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

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."

Comments

I am

[Anonymous Coward]

Reading and posting on Slashdot... a lot.

Re:I am

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm jerking off three, four times a day to Slashdot. At least four times...

Look for work

[renehollan]

When I was laid off, I made looking for a job a full time job.

Re:Look for work

[missing000]

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.

Re:Look for work

[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 its own work force.

After taking the classes and doing the necessary soul searching, I decided I was doing what I wanted to do and set off to find a job where I could continue doing that. Independent of this effort I was solicited by a company who found my name through some publically-viewable projects I was doing at my old job. Even better, the job was to do much the same as what I was doing at my old job.

Now I have problems I would rather not have, like an excessively long commute and some serious personality clashes with some of the long-timers (this is a barely-surviving dotcom firm in an ultra-niche market). I miss the comradere at my old job--most of the people here are battle-weary and angry about what happened to their company. Normally that isn't a bad thing when your product is used by many people to enhance their lives, but this place is in an ultra-niche market with, as I might say, a very small potential audience. There's no sense here of using technology to better people's lives--just to find ways to squeeze pennies out of advertisers, clients, and the very few customers that buy the sort of things we sell.

I'm comfortable with the business problems with the new company, and I figured I would use the job to keep fresh and active while looking for other jobs in my spare time. It turns out that a big downside is that because of my huge commute I have no time to set aside for networking to get the job I really wanted at a location that isn't over an hour from my house by subway. Even though my former employer is hiring the very same jobs that were eliminated last year, and I could immediately go back and do those jobs at the highest competency of any of my peers, they are forbidden to hire me for 1 full year from my termination date. I am not even allowed to work through a subcontractor--I've tried but that annoying no-hire policy gets in the way of their contract bids.

So now I'm stuck in a rather boring job with lousy commute and lousy people (and really lousy salary), but I'm thankful that I got it because the COBRA health insurance coverage costs way too much. I'm not sure the benefits are worth the extra problems I've gained. I didn't have to dodge beggars and hop trains before, and I never had to worry about parking until after 10:00 AM (now it's 8:00 AM or no parking). Feh.

All I can say about this topic is that you should spend the time finding the job you really want and don't take the easy way out by taking the first job that comes along that you know you will be good at. The effort you put into your job search is directly related to the quality of the job you will get. If you have serious, honest credentials, like a good education, training, and serious, honest, real-world experience, maybe you should consider independent contracting. Don't get stuck in a rut--it won't be easier.

Re:Look for work

[Radical Rad]

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.

damn work ethic

[mattsucks]

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.

For My Sake

[lostindenver]

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....

Do "a page a day"

[clonebarkins]

Go to Distributed Proofreaders and help put some public domain books online!

Limbo

[Rick the Red]

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

[Glonoinha]

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.

Ice Cubes

[Glonoinha]

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.

Here's what I did ...

[YllabianBitPipe]

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

[bolix]

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.