The more things stay the same, the more they change. Take employment for instance. When I began my career, such as it is, I never considered how special the benefits were and how much the employer puts into them. Leap ahead 3 layoffs and 37 years later and I now have 20/20 vision.
Some history. Back in the "old" days, the later 1970's/early 1980's, the economy was booming, even with very high interest rates. Inflation was high, but manageable. Jobs were plentiful. I was young and life was good. A family was being raised and life continued. Then, after time, say 25 years, the economy decides to take a crap after a global war is begun. So, for the first time, I experience what my employer called a "layoff". What it was was a firing. The engineering firm for which I had been a loyal and productive, albeit highly paid, employee and for whom I had planned to complete my career, found itself "not diversified" enough to have created a varied and dependable client base and "had to let people go". They were sorry, but, because of my high wages I was expendable. The corporate office said so. No offer to take reduced wages or time. Just, Thursday afternoon sometime before Thanksgiving of 2007, good-bye and good luck. Oh, and you don't have to come in tomorrow if you don't feel like it. Oh, and, someone will walk you to your car after you've packed up your personal belongings. Great, a Christmas without a paycheck. Well, that'll be a new experience. Luckily, my wife is a planner and gifts had been purchased months in advance.
Not to worry, there was a thing called the internet that had information about job hunting and even had posted jobs. At this point I became familiar with the State's Unemployment Compensation bureaucracy. I learned that in order to be paid for a week, the application had to be completed by no later than Thursday afternoon the week before. I missed an entire week of it. Lesson learned. Anyway, the internet paid off and I began a new job right after New Year's. It was a small division of a larger company, not very well managed with a limited backlog, but, things were "looking up" and "we don't lay people off". I dug in, fixed the apparent problems I could, was a loyal and productive employee, but they were "not diversified" enough to have created a varied and dependable client base and "had to let someone go". They were sorry, but that's what the corporate office demanded. So, on a Thursday afternoon sometime before my younger daughter's August wedding, canned! This time I did get my time reduced, but to no avail. Timing is everything. Also, at this time my first granddaughter was coming home from Ethiopia.
The internet paid off again, and in a month, I had found a third job in three years after turning fifty. No small task. More proof to me that prayer works. This was new because for the first time, I get to drive in the opposite direction, to Madison. Another division of a larger company. Another "we don't lay people off". "We have HUGE project out east that'll keep us busy for years". A great Christmas party and a month-and-a-half later, on a Thursday afternoon (I dedect a pattern here), canned, after another year-and-a-half. Corporate blamed again. It is now February of 2010. I have just turned fifty-five years old. People my age are retiring from government jobs while I search for yet a fourth in four years. The internet sucks! Networking, however, pays off, as again, does prayer and a friend tells me of a possibility seventy miles away. I take a shot, talk my way into an interview, six months after my third layoff I beg for the job and assure and reassure them that a seventy mile commute will not be a hindrance to my promptness. I am correct.
Fast forward three more years. Being the loyal and productive employee that is my history but worried (more like terrified) of what the federal government is doing with health insurance and retirement, because the current employer can afford neither, I begin benignly searching for "other opportunities" (again on the internet), tossing up resumes a couple every week or so, seeing if any will stick, and, bingo, a hit on May 1, 2013. Yahda, yahda, yahda, wooing ensues and, after a site visit to the corporate office out of sate, mileage and hotel paid by them, a company with fantastic benefits offers me a position in a remote start-up just a half hour-or-so from my door, back in the easterly direction of which I am so familiar. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner! So, for the first time in over thirteen years I am in total control of my employment future and I accept their offer. On July 22, 2013, after a long-awaited and well-deserved family vacation in Florida at our beloved St. George Island, I begin my latest and, hopefully, final job. God is indeed good!
