Unless I find something else I’ll be unemployed at the end of June.
I’ve worked as a technician for a wireless provider in a retail store for the past 5 years. I help customers with device and service issues. The company is changing their retail strategy and my position has been deemed unnecessary.
I am surprisingly okay with this. I haven’t been too happy with my job for the last couple of months. This will make me get more serious about finding something. The problem I’m having is I don’t know what I want to do. Definitely not retail, and probably not telecom (this is the second telecom job I’ve had pulled out from underneath me). I am getting severance so there’s a window to figure that out.
Anyone else find themselves in this position? Did you make any change? Are you happy that you did it or do you wish you stayed in the field you were in before?
I have been in that position a few times. A couple were unexpected and I would say unfair, one was intentional personal sabotage where I just tried to see how much I could get away with before they laid me off (a comical shit ton as it turns out) and I still have no idea why one of them happened and they wouldn’t tell me.
Being unemployed isn’t fun but it isn’t all bad either especially if you are laid off during the summer. Don’t take too long to start looking for a new job but don’t panic right in the beginning. Go to the beach, lake or pool every day with a daquari in hand for a week or two if you want to.
Despite the horror stories, the job market is pretty good in many fields right now - telecom should have a number of opportunities and some of those will be better than your current job. I was starting to panic a few months after being laid off at my last job when the phone rang one morning. It was an internationally famous company offering me a job on the spot for excellent pay and benefits. I didn’t even have to apply or interview. I have been there almost 5 years now. It is great but I could use a summer off about now too.
Hang in there and don’t get too slackerish in your new job search but don’t be too stressed about it either. You have some time and attractive skills. If you don’t like your current job, the downside is more of a neutral one because you should be able to land an equivalent position somewhere else if you have to later.
The tip they give is to “re-invent” one’s self regularly. That’s how you stand a better chance of continuous accommodation. Do it once a year, whether you have a steady job or, like in your case, about to lose it. Good luck.
Indeed. I’d love to get laid off for a year or so. Just take that time to live off savings, travel around the US, etc. Then when I’m done go back to work full time. Sadly in my field finding good jobs is very hard (and the definition of good in my field isn’t that good, an experienced salary is starting salary in a lot of other fields).
I got let go from a job I wasn’t very good at and didn’t like much anyway in 1993. I was unemployed for 4 months, then found a connection in banking where he got me a job that I kept for 6 years, well, I did three different jobs at the same bank, each a move up. Once I was there for 6 years and was turning 30, was fully vested in the ESOP and retirement fund, I quit and took two years off. When I went back to full time work, I switched fields entirely and went into the veterinary business, where I’ve been a tech since 2002. I guess I like it! So much better than working in a cubicle, though the money will never be as good. I’ll take being happy instead.
Sorry this happened, but it sounds like this may be the opportunity you were looking for without realizing it.
I’m a public servant who had been deemed unnecessary four times or so. Three of those times, contractors were brought in while the job was phased out and those of us deemed unnecessary given another position in the division. The fourth, and most recent, the branch was simply downsized due to not enough work to go around; we were sent to another division this time.
I like the idea of taking the summer off too, and I’ve done something like that several times in my career. However, I keep hearing that employers nowadays have a strong bias against the unemployed. That’s something to keep in mind.
In between the rise of permatemp positions and a structural lack of jobs, let alone good jobs, quitting is a bad idea in most fields. I don’t want to spend another five years clawing my way into the middle class.
In 2009, my entire department was eliminated. At the time, I was working for a once giant cell phone manufacturer. A select few people were kept around, being transferred to other teams. I was on the list of people being “saved.”
I was pretty much bored, and told my boss that I was ok with moving on. So he let me go. I went to another major (at the time) cell phone manufacturer. Mostly the same old stuff.
Back in October, I left on my own. I’m at a start-up, using similar skills but making things very different than cell phones. And I found out that I still like engineering, and programming, and planning…
Yeah. I get it. Go re-invent yourself, at least on some level. Find the parts of the job you used to enjoy, and change everything else.
I was part of those statistics that say “many companies don’t know what to do with people who have been part of a special project, thus they end up losing those people either to headhunters or by letting them go”. I was let go and the reason given was “we don’t know what to do with you” (but they hadn’t tried to talk to me about it, they’d just been making assumptions about what I’d want to do).
What had been a special project ended up becoming my new career, simply because that’s what I got hired to do and it’s what I keep being hired to do.
I stayed 10 years at a summer job, was laid off 10 years ago, and haven’t had a job since. Probably can’t be much help, as I’m happy with how that turned out.
I knew an Indian man in Thailand who worked for an English-language newspaper. They wanted to get rid of him – he really was a worthless asshole – so they said they were eliminating his position and gave him the requisite severance pay, whatever that was. But then he saw them advertising for his replacement in the ads. Now, in Thailand you can let anyone go for no reason at all as long as you’re willing to pay them I think it’s eight months’ pay. You don’t need a reason in that case, and it’s legal. But they didn’t do that. They lied, and his severance pay, based on his length of service, was considerably less than eight months’ worth. So he sued them and got his job back and probably a little money on top of that. But he was still a worthless asshole. I understand he even got caught rummaging through people’s desks, although nothing was missing. He may have been caught before he could actually have taken anything, but he left soon after that, I know. Not sure what sort of arrangement they ended up doing.
I know I needed to leave a industry but was unsure where to go, so last year I hiked the Appalachian Trail as a time to figure out a new direction in life. Started in a new industry this past winter (seasonal position) and starting a new job next week.