Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Editorial

Laid off? What are You Doing w/ Your Newfound Freedom? 150

Posted by Cliff from the forced-vacation-activities dept.
dmorin asks: "Like many of you I'm recently laid off. So as I wake up every morning wondering what to do with my day I got to thinking, how everybody else is handling the new found free time? My original idea, that I would simply spend all my time working on my own software projects in order to learn new skills, went out the window when I realized that I'd burn out far too fast if I thought that the most important thing in life. My wife is working part time so I have at least 3 days a week to take care of my 10month old daughter, time that I would not have had if I was still employed. I'm doing my share of the chores around the house, not just taking care of the lawn but also doing groceries, laundry and so on. As for geeky stuff, I play with projects and technologies because they are fun, not because I think they will make me more marketable. I put away my "personal Java portal" and lately am playing with voice synthesis on my Zaurus just because I think it's cool. So how about everybody else? What are you doing with this new free time that's been forced upon you? How much of it are you using to job search? How much is 'honey do' list, how much is just free play time? Disclaimer: I'm researching an idea for a possible book. Not planning to quote anybody without their permission, just looking to hear what people are up to."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Laid off? What are You Doing w/ Your Newfound Freedom? More

Laid off? What are You Doing w/ Your Newfound Freedom?

Comments Filter:

  • I am (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 13, 2003 @02:25PM (#5947228)
    Reading and posting on Slashdot... a lot.

  • Look for work (Score:5, Insightful)

    by renehollan ( 138013 ) <[rhollan] [at] [clearwire.net]> on Tuesday May 13, 2003 @02:27PM (#5947256) Homepage Journal
    When I was laid off, I made looking for a job a full time job.

    • Re:Look for work (Score:5, Interesting)

      by missing000 ( 602285 ) on Tuesday May 13, 2003 @02:46PM (#5947465)
      I started to realize that plugging away and over-pushing my resume was a bad way to do things about my 2nd month out of work.

      To keep busy I started volunteering for non-profits I like, and even helped to get a candidate for mayor get 43% of the vote in Denver's latest election.

      After 5 months of looking, I finally found a job. Now I spend a lot of free time working for NPOs and campaigning for a candidate sure to get the mayor's job in a month.

      If nothing else, unemployment brought me a lot of connections I would have never had, and a sense of accomplishment that's just great.
    • Lots of people are telling me this (make the job search a fulltime job). But what does that mean, exactly? Get up and leave the house at 8, bring a lunch, dont come back til 5? What are you finding to occupy your 40 hours? I check the web boards daily, send out my applications, keep up on the emails and "checking in" with contacts. When there's an event I try to network. But what else?

      • Re:Look for work (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Radical Rad ( 138892 ) on Tuesday May 13, 2003 @04:27PM (#5948619) Homepage
        You may already be doing this but making the job search a full time job means getting out of bed at the same time as you did when you were employed, shaving, being fully dressed and awake by 8am, ready to take phone calls from potential employers or make cold calls to firms in your area who may have openings you can fill. Schedule time with yourself to work on cover letters and resume tweaks and to follow up on ones you've sent out.

        The rule of thumb is: Expect the search to take about 1 month for each 10k in salary. I have been trying to find a position as a millionaire playboy for almost ten years so I expect some responses any day now.

        • ready to take phone calls from potential employers or make cold calls to firms in your area who may have openings you can fill.

