When it rains it pours..... (Just venting, not important)

Don't have a ton of friends I can lay this on, so why not lay it on a bunch of people I've only met online....

Wife lost her job in February of last year.  We blew through all of our savings, even for my son's college. Took her until November to find another (contract).  Son found out he was accepted to college in March (he did not do well in high school, so it was questionable) and to the engineering department to boot.  Wife's contract ended around May and was not renewed.  About a week after that, I had to rush her to the ER for severe pancreatitis.  She recovered, but is now diabetic.  She was able to find another contract job while recovering and started in June, around the time I found out I would officially be laid off mid July.  I got a small (4 weeks severance) when I was laid off.

I kinda assumed my layoff was coming so I've been job hunting since May.  I've had lots of phone screens, lots of interviews and lots of "we really like you but just not a fit".  I've helped pretty much every one of my team that was laid off to find a job, but nothing for me.  I apply for about 75 jobs a week. 

Just found out tonight that my wife was let go from her current contract job.  So, now with zilch savings, we are both out of a job.  I'm on unemployment, she has a retail job for now, but it won't come close to making ends meet.  I want to get some type of retail job or something, but pay would be about the same as unemployment, so I spend my days job hunting and interviewing instead.

Son started college two weeks ago with some very unexpected help from her dad.  He's joined the FSAE team, is really jazzed and currently has all A's.  I know it's early, but he's decided to graduate at the top of his class.  This is a kid that I've seen to amazing things when he's motivated, so I hope this is one of those times.  He's matured by leaps and bounds in just a few weeks.  It's actually surprising.

I've been wicked depressed this week and I'm afraid this will only make it worse.  I've spent the last couple of hours just house cleaning (wife is at her retail job) to think about something else.  I've had some rough days over the past few months, but always seem to bounce back a bit.  I've been depressed every day this week, want to sleep all day and can't fall asleep at night because I think about all the stuff going on.

There's nothing anyone can do.  My former employees have offered to help and I've utilized them when something comes up, but I just can't seem to close the deal.  I think I've got every recruiting firm in Austin on speed dial and ping them regularly.  I have some interviews setup for next week and am doing my damnedest to not decide ahead of time that it's worthless because they won't hire me, anyway.  I just have to keep my head down and keep pressing, but man, this news tonight is making me get more depressed.  I feel like I'm this >< close to getting something.  I don't want to read email anymore and get another "We really enjoyed talking to you, but are going with another candidate." email.

I guess you could say that I've knotted a few strands of the frayed ends of my rope and am hanging on by a finger nail and the wind just picked up.

This sucks. 

Thanks for reading/listening. 

(BTW, if this is wholly inappropriate and/or too depressing to keep on the forum, I would totally understand if it was deleted.  It serves nobody but myself.)

-Rob

I don't have much to say, but keep at it. 

Its rough reading not being to lend a hand, so i can imagine how bad you feel. 

Damn, sorry to hear that. Have you kept an eye out for listings from my company? I know we just hired a former TW Manager who wanted to get back to just writing in Austin.

2 of the last 3 reqs for OKC have ended up being filled in Austin.

Hang on buddy. We're here to listen.

Sounds like your son is doing great. Take pride in those 18+ years of your hard work, it shows.

This forum serves many purposes. A significant role for the GRM forum is that of support for each other. That means a lot more than just goading each other into questionable financial decisions about car purchases.

My suggestion is that you use some of the well deserved pride that I know you feel for your son to help give you the strength to face each day. You can be certain that we care, and we welcome the opportunity to provide support for you.

Your post is entirely appropriate. Thank you for posting.

As a mental health therapist, you need to go see a mental health therapist. It's okay! You are experiencing a lot of stressful change and setbacks and it's normal to feel anxious and/or depressed about them. What you did by posting here is called journaling, and it is a positive coping mechanism. If you were my client, I would try working through some motivational interviewing with you.

You've got this! We're here for you.

I don't have a whole lot but maybe just sit down and watch the game against LSU tomorrow forget about lifes worries for a little.

I'd suggest ride share but it's put me to the brink.  Although that's me being weak.

I also don't know how strong the market is there or your tolerance for passengers.  Food delivery?  My pax were debating DoorDash being the best as customers but they limit new drivers so maybe start with GrubHub/Postmates/UberEats.  It won't be good money and it'll beat the E36 M3 out of your car but it would be something. 

Thanks, now you rat b@stards have me crying...

z31maniac - What company?  I'll take anything. 

