shore project. 2% chance something comes up and we have another project that you can go to.

So I went back to my desk and spent the day running numbers through our budget. The good news was that if I got laid off, with unemployment, Landon out of Day Care, and us tightening our spendiness - we'd be fine for 6 months - or until unemployment runs out anyway and honestly, the market should turn back around by then. I took this information along with the possibility of Norway and the slight possibility of having work here home to Clinton to discuss.


Clinton and I made the decision not to tell anyone at that time. We have family members that might have freaked out over the Norway thing, just as much as they would have about the being laid off thing and since nothing was final, there was no need.

We decided that I would try to ride it out. On the hopes of Not Norway, that possibly my job would hold me through until they got more work. Because the very last thing I wanted was to look back and see that the ship was not sinking when I jumped, but only listing. I didn't send out any resumes.

Fast forward, three weeks ago, after just posting about my miserable day, I got a call from my department manager. He remembered that I did not appreciate the 3 hour notice for the last meeting and asked if I could come to his office and discuss work load.

At that meeting, he said that they didn't have anything. He said the my last day would in all likelihood be June 26, and that he expected to give me final notice on or around June 12. He also asked me to train someone else to do my job. And then put me in touch with the company recruiter so that he could look over my resume and help me with some contacts.

I went back to my desk and started Job Search 2009. I set up a spreadsheet, I fixed up my resume, I sent resumes to the company I knew was hiring, I sent out resumes to anyone I knew in the industry to give me their contacts. I got in touch with head hunters. In all I sent out about 20 resumes over the next few days.

I got calls back from a couple head hunters, and come Monday there was radio silence. I got an email from a certain company that I knew was hiring that said, we don't have anything for you at this time. I was dis-heartened.

On Wednesday of last week, I decided to go ahead and plan what Landon and I would be doing while I was at home. I wanted to do more than watch Sprout and play trucks all day, I wanted to try to keep some learning in his day, because one day he'd have to go back to Day Care and I don't really want him to be behind. I had just finished typing out my ideas and printing things for him to color when I got a call from the same company that said they weren't interested in me.

On Friday I had an interview with that Company. I suck at interviews and this one was ok, I suppose. Here's the thing about interviews and me. When I walk out of one feeling confident, I am most assuredly not getting that job. When I walk out of one feeling like "hey, I just spent an hour making myself look stupid." I get those jobs. So this one wasn't bad. I spoke with 4 people there, and they seemed ok with me. The job is doing something I don't actually want to do, but it's a job that will last me until I can find something I do want to do. And it's something I have experience in.

Yesterday they made their decision. It was a no. Not now. But they have something they want to keep me in mind for in about a month. So it's back to square one - I have about 8 companies to send resumes to today bringing my total up to about 30 so far.

It's been a rough month, and this rejection has not helped.

The silver lining is that with a few weeks or a month off work, I might be able to get Landon potty trained before sending him back to school. That would be nice.