My first job layoff at 22.

“Some of you may recall, a few months ago I was complaining about my old job...about how I hated it and they hated me and I thought I was gonna get laid off...well, I quit that job in September when I found the perfect job.

The new job was awesome. I set my own hours. I worked as much or as little as I wanted. It was in my field of study at school. It paid significantly better than my old job. My boss was one of the coolest bosses.

It was a small business, 14 employees...I was #13. One of our major clients was the State of Ohio. Well...apparently we lost our funding after the latest levvy failed or something--it contained the funding for our contract. No contract = no money = no job for me.

So, I'm 22 and this is the first job I've ever been laid off from. And to beat it all...they haven't given me my last paycheck! If I get that paycheck I can live through Dec without a job...If I don't get it I'll last about 2 more weeks.

It really sucks losing your job. I never thought such a thing would happen to me at such a young age. On the brighter side I guess I have more time for school and backpacking.”

“Bummer dude. It happens. Good luck with everything.”

“That sucks Dub I hope the best for you and I am shure a better deal will come along for ya.


8)”

“Yeah, I just hate the entire job hunting process. And interviews are such BS.”

“Good luck, Dub.”

“I've been there Dub, you'll land on your feet.

Good luck.”

“and allow you to find your place in the universe. Don't give up hope, the right thing is out there for you, just keep your eye open.”

“Good luck.”

“Welcome to your first experience in "Trickle Down Economics".”

“many others will open. And, usually they far exceed the other. It has always been true.

Also, it is always darkest before the dawn. Hang on there kiddo, and before you know something better will come along.

There is a reason for everything! But, you will have to work at putting in applications etc.

Good luck!”

“I'm sorry to hear about your lay off, Dub.. I couldn't imagine getting laid off at our age (yikes, only one more day til I'm 23). Hopefully you'll get that last paycheck!”

“Dub:

Welcome to the real working world! I've been laid off or 'downsized' from all five jobs I've held in the last 20 years. Most of the time I found a new job fairly quickly. This last time was the worst, 20 months of unemployment, temp, and contract jobs. Even so, it was still great to get rid of that old, high stress job. By the way, my old employer went bankrupt and those who got laid off got NO severence pay!

But things are looking up! I recently got a new, full time job that pays a little less but has less stress, more focus on the business (environmental consulting), and the fellow employees are a great bunch of folks to work with. Best of all, I'm looking forward to being able to PLAN some backpacking trips!

Focus on your strentghs and you should be able to get something you like. For the short term maybe try temp retail work over the holidays to keep some $$$ rolling in. Thats what I did the last 2 Christmas seasons.”

“Sorry to hear of your woes. Hate to say this, but it's crunch time and you have no choice but to pound the pavement (big time!) if the finances are that close to depletion. Time for BPing is a nice thought, but man, you have to use your time to get that next job. Don't underestimate the situation. The last thing you want to do is get behind on all the bils. I've been through this too many times. Problem with getting behind is, the dollar amounts size up considerably in a relatively short period of time. Before you turn around, you are far enough behind that getting ahead becomes a difficult task. I'm not trying to be a voice of doom here. Just some advice from an older guy who's been there. Good luck to you and get out on some interviews fast, my friend!”

“My roommate just got laid off today too...something must be going on in Columbus. He's a college grad (I'm a senior) and has been working with the same company for about six months. Tomorrow he and I will start a new job search. Since we both are IT people we have set a goal of 100 applications this week. Each day we'll go seperate ways and get 5 applications and bring a second copy home for the other. Hopefully we can cover more ground this way an increase our odds of a new job. However, I hear this is the hardest time of the year to get a job other than seasonal work.

Thanks everyone for the wishes. I'll keep you updated.

Oh and the boss emailed me today and said that the "funds have been withdrawn from our accounts, your check is in the mail." Hopefully he was telling the truth this time...”

“Hey Dub, wow, I'm really sorry to hear about your job. I don't know if you're much into backpacking big time or not, or what your living expenses are, but a time like this may actually be a great opportunity. You're only 22. Before you get too settled into life, I would suggest as a possibility that you find a good "temp" job for a few months, save your $$, and then take the summer off and do something big, like backpack for weeks in the Sierra and the Rockies and/or Canada, or travel Europe, or do whatever you please that you may not be able to do once you're settled in with a wife (or wives, depending on the future definition of "marriage"! ha!), kids, mortgages, car payments, gambling debts, etc. You may already have done something like this, I dunno, but if not, it's just a suggestion. Best of luck in whatever you choose.”

“Oh Buck, I like your idea. Dub sorry about your situation. A layoff is one thing I'll never have to worry about being a nurse. Always sick ppl to suck the youth outta me.....er, I mean, for job security. Anyway, good luck and enjoy the time off while poundin the pavement.”

“Dub - Sorry to hear it. I got laid off from GM after almost 15 years (age 32). It turned out to be a good thing for me. I changed careers and have enjoyed it.

What I learned from that was there is no such thing as a 100%secure job. The best job security is being prepared to get another job if you need to.”

“So I haven't got my final paycheck from my former employer and we've been exchanging emails about it. Yesterday I find out that my supervisor provided the big boss with misinformation which resulted in the layoff of six people, self included, after the loss of our big contract. So early this morning I sent the company owner a series of emails and recorded chats between my supervisor and me. Surprise surprise the information the superviser provided to the owner greatly differed than the information in my emails and chats. So now the owner wants to have a meeting with me and two other programmers that were under this guy to get to the bottom of things. The supervisor is full time and still with the company and I was told that his salary could support three part-time employees...

