An Old Man's Work Journey

      I'm beginning to have a pessimistic outlook on the job search. I had hoped to have found some good leads by now. I had an "interview," but, honestly, it was a faux interview because they'd already identified the person they wanted to hire. Waste of my time. Well, sort of. I at least got to connect with someone I've worked with before and now have a couple of people in positions to help with in the quest for gainful employment.     I have another potential lead, but the pay isn't great and it requires jumping through a lot of hoops to be approved. It may not be a good cultural fit for me. But I'm entering beggars-choosers territory here.     What's discouraging is that the list of jobs I'm seeing in my area of expertise is shrinking. It seems like overnight the pool of available jobs is drying up.     I need to start networking more, and I've reached out to one former colleague but have not received a response.     Self-doubt i...

      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...