          What fantasy world are YOU living in?? The economy's in the gutter, almost all of the large firms where I live either have a hiring freeze in place or are laying off like crazy. The smaller firms are barely keeping their heads above water as well. Besides, research has shown time and again cold calling firms is NOT likely to get you a job. The best thing you can do to yoursel

      • Re:Look for work (Score:2, Informative)

        by Red Warrior ( 637634 )
        Making it a full time job means taking it as seriously as you take/took a "real" job (assuming that you take a real job seriously, that is).
        It's a research, planning, and marketing job, btw.
        Research what you want to do, and who/what could hire you to do it. Whether or not they have an ad in the newspaper/job site or not. Know about that employer in detail BEFORE you go for the interview. Before you apply, if feasable.
        Develop and follow a plan to make sure you leave no stone unturned, no lead left unfollowed

    • Re:Look for work (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I swore I would not use unemployment the next time I was laid off. So, as the result of my employer suffering the largest losses in corporate history for two straight years, I was laid off as part of a restructuring that was to help them save money for next year. The employer was gracious enough to provide out-placement counseling classes through a nationally-recognized out-placement firm and a fairly decent 3 months of severance pay. Funny, though, the out-placement firm also announced a 20% reduction of i

    • Ice Cubes (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Glonoinha ( 587375 ) on Tuesday May 13, 2003 @04:25PM (#5948601) Journal
      Ice Cubes - they are cold and hard, like the truth.

      Statistically speaking :
      1. You are not going to find a job on Monster, Dice, etc... A job may find you there, but if a job is posted it is either a scam, fake job because some recruited is collecting resumes, or 1,200 other Random L. User .COM flunky wannabe's have already flooded the poster with lies err... resumes.
      2. You are not going to find a job in the Newspaper want ads.
      3. You are not going to find a job watching TV.
      4. Job fairs are a joke. I think the only purpose of job fairs is for people with jobs to go to a zoo-like environment where people without jobs are laughed at behind their backs.

      Where are jobs found?
      1. Personal references. Odds are your next job is going to be a direct result of you being walked in the back door by the hand of someone that knows someone.
      2. Friend of a Friend. Just because the company where your friend works isn't hiring, doesn't mean that your friend doesn't know someone at a company where they need someone.
      3. Existing Professional Contacts. If you interacted with other companies, you collected a bunch of business cards and you left a very good (memorable) impression. Do not email them, emails containing 'looking for work' get deleted faster than 'bigger schlong' spam - call ahead of time and meet them for lunch. Discuss your situation with them, see if they have any leads.
      4. Contract solutions. They suck, and they suck even more if you don't speak Hindi, but if you are willing to suck it up and work for peanuts just to get your foot in the door and are willing to lie a little on your resume (actually the placement agency will create a wonderful work of fiction and put your name on top of it - don't laugh) then you are back in the workplace. The purpose of being back in contact with loads of new people isn't to make a lot of money, it is to make a bunch of new contacts because your existing contact base failed the first three options.
      • 1. Why the above post is not rated Insightful?
        2. Do you by chance happen to know a biotech company in Bay Area (or in/around San Diego) which is looking for an excellent synthetic medicinal chemist with a drug currently in clinical trials (=me)?

        tvojkovsky@hotmail. com

      • Statistically speaking : 1. You are not going to find a job on Monster, Dice, etc... A job may find you there, but if a job is posted it is either a scam, fake job because some recruited is collecting resumes, or 1,200 other Random L. User .COM flunky wannabe's have already flooded the poster with lies err... resumes.

        Just as a meaningless data point, I found my last three jobs (everything since I graduated in 2000) via Monster.com (or a similar site) or the local newspaper. It doesn't seem to be helping

      • Actually, I beg to differ. My current position came as a direct result of a contact I made at a job fair. While I agree that they're often useless, (often feeling like cows walking through the stockyard on the way to the slaughterhouse,) you can make contacts and network from them.

        All that aside though, I got more contacts and interviews through the positive points 1-3. I also found a group of people specalizing in networking [augustgroup.org]. While things didn't pan out and I didn't land my job through them, the netwo
  • What am I missing here?

    Looking for work can be a full time task on its own.
  • and I'm going to go back to school.

