Laid off? What are You Doing w/ Your Newfound Freedom? 150
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."
I am (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I am (Score:3, Funny)
I'm jerking off three, four times a day to Slashdot. At least four times...
Re:I am (Score:1)
I wish (Score:2)
Troll?
Funny?
Insightful?
Re:I wish (Score:1)
Re:I am (Score:2)
Look for work (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Look for work (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Look for work (Score:2)
oh wait...that's the cat on my lap. Nevermind...
Re:Look for work (Score:2)
Re:Look for work (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Look for work (Score:2)
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)
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)
Ice Cubes (Score:5, Insightful)
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
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.
Re:Ice Cubes (Score:2)
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
Monster & the classifieds: a data point (Score:2)
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
Re:Ice Cubes (Score:2)
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
Why not look for a job? (Score:1)
Looking for work can be a full time task on its own.
In two weeks I'm leaving work (Score:2)
Otherwise, I might convince myself out of boredom to get a grunt job, which gives me the shivers.
Back to College to finish what I started. (Score:2)
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
No one else is hiring (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No one else is hiring (Score:1)
Re:No one else is hiring (Score:1)
Re:No one else is hiring (Score:1)
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
Re:No one else is hiring (Score:2)
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
Re:No one else is hiring (Score:1)
Re:No one else is hiring (Score:1)
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
Re:No one else is hiring (Score:2)
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)
Just my $0.02
Re:No one else is hiring (Score:1)
Re:No one else is hiring (Score:2)
Write a book (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Write a book (Score:2)
Re:Write a book (Score:2)
They hiring? I can't find any Career/Jobs section on their web site.
damn work ethic (Score:4, Interesting)
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
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.
Re:damn work ethic (Score:2)
I really could use the vacation, but usually it's my fault for seeing opportunity to improve systems and being unable to resist it.
Re:damn work ethic (Score:2)
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.
Re:damn work ethic (Score:2)
As long as you design with the long view in mind, very often a smaller implementation will deliver value immediately. Fo
Re:damn work ethic (Score:1)
Re:damn work ethic (Score:1)
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.
Re:damn work ethic (Score:2)
For My Sake (Score:5, Funny)
Re:For My Sake (Score:2, Insightful)
Get a job... (Score:2, Interesting)
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)
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.
Re:A few options I can think of... (Score:2)
Re:A few options I can think of... (Score:2)
My BMI is 18,6
I am writing a book about... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I am writing a book about... (Score:2)
Do "a page a day" (Score:4, Interesting)
Go to Distributed Proofreaders [archive.org] and help put some public domain books online!
Fuckin' A (Score:1, Insightful)
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
Pimping my ass (Score:1)
Now I'm a Club & College Radio DJ (Score:2)
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)
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)
Sounded like a great deal, have an 18 year European woman live with me to help out with the housework, etc
Re:Limbo (Score:1)
Re:Limbo (Score:3, Interesting)
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
Re:Limbo (Score:1)
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
Re:Limbo (Score:2)
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.
Being prepared (Score:2)
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)
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.
Re:Finished my novel (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Finished my novel (Score:2)
Re:Finished my novel (Score:2)
Writing is the key to getting better.
Do something Good. (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
These guys rock!! (Score:2)
Go Team Apocalypse!
(Gothfather - is that you??)
Make you an offer you can't refuse. (Score:1)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:get certifications (Score:2)
Remember, some of us laid off types have families to feed and mortgages to pay.
Lots to Do (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Philosophy (Score:2)
Oh, and post on slashdot. (duh)
Topic for a book? (Score:1, Funny)
Must be nice. (Score:2)
working on trying to find work (Score:1)
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
Bah! (Score:1)
At least I'll have a degree AND some debt rather than just having the debt.
Many, many things (Score:2)
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
Re:Many, many things (Score:1)
Duh! (Score:2)
Here's what I did ... (Score:4, Interesting)
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)
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.
Fools! I'll get them all! (Score:1)
Re:Fools! I'll get them all! (Score:2)
Ade_
Re:Fools! I'll get them all! (Score:2)
I can only manage to work on mine just before bed time. Where do you find the time? Let alone the parts?
Anyone willing to sell me some naquadria? >:)
Starting a company.. (Score:2)
Re:Starting a company.. (Score:1)
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
Re:Starting a company.. (Score:1)
Construction (Score:1)
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
Not unemployed, but... (Score:1)
We are all go
Making my own way (Score:1)
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
Never met an out of work .. (Score:2, Insightful)
Drink some coffee. Stare at the wall. (Score:1)
gotta change one's perspective (Score:2)
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
Farming! (Score:2)
Lucky you! (Score:2)
Lesson number one: finish reading before commenting.
Thanking I still have a job.
Re:Like MANY of us? (Score:1)
The original poster's assumption that many of the readers have seen the effects of this is dead-on. Especially considering the replies.
Re:Like MANY of us? (Score:1)
Re:Like MANY of us? (Score:1)
What makes you think that "many" of us are unemployeed.
Well, let's see. The national unemployment rate is 6%. Even if the slashdot population is equal (and I'd guess it's higher), that certainly qualifies as "many."
Re:Like MANY of us? (Score:1)
And yet here you are, reading slashdot, replying to a comment that wasn't directed at you in the first place.
Next time, if the topic annoys you, skip it and move on.
Re:Semi Exit Strategy (Score:2)