I just got an email from La Presidenta to connect with her on LinkedIn. She has written a letter of recommendation, and asked me to request it from her there.
And here it is.
[La Presidenta]
· 1stFirst degree connection
President of [my current employer] - serving W. Washington, Hawaii and Alaska
December 3, 2025, [La Presidenta] managed John directly
- I really enjoyed working with John at [company]. He is a warm, thoughtful individual with a smart sense of humor. He is a font of information and knows the credit data acquisition process inside and out. This work has required him to communicate regularly with members and colleagues, track data contributions, ensure the data is formatted and cleaned up for submission, and work with the credit bureaus to resolve data reporting issues. He has kept detailed documentation of the work processes and maintained complete data files. He has worked to recruit and contract with new data contributors. His work has contributed to generating revenue that funds the work of the association. He worked well with our members and was a great team member. John kept us all laughing with his puns. His next employer will benefit from his experience, detailed approach to the work, and his collegiality.
The sentiment is unbeatable. The facts are that what you (and her company) really need is a 100% raise, not a kick to the curb.
And she might be slowly learning that. One can hope. My fear is she’ll figure it out 6 months from now. At the earliest.
In six months it will be too late. I hope and pray that I will find other employment immediately. And if I didn’t and they wanted me back, I have no doubt that they will have gotten rid of my Dell desktop computer and, with it, the Easytrieve programs I use.
When something similar happened to me I learned just how disposable business treated their key players and key workflows.
You’re almost certainly better off elsewhere.
Best of luck however it unfolds.
My life lesson in that department came as part of my first layoff. I was given several months head up, a significant severance package and TWO retention bonuses. So in one sense, I was not too sad to be going, because I had a big summer of road trips planned before I’d come back to job search.
Still, a part of me assumed that some bigwig at work would blink at the last moment. Everyone, and I mean everyone told me so. “No one knows even a fraction as much about [my area of expertise] as you do! We have no idea how [function] will get done!”
That’s what I was told on a near-daily basis in meetings. And I suspect that had I actually been proactive, I could have landed a spot on a team with one of those folks. But I was burned out and ready for my summer off.
When I returned to town, I went for drinks with my old colleagues. I asked how [my tasks] were being handled. I was not surprised to find out that no one ever really picked up my work. I was mightily surprised, however, to find that the reason was because they decided not to do any of the things I did.
And that was my lesson. It doesn’t matter if my contributions are critical to the work I perform. It matters that the work I perform is critical to the company. And that’s where I realized that I had lost perspective. I was a lynchpin to our success only as long as the company was doing the things they needed me for. Leadership shifted strategy direction but I kept going straight. Oops.
When I hired on, the president had started with the company (in the mail room) when I was starting Kindergarten. He knew the value of data. This president and the previous one (who is now the CEO) came in from the outside. It was very apparent that the did not understand.
We sell credit reports (among other services). Without data, there would be no credit reports… at least not accurate ones. And our members depend on accurate credit reports for their businesses and group meetings. I’ve tried to make this clear. Ultimately, there will be a lot of data that doesn’t get loaded because I’m not there to make it pretty. Due to the way we’re paid (per inquiry on reported companies, rather than per record reported), there may not be much of a drop in revenue. At least not for a while. If the Florida data team cannot capture zero-balance records (for contributors that do not report them), then there will be a lot of companies with balances on their credit reports that have actually been paid off. But the databases are not updated unless there is new data. Anyway, unfortunately, it will soon not be my problem.
I’ve just received an email from the college saying the position has been filled. 
Bummer… And but don’t get discouraged d over that!
I thought that someone would have responded! I’ve applied to two of our members, Costco, a customs brokerage… I can’t remember who else. No replies, other than the one from the college.
You might have to move over towards a shotgun approach.
I have heard that people send various hundreds of CVs out, without getting any feedback. AI and all that jazz swamping recruiters…
Yeah. It, like college admissions, has turned into a numbers game.
Candidates send out thousands of submissions and recruiters get thousands of submissions per opening. The number of jobs and people seeking them has not changed much. But the firehose of applications to be sent and fended off has just exploded.
None of which is beneficial to matching the right person to the right job. It’s just an unproductive arms race.
Most of the resumes we get for any job opening are either:
- generated by a bot/AI that is creating a resume that matches the job description
- from people not authorized to work in the US who are sending out literally thousands of applications a day through a bot that submits an application to every job on multiple platforms. Nurse, geologist, criminal defense attorney, whatever.
We posted a position of a Finance Manager recently. We got over 1000 applications within 24 hours. Until a year ago we refused to use any automated application rejection, beyond the one that rejects anyone that self-disqualifies (e.g. says they need sponsorship, says they cannot commute to our work location, etc). But this became untenable.
It’s a shit show. Basically we are almost back to a system where unless you know someone, your resume may never be read by a human even if you are a good match.
This, 100%. I’ve been a part of a couple “cloud” related searches and it has become very untenable. Hundreds of resumes that look exactly the same. Zoom interviews where it is obvious the interviewee is typing into chatgpt and reading. Positions that are hybrid but the interviewee cannot interview in-person. On and on. It is tiring.
I’ve been telecommuting all but one day per month for the past year. Prior to that, I was coming in once a week. I’d have no problem with a hybrid job; but it would be nice to work in-person. Every alert I get fro Indeed seems to be some agency advertising remote positions. I should reach out to the local agency I signed up with, and see if they have anything. It would be nice to make it where I am to February, but I’ll have to bail if something comes up.
It was bad when I retired 9 years ago, and that was before AI. We got almost identical resumes from the Master’s degree class from a major, for pay, university. Given that HR got cut, who could respond? I imagine it is much worse now.
Networking is the only way. Not that it is guaranteed to work, but the odds are a lot better.
Yes. We posted a position yesterday afternoon and had 30 applicants in the first hour.
A friend of mine was looking for someone to help manage contracts (NOT and attorney role) and got 500 applicants. The result is enshittification because there’s no way you can pick through that many to find the promising ones.
Linkedin and AI have ruined yet another aspect of life.
@Johnny_L.A the current experience seems to be that through one’s network of contacts is the only way.
I went to the (local) credit union today. When I was done, the teller asked if she could help me with anything else. I said, ‘No… Unless you’re hiring!’ She said, ‘Actually, we do have a couple of postings.’ I’ve applied to be a teller. It would be a lot less complex and brain-wracking than my current job, and pays 83% to 94% of my current wage. (My former manager was shocked at how little I was making, having been promoted into her position.)
That would be a total home run. Local, easy, good pay by your standards, and best of all … Banker’s Hours. 
Here’s hoping…
Good luck!