    Otherwise, I might convince myself out of boredom to get a grunt job, which gives me the shivers.
    • [aohell]Me too![/aohell]

      Apparently there is a lot of clamor in K-12 for teachers who are technically savvy. And there is tons of financial aid available for people who are willing to commit to being a public school teacher, especially if you can teach math, science or special education. I'm going for the very latter...special ed. Adaptive tools for learning require technically savvy teachers to help kids use them, need I say more?

      It will take me a while. But five years of being a full-time student beats f
  • So I hired myself and started Linux Screws [linux-screws.com], a web site selling linux distributions and services. And, like another poster, I post on slashdot. A lot. I get a great click through rate to my site, but unfortunately, not a lot of people seem to be buying. now if only I could afford the $400 for an OSDN ad...
    • Nice site except for all the images that have wrong height/width specified so they get stretched to nastiness. Some time in an image editor or changing the HTML would really help the look.
      • Also, clicking the "Checkout" button gives warnings about the secutity certificate not matching the host name which might put some people off.

        • Also, clicking the "Checkout" button gives warnings about the secutity certificate not matching the host name which might put some people off.

          These two posts make me wonder: is there a market for "homebrewed website" quality checking? Say, a person with a lot of web development experience (definitely not me: I'm an embedded head :-) who accepts a small fee for testing your site just before you publish it to the world and finds bugs/makes usability suggestions/stress tests it. Anyone want to take this ide

          • >These two posts make me wonder: is there a market for "homebrewed website" quality checking? Say, a person with a lot of web development experience (definitely not me: I'm an embedded head :-) who accepts a small fee for testing your site just before you publish it to the world and finds bugs/makes usability suggestions/stress tests it. Anyone want to take this idea and run with it?

            Yes, there is a market... but it is a LOT of work. Convincing the operator of this is not easy... you could point out exam
            • I would guess that the people wise enough to use your service will be the ones that can do all of this themselves.

              • I would guess that the people wise enough to use your service will be the ones that can do all of this themselves.

                Not always. Consider this: I can build simple dynamic websites, and I understand the need for proper testing. But not having any background in the subject, unless I wanted to spend a lot of time learning about common problems/failure modes, I wouldn't have much of a clue where to start/how to write test cases, etc. And I probably wouldn't be motivated to spend the time learning about those t

              • You're right... it's pretty difficult to 'sell' something to a customer who doesn't see the need. And once you explain, they'll just fix it (or shrug).

                LaughingBoy is also correct (child post)... any good developer realizes a tester with a Quality background is going to make a thorough and methodical pass through the software/site. Anyone can "test", but it's a specialized discipline so the SQE is going to find problems the developer never would.

                I can see from my wording, how my meaning was lost. I think t

    • You could make more money .... (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You could make more money if you were using a website named www.linux-saves.com instead of www.linux-screws.com

      Just my $0.02
  • Post in slashdot asking for input, write a book, make it a best seller (so many unemployed), never work again.
    • Nonono, write book, *then* post to slashdot, thus satisfying the requirement of having a link to clickthru. For kicks and giggles be sure to send the link back through your own Amazon affiliate so you really squeeze the christ out of every penny.

  • damn work ethic (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mattsucks ( 541950 ) on Tuesday May 13, 2003 @02:36PM (#5947357) Homepage
    my $0.02:

    My last job ended late last fall when the company went under. 2nd time that happened to me in two years. The first time, I slid right into the new job with no gap in employement. Yes, I know I was very lucky. This past fall, I thought I'd take the rest of the year off, relax, catch up on my life, de-stress, and job hunt. Aaahhhhh, peace.

    I made it 3 days.

    After 3 days, I was going absolutely batty. Without having the regular schedule of work to frame my day, I just drifted along getting absolutely nothing accomplished. I'd never been one to do much work from home, so I wasn't really set up to do any programming or technical things. I tried catching up on my techie mags, reading some programming books ... without having the ability to try out the things I was trying to learn none of it stuck. Also tried to catch up on music (I'm a songwriter), but it turned out without work to piss me off I didn't have as much to write about :-)

    So I took part time contracting type work to keep myself occupied, and found my current job (working as a contract employee, programming) which started Jan 1.

