What else would you expect?

...update on the last post.

Apparently I managed to apply twice for the same position. Once on the Monster site, once on the company's own site.

And, yes friends, I used two (somewhat) different cover letters, since I had to re-create the one that I thought was lost to cyber-nowhere-ville.

I won't wait by the phone...

Curse you, Spinning Pinwheel of Death!

I feel like Charlie Brown on those fateful days when the rainclouds followed only him.

It took me FOUR different attempts to apply for a job that looks good.

I started through Monster, then, when I had keyed in everything under the sun, uploaded the resume, crafted the cover letter, Monster informed me that this employer has its own application site. And, miraculously, none of the content transferred - or was even saved on my Monster profile.

Cue the spinning pinwheel of death...my constant friend over the next few hours on the new job site. Every key stroke, every time I moved on the page: spinning pinwheel of death.

And that was only the first time. Two more aborted attempts before - I think!! – the dang thing went through.

Technology isn't completely at fault - I know what I did wrong on Monster (I think!!!) - but I feel like this is on-the-job-training at the butt-kicking factory.

My grandfather used to say that. Or at least I think so.

"Daddy, let's play baseball"

I definitely know that I'm lucky.

Well, I'm lucky for a lot of reasons, but this time I'm lucky because my house has a separate room we use as an office. So all the resume-updating and portfolio-building and email-sending can happen from one purpose-built location.

But, by the same token, my wife and my kids haven't gotten back to school yet, so the house is a series of distractions. When I was working, I longed for days when I could go to the beach or throw a baseball with the boys or hug my wife any time I wanted to. Now I can do those things, but I can't ever shake the nattering feeling that I should be back at my keyboard, working hard to head toward the Next Big Thing.

That didn't take long

The first bit of blog humor comes courtesy of my wife:

Some good friends brought us to a Dodgers game last night and my wife came back and posted on her Facebook page that "you know you've been a wife and mother for a long time when you start wondering who washes the Dodger uniforms and what is their secret to getting all the dirt and grass stains out!"

A quick reaction

I told a friend of ours that I had started a blog.

"Is it funny?" she asked.

"Not yet," I replied.

It'll get there, I know. Life will return back to some semblance of normal, although probably a different normal than my normal normal. (Got that?)

I imagine that this'll be the toughest time. Funny how we never truly know how we'll react to a crisis until it happens. Bloody knee? No problem. I pull out the gauze and ointments and calmly take care of my panicky son. But a pink slip? It's really bugging me right now, despite my optimistic outlook in the first few days after it happened. (My wife KNEW that was too good to be true.)

Things are tough all over

One of the silver linings for me about this lay-off was the opportunity to reconnect with friends and colleagues. When you're plugging away at your 9 to 5 (or 9:30 to whatever...), you don't always stay in touch. So I've started making calls, sending emails, updating my LinkedIn profile and checking my Facebook friends - trying to network among the peeps before casting the net wider.

Some of the feelers went out just to see who was where - who's still in LA, who's happy, who's makin' it, and who's not. "Are you still selling real estate in Palm Springs"... "Congrats on your new gig"... "How are the kids". But - truth be told - some of those feelers did go out to see what chances there might be for a little work.

And there, the picture is pretty grim. No surprise - I am a victim of the recession, the same recession that's causing down-sizing and delayed spending and uncertainty. But I may not have been completely prepared for what I'm hearing. I'll adapt - I always do. But it sucks right now.

My friend Michael may've put it best: "We need a seminar on 'Business and Surviving the Recession: What the F$%^"

Every story has a beginning

..and this one starts with an ending.

After 14 years, my Designory career is over. Client cutbacks + smaller budgets + recession + lousy prospects for automotive sales = Fewer people on staff to market = Layoffs.

But, at least for today, I look at it as a positive. Ironically, I'll probably write more, now that I have some time to pursue it.

Funny bit of irony: One of the first things I did was to take the classic "Career Planner Quiz". The results? A career that "allows (me) to be creative.... thinking of new ideas and strategies that can have a broad range of applications, including Writer/Editor, Teacher, Strategic Planner, Consulting, Marketing, Communications, Research and Development". Always nice when The Universe winks at you to tell you that you're barking up the right tree.