Javelin - Back when my wife lost her permanent job, I started seeing a therapist.  I was having serious anger issues and just blowing up for no reason.  Part of it may have been the teenager.  She helped me cope quite a bit.  Stopped seeing her when money got tight after my wife's contract ended.  With no insurance, can't really afford one right now.  She had transitioned it into more of motivational, but it was hard when I continued to get rejected. 

nutherjrfan - My truck isn't 100% reliable for regular deliveries, but I've thought about it when the unemployment runs out.  If I get a job, unemployment just doesn't pay me what I've earned and I doubt I can make that much right now while trying to stay active with phone screens and face to face interviews.  I WILL be watching the UT:SU game while listening to the UNT game (that's where my son ended up).

Just in case there's an opportunity, might be worth stating a quick resume.  First, I need to stay in Austin because I love Austin, tech jobs are good and we refi'd our house two years ago, so I can't sell it easily.  I've been a software engineering senior manager for over 15 years.  Last company, I had over 100 people reporting to me (direct and indirect). I've always worked at smaller companies (that end up getting acquired), so I've had a very broad range of experience.  Managing developers, QA, network engineers, Tech Writers, DevOps, Project Managers, Support Engineers, etc.  I've been a trainer, a manager, a support engineer, a project manager, a product manager and am WELL versed in Agile practices.  I always seem to get the projects/teams that are having issues and bring them to success.  I'd like to go back to a smaller company because I bring so much to the table and don't fit well into a single box, but can work in any group.  I've tried to be an individual contributor (i.e. not a manager) in most of my jobs, but end up managing people in less than six months.  My biggest barrier seems to be I don't have a software development degree, nor have I been a coder.  I joke that I'm a technical person who knows how to talk to humans, so end up being the guy to talk to customers and leadership.

Luckily, I wasn't paid much at my last job, so I've been looking at everything from project managers to director positions.  About half my team was paid more than I was.  I'll travel 100% of the time if need be.  I really need something permanent for insurance, especially since my wife's now on insulin, but I ain't picky.

Don't get me started on my kid.  I'm so proud of him, I'll talk for hours.  He was top 10 nationally for most of the years he was karting (we had to stop because of $$).  He's gotten his MIG, TIG and Stick welding certificates for aluminum, stainless and mild steel.  He also has multiple ASE certifications.  He's in school to get a degree in mechanical engineering.  I'm pretty sure companies will be lining up when he graduates and will be running the FSAE team next year.  The Peterbuilt guys were at his first FSAE meeting and already started talking to him about interning for them next year.  Apparently, CAD 101 is kicking his butt right now, but I think it's just learning all the different buttons and codes.

He told me yesterday that he's going to hire me when he starts his engineering firm just to come up with the ideas and let them build on it.

Random question:  For those of you who work from home, where do you go to work when you need to get out of the house?  I think being home alone most of the day is starting to wear on me really hard.  I've tried the library, but our local one doesn't' have many tables.  I've tried Barnes and Noble, but the tables are too small to work on my laptop and keep up with notes at the same time.  I'm going ot try the local community college tomorrow and see if I can hang out in their library.

Thanks for the support.  It does help.

-Rob

Never apologize. I've pored my guts out on the forum. A few even pm'd to personally check up on me. (Thanks MoJo) This may or may not help. A year ago, I was homeless.  6 months ago, I was unemployed, in 2 weeks, I move into a house that I bought. You can get through this. When life gives you lemons, you paint that E36 M3 gold. 

I have a few workarounds in dealing with diabetes. PM me at k4rt80y at yahoo.com if you think you'd need the help. 

Regardless,  we are here for you.

In reply to rob_lewis :

When I did outside sales I would make the local coffee shop my office. Free wi-fi, comfy couches, and coffee. A local community college student center is another great place.

On jobs, lets think outside of the box. Do you have a USAJobs.gov account? Because you should, all Federal and most State and Local government jobs are posted there. Speaking of, have you checked in at your local county government offices? It sounds like your skill set would be highly valued at Building and Planning or the IT department. Look at colleges and universities, and public school districts, too. Project management with a technical background is always in demand at those places. Speaking of school districts, you and/or your spouse should look into bus driving. Where I live the district pays *better than CDL-licensed truckers* to drive school bus FT, plus mega benefits. Way better gig than rideshare/delivery.

As for mental health, if you don't have insurance you should qualify for your state's version of ObamaCare/Medicare and that *should* unlock $0 copay mental health care. A trip to your state's version of DSHS should get you hooked up with SNAP benefits/food stamps and possibly TANF. Wife should qualify for ABD for at least a little bit until she gets back to a career job with benefits. There's also grad schools to look for, they often have a free mental health clinic on campus where you can work with a student for free, usually with a highly-experienced instructor to supervise.

