I lived in Washington, DC for just over 12 years, just about exactly coinciding with the Reagan and Bush Senior presidencies. I worked for a small not-for-profit public radio lobbying organization. In the mid 80’s a bunch of them were really feeling the squeeze of the Reagan budgets, and I was essentially laid off in 1985. From then until 1993 I worked as a temp. No health insurance, no paid time off, no benefits whatsoever, often with no certainty of enough income to pay next month’s rent. I got a pretty good gig with the National Gallery Art in 1989 as an AV technician, but still worked from grant to grant on exhibits, and was laid off about 3 weeks a year, and still no bennies. In '92, I was promised a permanent job (as much promised as you can be for a Federal job), but the position was axed in the last Bush-Congress budget battle. I was seriously bummed, though I kept working as a temp.
In '93, my sister Kathy was burning out from being the primary caretaker of my mom, who was chronically ill with heart disease and diabetes. Sis lived in Madison, WI and Mom and Dad lived outside of Chicago. Kathy knew I was really tired of my own life’s instability, so she made me an offer. She would finance me moving to Madison, and I would alternate going down to Chicago to help out with mom. Eventually I could go back and finish a degree that I’d dropped out on before moving to DC.
So I moved to Madison feeling more or less a dismal failure. Mom died a few months later, and I felt all the more useless.
Later, I was stunned to find out that away from DC, all the sudden my credentials were impressive. I had worked for the Smithsonian, which in my mind was no big deal as it was one of the largest employers in the city. At various times, I also worked brief gigs at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Christian Science Monitor. None of them saw fit to hire me permanently, and in my mind they were just some more rent money, and I’d failed again because I wasn’t able to swing a permanent gig.
My mental attitude began to turn around when I did my first bug job search in Madison. I sent out just over a hundred resumes and cover letters, and got more than 60 responses. Nobody offered me a job, but my sister and a job counselor both told me that was an extrordinary number of replies, and I felt a bit better for the first time in maybe 5 years.
I DID go back to school. I DID finish my degreee, 17 years later than originally planned. I DID find a permanent gig as a media technician, making more bucks than I ever did in DC, in a city with a much lower cost of living.
And all because they didn’t understand what a miserable failure I was in the big city. :rolleyes: