Good morning, now get out

I arrived at work yesterday morning and noticed that my COO's car was in the parking lot, which is odd given the hour, but not unheard of (usually I'm the first person in); as I walked in, I saw my bosses door open and his light on which I thought was odd as I hadn't seen his car. I had an uneasy feeling as I walked to my desk, which was validated as I saw my boss come around the corner and tell me he needed to meet with me and the COO.

At this point, I knew what was coming, but I had to say that I was a bit shocked by it, considering we have a very large client, and we added 3 or 4 new clients in the past few months. I was asked to take a seat, and they told me that due to "worst economic crisis of our time and debatabley worse than the Great Depression" - (which made me think that this isn't even close to as bad as the great depression...not even close) - "we have to make some cuts to stay afloat and your position is being eliminated". They were very nice about it, explained my options, COBRA, etc. They told me that they didn't want to do this, that I had been loyal for over 5 years with the company (longest employed engineer other than the lead).

The meeting went as well as that type of meeting can go, when it was done, we got a box, and I removed 5 years of memories and went out to my car and went home. In the end, I knew that the old adage "You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here" was accurate...I debated if I should go home, or go to a workforce center (to apply for Unemployment Ins) or do something else; in the end I decided to head home.

What makes this more difficult (besides being right before Christmas) is that, for the past 4 years I have been able to support my family on my salary alone, allowing my wife to stay home and take care of our three children. We knew that it was a risky thing to do, now instead of being a one income family (from a two income family) we are a zero income family. So because of that, my wife didn't take the news well. I think now she has had a bit of time to adjust and is taking it better; however she says that on a scale of 1-10 of how worried she is, currently she is at a 7.

I spent the rest of the day creating a new resume, and emailing recruiters that I know, checking for positions online and just spending some time with my family.

This morning, I got to sleep in, and didn't have to listen to any alarms overnight on my Treo...didn't have to drive in to the office (which was a 45 minute drive with good weather), the roads were icy this morning, lots of accidents on the morning news...happy I wasn't in that...no ice on my way down to my computer...hopefully I can keep the house heated and it will stay that way.

So here I am, a database administrator looking for work in the Twin Cities area. I don't think most of my posts will be this long, more a way of keeping track of what I'm doing, how long it takes to find a new job, what obstacles I encounter, stuff like that...I hope that in a few months, I'll have been employed for a while and someone will come across this blog and read it, and it will give them some hope, some feeling that things will get better. Time will tell.