Feel free to drop me a line, too. AMX310 at G to the mail dot com

What Javelin said about city/state/education as employers is, I think, very solid advice for places to look. Also expand your search to other locations while looking for places that allow remote work. Here in Portland, OR, the tech job market is very strong. I don't know much about other locales, but I worked for United Healthcare for four years and only visited Minnesota once.

And we're here for this. Vent, share, etc any time.

Thanks, Javelin.

The USAJobs.gov site looks to be down until Monday (of course....), but I'll hop on it Monday after my interviews.

We were lucky regarding insurance in that I had Cobra for a month and my wife got insurance through her contracting company.  I'll definitely check out all of my options, although I'm not sure how good they'll be in Texas.  We made very good salaries, so the idea of getting on federal/state benefits would haven't even occurred to me, but I'll check it out.

Mentally, this post has actually helped a ton.  It's still not late and I'm not asleep, but I feel better and plan on hitting it hard again tomorrow.  The number of jobs seems to be higher right now than it was just a month ago and I've gotten more responses this week on my applications than I have before.  If I go south again, I'll look at free options.  Heck just talking to anyone would help.  I do have friends, but they know I've been looking for a while and I don't want to sound like too much of a whiner.  

-Rob

Glad to hear it. If you are looking at anything at Dell, PM me. Been there for almost 17 years now and know a lot of the people there in Round Rock. 

I don't know enough people over in Austin to help with the employment, but if you get stir crazy I can put you in touch with my buddy who own Rally Ready over there. I don't know a time when he wasn't looking for someone to help with this or that. I don't think it's work in the conventional sense, but it may be something very low commitment to keep you occupied and maybe make some other connections outside your current network. 

I know you said the truck isn't 100% reliable but you can work part-time in Texas and elsewhere up to a certain amount apparently.

Might help with truck repairs at least.

"Texas: (Maximum benefits of $465 a week) If you work part time, you can earn up to 25 percent of your weekly benefit amount (WBA) before TWC reduces your benefit payment. Your partial unemployment benefits will reduce for any amount over 25%."

Taken from this link.  Keep in mind food deliveries can be frustrating especially if the restaurant doesn't have parking = tickets.

Just realized. From a 2014 article originally. Might be way old. 

In reply to rob_lewis :

The big one, right in the middle. We have been growing our Commerce team like crazy the last 2.5 years. We've gone from 40 Tech Writers when I was hired in Dec 2016, to almost 90 at the moment. Also adding developers at quite a clip as well. I suspect we may be looking for another PM soon for Commerce. And keep in mind, this is just the NetSuite (where I am) portion of Oracle. They are about halfway through building their huge new campus in downtown on the south side of the river in Austin.

Take a look at their website and see if you find anything interesting, I can go to the internal job posting and recommend you.

I'm constantly amazed at what resources are available on the GRM forum. 

I wish I had been here when I lost my vet practice.

Through my tough times in life, my motto is:

It is all Ok in the end, if its not OK, is not the end!

I am terrible at this sometimes but make sure when you find the job you want you don't just pretend you are going to get that job, but be that person, and do your level best to make sure they are a good fit.  Make sure you are making sure the job you are seeking is a good fit for you. Be mindful of the relationship, but interview them throughout the process. Make sure you are not sending off vibes that your life is a bit of a mess and you desperately need a job. That I think can give people the impression of the old construction hiring adage "he was looking for a job when he found us" implying there must be a reason. Know your weaknesses, but play into your strengths.

 You are doing a really fantastic job staying motivated and positive, and I could be very wrong, but it sounds like you are searching everywhere and trying everything. the HR staff interviewing you may be picking up on this. Maybe be more selective, and narrow your search in and hone right in on what YOU really want. Know about the company and what they are looking for specifically and ask them questions about it. This I think might give you a better shot in the interviews. You are going to have better interviews for jobs you are really excited about as opposed to just trying to land the job you need.

You could still be droning along in a job you didn't really love.   Now as you say the wind is blowing...  That lead another member to post a picture of a kickass sailboat along with an offer of possibility. Grab that line and know the extra wind means it is going to test your strength, but it also means you are going to get WHEREVER you are going faster.

What a wonderful oppurtunity you have!

Well, I was up at 8 this morning, showered and am now at the library (just to get out of the house and distractions).  I know it sounds silly, but the posts and replies really did invigorate me this morning.  I have a new wind.

