cross posted from Square State
Today I had to break the news to my six year old daughter that we may have to move soon. My wife and I struggled to explain to a young autism spectrum child that daddy has to have a job to provide for the family. And that there just are no jobs here, so daddy has to go far away to find one, and if I find one we may be moving soon. It was like pulling out the safety net from under her. ASD kids often suffer from an oversized amygdala which tends to magnify anxiety. They crave stability and routine. Disruptions of routines can be terrifying and confusing times.
Before we even told my daughter, my wife had burst into tears because she knew what was coming. She knew how my daughter would take it, how she would be hurt, and like any mother could not bear the thought of her child's distress.
Right away my daughter burst into tears, she told us how she would miss our house, her school, her friends, her teachers. Everything in life that gives her a sense of stability will be yanked away. Then it was my turn, seeing her emotional pain was more than I could bear. I felt I had let her down. I can't find work, I can't save our home if I stay here and we can't stay together as a family if I don't. So I am leaving my family next week to drive 1600 miles across the country in the hopes of procuring employment. Thanks to Obama's stimulus package, much of which is being spent right in the DC area, I'll be chasing the only solid leads I've had on new work in months. I have to try, I have no other realistic options. And even for these, there is no guarantee. I'm going out there on a wing and a prayer because I have just a shot at a job, and I don't know when I will see my family again.
My wife in her uniquely Colombian way exclaimed, "Oh what priest did we kill?" Her way of asking what sin we committed to deserve this punishment. I told her, we didn't do anything to deserve it. We played by the rules, maintained our credit rating, kept our debt load low, worked hard and payed our bills on time. In 14 years together we've never been late on a mortgage payment. Never neglected a single bill, always payed our taxes, never cheated. We did not overextend ourselves on credit, we lived within our means, driving fully paid for used cars and purchasing a tiny house in a blue collar neighborhood while our peers are driving $40,000 SUVs and living in 4000 square foot McMansions in gated communities. We never cashed out a dime of equity in our little house which we purchased on a 30 year fixed PRIME mortgage with a real down payment, and yet we find ourselves paying on a mortgage that is now worth more than our house is.
No we didn't break any rules nor disturb the karmic ether but here we are at the brink of despair anyway. Maybe three months away from financial ruin.
My loss of work last month was not just the end of a job. It was the end of any chance of working in my area. I knew the end was coming and began contacting recruiters and sending out resumes months before the end.
It's pretty clear to me that the IT job market here in Denver is wrecked. Normally I'd be getting two or three calls from recruiters every day, now I can't even get them to take my calls. I've been an IT worker for over twenty years, I've been through my share of lean times before, but I've never seen anything like this. As one might imagine, after all these years I do have a rather extensive network of contacts whom I have been contacting feverishly to absolutely no avail. There just isn't anything here. I've followed up every lead, contacted everyone I know. It's just dead, dead, dead here. Most of what's on the IT job boards is not real, it's just unscrupulous recruiters trying to fatten their resume files with phony job offers. What few contacts I've had for local opportunities have mostly been from H1B recruiters looking for H1B workers at Walmart greeter wage levels. Not even the dot com crash at the turn of this century was this bad, and for IT workers, that was bad.
We nearly lost everything in that one. Had to sell our house, our cars, most of our possessions. We ended up leaving the country and went to Colombia to live. We knew our savings would stretch much further down there. Then in 2005 a few friends of mine told me that IT was finally recovering. So we came back, figuring that such a collapse couldn't happen twice in one lifetime. We were wrong!
As bad as that collapse was, it was nothing like this. During that collapse, I could have stayed here and worked for about half my usual rate of pay. There was not much work around, but there was some, and if you were able to work cheap, you could get by. But this time, I could offer to work for free and still find myself unemployed. It's really gotten that bad.
And so I find myself today, just another of the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs in this economic collapse (somehow recession just doesn't do it justice). I'm angry, I'm bitter, I'm depressed, and I'm outraged. But I do have at least a glimmer of hope, and as long as I do, I'm going to do whatever I have to, to pursue it.
So next week, I'll be driving all the way across the country, I'll be sleeping in my car on the way to save money, and I'll be driving a decidedly uncomfortable Geo Tracker because it get's 30mpg on the highway. To save money on meals I'll be bringing a couple of large cans of mixed nuts and a box of raisins. It's good high energy food and it's filling, at least until you tire of it. I'm bringing a tent in case I have to take up residence in a tent city for a while, but I'm hoping to the God I don't even believe in that it doesn't come to that.
I'll be taking my laptop with me of course, and if I get the chance, I'll try to blog some of the trip from the road. This will be a rough trip for me, I'm not as young as I used to be and that car is awfully small. I've had to jury rig it with plywood and a foam mattress to be able to recline comfortably in such a small space. And "comfortably" is a relative term.
I'm telling all of you about this because with the exception of my wife and child, this community is the closest thing to family I have.
And one more thing, if you think this can't happen to you, think again. I'm an educated, highly trained and respected professional with over two decades of experience in my field, which is still considered a growth industry and supposedly one of the least impacted by the current recession. But next week I'll be sleeping in my car, at least for a while.
If it can happen to me, chances are it can happen to most of you as well. Wish me luck Amigos, I'm going to need it.
Update: I went out to run an errand and much to my surprise this was on the rec list when I got back. Thanks to all. Also, several have posted comments or sent me emails asking about my particular IT skillset. I am primarily a database programmer, mostly SQL server, with some Sybase experience as well. Sometimes they call that a SQL developer or sometimes a development DBA. Also I do a lot of reporting work, Crystal Reports, SSRS.
Update 2: A lot of people have sent me job leads or asked where I am looking. First many thanks to all who have sent those leads, I'm looking into several of them now. As far as where I'm looking, I've given up on Denver at this point and looking to hopefully greener pastures. Right now I'm focusing on the Washington DC area going out and I plan to try my luck in the Dallas, Texas area on the way back if nothing pans out in DC. Thanks again to everyone both for the well wishes and the job leads. It's good to see that within this community we do try to take care of our own.