My company closed its doors yesterday. They had been laying people off since the beginning of 2008, but there was a core group of us who always half assumed we'd weather the storm. This company has been in business since 1967. The last owner took over in 2002 or so. A card carrying evangelical conservative republican, he rode the house bubble up, expanded the company beyond its own means, and drove the ship into the ground. He ignored the signs as companies around us downsized and prepared .. a year ago, he blustered arrogantly as competitors closed their fancy showrooms and went into a more sustainable mode. All along, his faith in dubya never wavered, he never saw the connection.
The housing market slowdown has completely killed the custom mcmansion market. I always had a love - hate relationship with this job, as I got to play with great AV equipment, cool stereo stuff, great theatres, but it all came at a cost. Over the past 4 years or so, there has been a race to buy land around these mountains, put in roads and infrastructure, and then throw up some crappy McMansions so rich people can have a third, fourth, or fifth home on a golf course. Now, with the change in the market, all of the investment money that used to be around has gone elsewhere, leaving many of these communities abandoned, out of business, and defunct. There are huge swaths of land that has been bulldozed, graded, and prepped for construction that will never happen. My company was just another casualty.
High gas prices and the housing market are the direct reasons I have filed unemployment for the first time in my 15 years since my first job in high school. John McCain wants me to believe that sarcastic rhetoric and nasty messages and the status quo will bring about some sort of change.
I've decided, and a lot of the inspiration came from Ms. Palin's speech the other night, and her incessant mockery, to head down to the Obama office, and at least until I am back working full time, pouring my new found extra time and energy into making sure these soulless, myopic, cynical people are not running our country for any more time than is possible.
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