An Old Man's Work Journey

      If you'd asked me six months ago or maybe a year how I'd feel about getting laid off, I likely would have said I'd be happy to take a severance package and move on. Now that it has actually happened, I have a  different perspective on the experience. I feel like I've landed in a special kind of limbo: I'm too old to be making a job or career change, too old be an attractive hire, too old to be trying to learn new skills; at the same time, I'm too young to consider retiring. What to do?     So here I am, in what ought to be the twilight of my career, studying and cramming for certification exams and submitting job application after job application after job application. I think I'm on pace to submit an average of 4 per day. And I am seriously, seriously considering starting a spreadsheet to track data about where I've applied, who has rejected me, who didn't respond, etc.     Meanwhile, I'm in the middle of the certification training. While ...

      I was forced to do something a few weeks ago that I haven't had to do in many decades: File for unemployment insurance. Many people, I'm guessing, go through their entire careers never having to file an unemployment claim. This is the second such event in my lifetime. The first time around I was pretty lucky: I landed a job very quickly after my position was eliminated, so I think I only received one payment from the claim and didn't need it any more. My current situation is that I've been out of work for about a month now--the longest period in my life, so this claim is kind of important. Unfortunately, the process is arduous (probably deliberately so) and entirely opaque. I'm left to sit here and wait and submit job applications and check my claim status on a daily basis only to see those same words at the top of the page: Your claim is under fact-finding. Fact finding? Waiting for weeks stuck in limbo left me reflecting on the actual facts of the situation....

 I began my journey with the Learning House about 12 years ago. I bounced around a lot from job to job back then, looking for my niche, someplace I could call home. I kind of, sort of found it when I landed at Learning House. And then I stayed there for 11 years. It changed hands in that time, and I moved around a bit within the organization, but I had a stable, steady place to work. Like the Hobbit I've always been, I stayed where I was comfortable. That, unfortunately, all came to an end when my business unit was divested from the parent company and I was subsequently laid off. For the first time in more than a decade, I was out of work. Most people may not realize how difficult a situation that can be. I didn't even understand it myself until I was a few weeks into a state of unemployment. Coming to grips with it and finding a path forward present significant challenges. For a long period of time, I changed jobs somewhat frequently. Tolkien said, "Not all those who wand...