    I blame all this on my parents, of course.
    • Sounds familiar... every time I drop off the end of a contract I think "hey, I just keep the contracts I have at a simmer for a few weeks and take a break". Never happens. I'm at one of the "simmering" contract sites and we realize how many things we have put off for them in the past.

      I really could use the vacation, but usually it's my fault for seeing opportunity to improve systems and being unable to resist it.
      • I really could use the vacation, but usually it's my fault for seeing opportunity to improve systems and being unable to resist it.

        Do the companies' you're contracting for pay you extra to do this or are you just a perfectionist?

        Seriously, I'm not trolling, I'm just not familiar with how that works.
        • I get paid by the hour. Never work fixed bid, never work for a salary. I do my work in very small chunks (never more than about 20 hours "ahead of the curve"). I believe strongly in delivering a product quickly, and at an affordable price. The client then can see what I have done, and decide to proceed further, use what has been done or cut bait with minimal time and financial commitment.

          As long as you design with the long view in mind, very often a smaller implementation will deliver value immediately. Fo
    • So I took part time contracting type work to keep myself occupied

      How did you go about finding part-time contracting work?

      Late last year, for various reasons I made a decision to "down-shift" - I cut back to working 30 hours/week, and enrolled in an 18 month program in shiatsu and Asian bodywork. I just got the ax, I'm now trying to figure out if it's reasonable to try to find something part-time - not to keep myself occupied, but to pay the bills.

      • I found the part-time contracting bits through my still-employed friends. One of the benefits of working so long in the same market is that you meet a LOT of people (I've been in the Dallas/Ft Worth, TX area for 15+ years now). And in the time I've known them, some of them have moved up the ranks into hiring-decision positions. [Hmm .. wonder why I haven't done that? I'll worry about that later]

  • For My Sake (Score:5, Funny)

    by lostindenver ( 53192 ) on Tuesday May 13, 2003 @02:37PM (#5947362)
    Learn a different skill and stay out of IT. One less person to compete with. Not that i need to worry about that based on your question you lazy BUM....

    • Re:For My Sake (Score:2, Insightful)

      by SN74S181 ( 581549 )
      Who's in IT? I'm an electronics guy. Lots of us aren't in IT. I detest recruiters who think that because I can write tight Assembly Language code for embedded controllers I am in 'IT.' The hell with that.

  • Get a job... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by eclectic_echidna ( 586735 )
    0. Talked with EVERY developer I had known and asked about job leads.
    1. Spent 2-3 hours a day targeting resumes for the job(s) listed on about 10 different sites. What a waste of time... Over 300 hiring gits that never responded to me. I mean _NO_ response.
    2. Found a short term contract.
    3. After 10 weeks, ended up taking an internship @ $10/hr. It was easy to get a job against others that had no experience vs. my 5 years.
    4. Worked so DAMN hard at the internship, it has now evolved into a real job with de

  • A few options I can think of... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Per Wigren ( 5315 ) on Tuesday May 13, 2003 @02:38PM (#5947377) Homepage

    Join a programming project. Create something you can show when you're looking for a new job.

    If you're single or polyamourous, now is the best time to start clubbing and have some fun while you can!

    Sit in front of the TV all day eating pizza with extra cheese and drink diet coke.

    Find a new job.

  • I am writing a book about... (Score:3, Funny)

    by heldlikesound ( 132717 ) on Tuesday May 13, 2003 @02:42PM (#5947425) Homepage
    ... what people do with their free time after they get laid off.

  • Do "a page a day" (Score:4, Interesting)

    by clonebarkins ( 470547 ) on Tuesday May 13, 2003 @02:44PM (#5947446)

    Go to Distributed Proofreaders [archive.org] and help put some public domain books online!