I also provided him with information showing that the compilers they provided us with were inadequate to work with, that the relational database structures had no real structure and we very innefficient, and poor programming standards resulted in confusion and difficulty--mostly designed and chosen by my former supervisor.

The company still has one small contract. I loved working there when I did, but I'm not sure about working there in the future if they fire the supervisor and rehire me and the other two.

I've been looking for jobs and I was about to put in an application at Gander Mountain or Galyan's so I could work in an outdoor store...but I might just get my old job back. Good news I guess.”

“Good luck and process with caution....”

“Good Luck & wayt to bring down an inept manager!”

“Good luck to you!”

“I'd base the decision on the boss's attitude now that he's "seen the light" about his supervisor. He may realize that he grossly misplaced his trust, and depending on how he reacts it might be a great place to work. 'Specially if you like the guy and the job.”

“Dub, I see you live in OH. Go for Galyan's. It should be easy to go for retail at this time of year. Also look in to their headquarters. It's some place in OH. How mobile are you?”

“If he were to let the manager go and rehire me this time I'm going to insist on having a contract concerning pay. It was a dream job while it lasted then it ended badly. I just left a message with another employee and friend that the owner wants a meeting with--begging him to come. He is pretty bitter about the situation but hopefully he'll agree to the meeting and provide the owner with his thoughts and information. I'll keep you guys updated.

Also, after sending the information he finally agreed to release my final paycheck, so hopefully that will be in the mail today and to me next week.”

“Mobile? I can get around the city easily...but if you mean relocation then no, I'm not done with school until later in 2004. I would love to work in the camping section of Galyans. Just like REI they sometimes get free gear and great promo deals.”

“That's good news, I think. You sound so so about it. I hope you get what you want!”

“There's much more money in tech. Better make it while you can before they start outsourcing to India.”

“BTW not releasing your pay is highly illegal.”

“Yeah, I'd get about $5 an hour more working my old job than at Galyans. Staring at a computer all days isn't the greatest thing, but the pay associated with it is great. Plus I wrote my own hours at my old job which made scheduling backpacking trips convenient--I couldn't have gone to TC3 if I didn't have that job.

Galyan's would be fun because I'd get to play with gear all day. However, retail hours, a changing schedule, grumpy customers, and stocking shelves, etc isn't fun and it doesn't pay as well. Both jobs have their + and -'s, but I'd take the tech job for the experience and money...I could always work at Galyan's one-two days a week if I wanted.”

“Only $5 more an hour than a frikin retail job?!?!? It sounds like you were grossly underpaid.”

“And this comes at a good time too. I'm down to about $500 which is enough money to get me through Dec. Since I haven't found any good job leads I would be forced to get a McJob to temporarily pay the bills.”

“Nothing wrong with that. Gotta pay the bills somehow.”

“Galyan's would pay about $8/hr and I got $13/hr at my old job. Let me remind you that I'm a student, it was an intern/entry level part time job, and the benefits were having complete control over your schedule and workload.”

“What is you experience level and skill set for tech work?”

“It still sounds way too low. Right now I have a high school Sr. working for me as a web designer and HTML slicer making $10.”

“Well, at that job we did complex dynamic web pages in PHP and MySQL. The last program I wrote was about 5,000 lines of code not including coding for the databases. It generated reports in PDF format for thousands of records. In addition to that work experience I can program in C, C++, Java (yuck), COBOL (yuck), HTML, Visual Basic, and the ancient language of Turbo Pascal. I'm pretty good with C, C++, and PHP. I'm learning XML and CSS this semester and then I have CGI, Perl, and ASP classes next semester.”

“Actually HPM the pay is pretty good. My roommate who has a bachelors in computer science from OSU is only making $11 part time as a linux server administrator--he can't find a job. My other roommate has an associates in web design and networking from Marshall University and is only making $9.50 an hour full time lifting boxes at UPS. The job I had before that one only paid me $9.50 an hour and I had to work every saturday, work outside/inside, on machines, plumbing, electrical, etc...I did some computer work and programming there but I did a lot of work that wasn't.”

“Alphabet soup!”

“Learn ASP and CSS right now, don't wait. If you know VB then ASP will be a breeze

email me a resume with URLs of applications that you worked on and your role in the development.
mlong@7thman.com”

“Haha Roam, HPM and a few others know what I'm talking about. Be glad I didn't start talking about casting, delimiters, polymorphism, encapsilation, etc ;-)”

“HPM, email me your address and I'll mail you some PHP source code examples with output on CD. As the applications I worked on are closed and require a login.

I'm learning CSS this semester and how to code the XML 1.0 Transitional standard. Next semester I learn ASP but I already have a book so I could start learning it.”

“Hell, I glaze over too when the code monkey do that.”

“jwhays addy?

Let me send you something.”

“Yeah, that one. I'll be leaving the house in a few minutes to go do some contract work at a local business...they need a printer installed, lol.”

“Making the big bucks installing the big printers”

“www.galyans.com may have something for you to get by with. careers at the bottom of the page. And my bad, they're headquartered in IN.”