I think the other thing was just saying something out loud.  As Javelin said, it's journaling.  I may continue to post to this just so I can get things off my chest if that's not out of the rules.

For example:  I've worked in all types of businesses doing different (all software) things.  I've taken on roles that I would have never expected before starting at a new company and have always enjoyed them.  About the only thing I don't enjoy is larger company boxing in of roles, because my nature is to always help in whatever's needed.  While I'd prefer to work for a smaller company, I'm not just looking at those.  I'm trying to be out of the box as much as I can.

Question:  Cover letters?  I've hired lots of people throughout my career (and love the interview process) and have never seen a cover letter attached to a resume.  Either the people I've hired haven't submitted one, or it's never gotten to me.  As a result, I don't writer cover letters when applying.  Because I generally have some type of activity every week (phone screens or interviews) I didn't rethink it.  I am now.  Do y'all write cover letters?  If you're hiring, do you read them?

-Rob

How about manufacturing management, Rob?  I've got some customers and contacts in Austin and Arlington.  Not sure if or what they might be looking for in terms of skill sets but your management background should be very appealing to them.  This is in the automotive world which can be a bit volatile-storm's brewing now I fear. 

I don't have anything helpful to offer, but I feel for ya and I can't imagine how tough that's gotta be.  I had a spell right after 9/11 when I couldn't find anyone that was hiring and had to sit around and watch my savings dwindle to nothing and that doesn't do much to make you feel good about yourself.  It's hard to believe right now, but there's something out there that just hasn't found you yet.  You didn't make it that many years in your field and manage to raise an outstanding young man without being extremely competent and eminently employable!

As far as where to go to work, I do work from home a lot and when the isolation gets to be too much I usually head to the local Panera or McDonalds and camp out for a couple hours.  They've got decent wireless and I can get a cup of coffee while I work and I can even have a small meeting there or take calls/conference calls if need be.  

EDIT:  As to cover letters, whenever I've had an open headcount that I was hiring for, I never saw the "raw details" of resume and cover letter.  That all went to the recruiting people and they distilled it down to a few bullet points for me.  When I decided I had some interest in someone, then I'd get the resume and could decide from that point if I wanted to interview them.

I haven't seen unemployment insurance mentioned.  

When ever i lost a job the first thing I did was apply.

It does help pay the bills while you look.

wawazat said:

How about manufacturing management, Rob?  I've got some customers and contacts in Austin and Arlington.  Not sure if or what they might be looking for in terms of skill sets but your management background should be very appealing to them.  This is in the automotive world which can be a bit volatile-storm's brewing now I fear. 

Never been in the business, per se.  One of the little companies I worked for early in my career built circuit board automated inspection machines that went inline on their assembly lines.  While I was hired for the software QA part, I had to know and understand the manufacturing side, too, as I was often sent to customer sites to install and setup.  I'd be really interested, especially from the automotive side. 

Everyone says it, but I'm a rapid learning when it comes to new industries.  Another company had me onsite training users (which was the first time they trained users) about 3 weeks after I started.  Not only was I still learning the product, it was my first time to officially train.  I ended up turning it into a profit arm for us and trained thounsands of people over the next few years, while also doing the job I was hired for. 

My email is my username @rocketmail.com.  If you want to send me something, I'd appreciate it.  For now, I'm trying to stay in Austin.  :(

-Rob

In reply to rob_lewis :

In regards to my last few jobs, no, no cover letters.

My current gig, the now director of our department saw I was recommended by one of her current employees in LinkedIn and asked if I would be interested in applying.

But like I said, go see what Oracle positions are available in Austin and I can refer you internally before you apply.

Had a phone screen at 12:00 today.  Finished it, ran to put gas in the truck before my 3:00 face to face interview.  Popped a radiator hose when I was accelerating and now pouring antifreeze all over the driveway.  Had to call my parents to let me borrow their car.  Dangit!!  Can I not catch a break?

Edit:  While I wait for them to arrive:  2002 Chevy 1500.  V6.  Did a hard acceleration just to blow things out a bit an popped a hose.  It looks like underside, passenger side, leaking about halfway down. Can't see the leak from the top or underneath, only where it's going.  What would cause it to blow on acceleration?  I assume too much pressure.  I usually drive the truck like a grandma, but the one time I laid on it, it popped.  Truck was a county government truck with about 130k miles on it.  I've put about 1500 miles on it since buying it and although the suspension's worn, it ran just fine. I'm hoping it's just a lower hose and that'll fix it and not something more serious.  Won't have time to look at it until tomorrow. 

-Rob