  • Fuckin' A (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    My original idea, that I would simply spend all my time working on my own software projects in order to learn new skills, went out the window when I realized that I'd burn out far too fast if I thought that the most important thing in life.

    As for geeky stuff, I play with projects and technologies because they are fun, not because I think they will make me more marketable. I put away my "personal Java portal" and lately am playing with voice synthesis on my Zaurus just because I think it's cool.

    Hey Jer

  • That is; business as usual...
  • I started producing a specialised dance music radio show [djsnm.com] for kHz networks, now I'm on a few radio stations.

    It's somewhat Ironic, when I wrote mp3serv back in '97 it was so I could do internet radio, that little piece of innovation (before anyone ever thought of shoutcast) landed me jobs with media companies in California. But it took getting laid off 3 times last year to give me the time to get my radio show off the ground. Now I'm working again and able to keep up the dj aspirations too.

    If you're in San

  • Limbo (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Rick the Red ( 307103 ) <Rick.The.Red@nOsPaM.gmail.com> on Tuesday May 13, 2003 @02:49PM (#5947494) Journal
    I'm really in limbo here. As others have said, looking for work can itself be a full-time job. Our boy is 6 and soon will be out of school for the summer, and I'll have to watch him full-time. As it is, we dropped before- and after-school care because we can't afford it on one income, so my day is suddenly much shorter anyway. I'm not sure how I'll make my three contacts a week needed to maintain unemployment.

    On top of that, our daughter is due at the end of June, so I'll have my son, wife, and newborn to care for this summer. Have you priced infant care? If I find a job and go back to work, I'll have to make at least $24,000 a year just to pay for child care. We only get to pocket anything above that, but it's got to be significantly above that or we'll have to sell this house and find a smaller one.

    We are truely blessed to live in the house of our dreams, on 5 acres out in the country, but we got it on two incomes and we won't be able to keep it on one. We figure we can go about one year before it comes to that. On average, they say it takes 9 months and at least three interviews to find a job here. After 3+ months I have had zero interviews.

    Meanwhile, when I can find the time, I have to empty the basement so I can sheetrock the walls, build the bathroom and office/guesroom, and finish the rest as a playroom. So we can move the office/guest room furniture out of what will soon be the baby's room.

    So I'm in limbo. Do I apply for any three jobs just to qualify for unemployment, become a stay-at-home dad, and move to suburbia where we can spit on our neighbor's houses without leaving our back yard? Or do I attend all the job hunt seminars, help an open-source project just to keep my skills up, and do anything to find another job, putting my kids into daycare in the process?

    • Au Pair (Score:5, Funny)

      by Glonoinha ( 587375 ) on Tuesday May 13, 2003 @04:05PM (#5948354) Journal
      If you are paying more than a grand a month in child care, consider sponsoring an Au Pair from Europe. The ones I looked into were recent high school grads with average English skills, wanting to spend a year in the US before they go off to college or whatever. My expenses would have been $255 a week, or thereabouts, plus including her in the household grocery expenses.

      Sounded like a great deal, have an 18 year European woman live with me to help out with the housework, etc ... but the agency got upset when they found out I didn't have a child. Those pesky agency clerks ... mess up a perfectly good dream.
    • Don't give up your 5 acres. Ever. In the future, your kids will be the 'lucky ones' to live outside of suburbia. There is simply no way to appreciate Mark Twain and all the "Great American ________ Books" when you grew up in suburbia. Get your kid involved in indian guides, and all of those awesome groups, which cost nothing to be a part of. Those experiences and memories your children will have will be priceless when they are 20, 30 years old. Don't ruin their childhood by moving to suburbia. Have you cons

    • Re:Limbo (Score:3, Interesting)

      by malice95 ( 40013 )
      So I'm in limbo. Do I apply for any three jobs just to qualify for unemployment, become a stay-at-home dad, and move to suburbia where we can spit on our neighbor's houses without leaving our back yard? Or do I attend all the job hunt seminars, help an open-source project just to keep my skills up, and do anything to find another job, putting my kids into daycare in the process?
      I would send out resumes to as many gigs as possible.. just sending out the emails will qualify as 3 contacts. Not you fault they

    • Self-sufficiency is the solution. You have 5 acres; with 5 acres of land you should be able to be self-sufficient in many of your needs. Grow your own vegetables, raise chickens, pigs, sheep, a couple of cows, use horses to work your land. You have anough land for a small farm, that should be able to easily support you and your family.

      From there, you should be able to sell your produce at local markets (organic, of course, so at a premium over normal food), to raise cash for other purposes. One man should

    • 5 acres out in the country.

      I hope you use that land. You can do quite a bit living off of 5 acres. Do what myself and my girlfriend do: plant crops. Over time, increase your food intake from your fields and less from the supermarket. Save yourself a ton of money. Self-reliance in this situation is Very Good.
  • Well, I'm not laid off, yet. I'm in the keeping-my-fingers-crossed stage.

    So I've been getting ready for it by beefing up the ol' photography skills and equipment inventory. I just picked up the Canon 550 Speedlight wireless flash system (REALLY nifty btw, 2 flashes slaved off of a wireless module that fits in the flash shoe) and I've volunteered to shoot a friend's wedding which is actually coming up this weekend. It'll be the first in what is hopefully a long and fruitfull wedding portfolio. Be nice

  • Finished my novel (Score:3, Interesting)

    by michaelggreer ( 612022 ) on Tuesday May 13, 2003 @02:59PM (#5947641)

    I'm a writer, so I was kind of waiting for the Writers Grant of unemployment when I signed up with a startup. It ended up lasting much longer than I thought it would, but when it collapsed I started in finishing my novel. Whoopee!

    I built a webapp to help me do this, where I have to write a certain number of words per day or an email is sent out to all of my friends. The site is called SHAME [sundaysalon.com]. Writing through humiliation.

  • Do something Good. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by immanis ( 557955 ) <immanis AT sfgoth DOT com> on Tuesday May 13, 2003 @03:08PM (#5947744) Homepage Journal

    I've been fundraising for the AIDS/LifeCycle [aidslifecycle.org]

    Doing something good, to help people out, helps keep me from getting depressed. I strongly suggest that you find a charity and do some free work in your free time. It keeps you from wasting away.

    This is my 4th such ride. I've got a team [teamapocalypse.com] and everything. Though this year, I am WAY SHORT [go2rider.org] on donations.

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday May 13, 2003 @03:09PM (#5947758)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Unfortunately, certification and classes cost somewhere in the range of several thousand dollars. If money isn't coming in, where and how do you pay for it?

      Remember, some of us laid off types have families to feed and mortgages to pay.

  • Lots to Do (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Well, here's a small list:

    Converting my skills from MS to Linux having been an MSCE

    Wired the apartment for CAT5

    Studying for the Cisco qualifications and nearly there

    Sent out a hundred or so CVs with a 1% reply rate

    Learning Hungarian

    Just because you're an unemployed techie there's no need to put on the pounds watching daytime TV and eating cheeseburgers. Make use of the time so that when you get that interview you can tell them about everything you have done during your time off.

  • I live at the library now. Read philosphy, and then write about it, and then discuss what I write with my friends. It eats up a lot of time. A lot. Huzzah for 24 hour university libraries.

    Oh, and post on slashdot. (duh)

  • Topic for a book? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    How about a compilation of content-free popup-free porn sites? That'd be great and would reflect your new free time!
  • Try looking for a job for 18 months and not getting anything but a 5 day temp job? That's how I spend my time. Sending resumes, filling out apps, calling palces, calling my friends.
  • In the almost two months that I was laid off (you have to cringe with office politics), I have been working on my house, cleaning and rearranging my home office, job hunting (which there market in Phoenix is dead for designers) and trying to establish my own business.

    I have been able to spend alot of time with my family that I would not normally be able to, that part is nice. I also have been donating my design services to a non-profit. That project is huge and they don't have the money to pay a designer s
  • I'm racking up debt and going back to school.

    At least I'll have a degree AND some debt rather than just having the debt. :)
  • Here are some of the things I ended up doing all the various times I've been unemployed:

    After high school was over, I didn't have a job (well, didn't have one beforehand either). I spent a lot of time coding (PHP, learning MySQL, etc), and studying for my CCNA. Then I decided to go to Israel for a few weeks, so I got a job in Montreal, moved there (from Vancouver area), and worked.

    When I was in Jerusalem (kind of jobless, I guess), I relaxed, spent quality time with my friends, and went for walks for the
    • from your blog: Can't imagine four months of this. Maybe I'll die instead. Boredom can kill a man. Yawn. No energy to concentrate on things. Will try to pursue personal projects. Maybe gnaw own arm off. We'll see. Hmm...it seems that there is a fair amount of unhappiness to go along with the self-improvement. Maybe you need to get the hell out of Nowhere, NS (Sounds like its somewhere near Shelburne)
  • Use your .sig to your advantage!

  • Here's what I did ... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by YllabianBitPipe ( 647462 ) on Tuesday May 13, 2003 @05:39PM (#5949269)

    About two years ago I went through this.

    First off, I allowed myself one week of nothing, then I would get to schedule and do the job search and all that. I had severance to tide me over for a few weeks anyhow. So I made a short list which mainly consited of seeing all the sights in the city I hadn't had time to do, seeing movies during the day, running all the errands I never got around to, cleaning house, etc.

    After the week was up it was hardcore job hunting time, but not so hard core I burned out. I did find the most important thing to do was not fall into a funk and sleep til noon. Get up, do your job hunt, take a shower ... basic stuff. I didn't want to fall into the pattern of waking up at noon, not taking a shower til 3 and realizing the day was over, so not going out, basically becoming a total hermit / night owl, playing video games all night. It was actually hard to resist this ... after all, when you're unemployed, you have no place to "be".

    The next important thing for me was to cut expenses immediately. Seems like many people assume they'll get a job in a month and proceed to blow their severance on a trip to Thailand or something. Resist it! You should act as if you're not getting a job for months. Cut cable, cancel magazine subscriptions, stop eating out, etc. I think the only liberty I allowed myself was to keep the broadband going as it would aid my job search.

    Once you find a job, that's when you get to slack off. The two weeks or so after you've signed the offer letter and you KNOW you just need to show up at work are the best two weeks known to humankind. That's when you sleep til noon and slack off, with not a care in the world because you know you got it made. I wish there were more times like that in a lifetime.

  • Looking for a job is a full time job (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bolix ( 201977 ) <bolix.hotmail@com> on Tuesday May 13, 2003 @05:58PM (#5949408) Homepage Journal
    My idea was that braintrusts NEVER go out of fashion. I took 2 weeks off and then spent 8 weeks stalking Universities and BioTechs. I think i damn near resumed every University in the Western Hemisphere.

    I shit myself when the fuckers didn't respond.

    Thankfully, in the meantime, i'd spammed enough businesses in my neighbourhood with rent-a-geek flyers to keep myself in a hand-to-mouth existence. Savings got lower and lower until the a flood of invoices from mom 'n pops coughed up. I was actually making a living on my own! Whoopie! Some advice - work around retainers - sell saving 5-10 desktop + 1 server companies money on a dedicated IT guy - then hit 'em up for $2-400 a month + expenses or per Desktop + per Server flat rates. Resell 'em prerolled website packages (opensourcecms.com). Sell Dell machines. Sell soho firewalls. Sell MS SBS and SUSE office server. Swing by a couple of times a month for new machines, virus updates etc. Get 5-10 clients and you have enough to pay the mortgage and feed yourself. Do a good job and it snowballs from there.

    After 2 months i started to get responses. A lot of responses. Universities are so swamped with dot bomb resumes that even getting a response is almost a bloody lottery. Academia moves at a glacial pace anyway.

    When i started interviewing, i was in the luxurious position of having a choice, again. I was in the driving seat. After another 2 months, i accepted a position in Harvard. I.S. here is a mix of laid back, relaxed hippies and semi-rigid offloaded corporates like myself.

    I can reliably state, i'm better off for the experience. Knowing i can bounce back and stand on my own 2 feet is a great comfort.
  • They laid me off, so I'm building a giant death machine to seek my revenge.
  • I spent the past 4.5 years bitching how if I had my own company things would be 10X better.. Well, I am finding out if I was right or not.. :)
    • Let me shorten the wait for you... you wont :-(

      I left a job (not a very good one, but it payed the bills) to partner up with 2 unemployed friends for a 6-month project. The project fell through the last minute, and we're left to our own to sell it (it's a webmetric project, our partners were supposed to sell the service).

      Now we're barely getting by competing against indian and russian programmers on scriptlance.com and doing freelance jobs here in argentina.

      Not that im bitter or anything.

      On the bright
    • Can I work at your new company?
  • I pounded nails to pay rent.

    Five months later and out of the blue HP called me back to work in a completely different division.

    At half pay.

    Still, I would have slept with someone to get that job.

    Good luck to all my unemployed Brothers and Sisters!

    Cheers,

    Bill

  • ..since I realize how quickly fortunes change, I have been making "what if" plans. Financially, I can survive an extended period of unemployment. I was always big on saving & investing and don't spend much of what I make. But I have been considering many business ideas. I spend some time each day thinking and researching niches that a small 1-2 person company can enter and prosper in. Both for side projects I can do now, and things that could support me full time should I become unemployed.
    We are all go

  • I'm 48, which makes me mostly redundant in the IT market. I don't mind. I was laid off a year ago, and moved back to the countryside to change lifestyle and live more cheaply.

    I got a seemingly good job late last year as a J2EE portal developer. But really, it was the same old problem; management thought they had a solution, but anyone could see all they were really doing was being employed to develop something, without their input, which would not fulfill the real user world requirements, and the prob

  • Bookie or porno director... Certified electricians and plumbers don't do so bad these days either, and it takes less time and money to get certified than it does to get a degree. Seriously. Unix admins who are used to installing there own cat5 cable and stuff should have no problems getting certified as good old fashioned electricians. I've heard a lot of stories about _huge_ sums made by electrical contractors on major construction projects, or simply those doing residential wiring who are known and trus
  • Odd Todd [oddtodd.com] has some good suggestions. I especially like Captain Todd's Mac 'n' Cheese surprise. He also has a book [barnesandnoble.com] entitled "Hard Times, Soft Couch" with some good suggestions to get you through your period of unemployment. It's good. Not necessarily practical, but it'll provide a momentary distraction anyway.

  • It's funny. The first thing one thinks about when they are out of work is: How can I get another job just like the one I lost!?

    Sometimes, maybe it's better to change one's perspective. Sit back or go do something you hadn't done in a long while on the first day of your jobless existence. If you spent the last period of your life in a concrete jungle... go visit the beach, the forests, or a local garden. If you've been hacking code for longer than you can remember, why not step outside,take a breath, and ma

  • Fortunately, I was able to take advatage of some good timing and a family safety net to return home to the family farm. I haven't driven tractor since high school, but it's kind of like riding a bike. I have to admit, after cutting all my expenses and doing "real work" here for my family, I might find it hard to return to a cube farm working for the man.
  • "Like many of you I'm recently laid..." Like many of me? Are you kidding? I can't even get a date! "...off." Oh.

    Lesson number one: finish reading before commenting.

    Thanking I still have a job.

Slashdot Top Deals

What is research but a blind date with knowledge? -- Will Harvey

Close