This continues my personal story of losing a job I considered recession-proof, and my responses to it, rational, irrational, and surreal.
First off, I want to thank the individuals that make up this community -- thanks for your support, your kind words, your being Kossacks.
Musings, meanderings, random thoughts, and such after the flip, as it were.
So this week, a month after the layoff, I am scheduled to get my first unemployment payment. It took a while because of my 2-week severance and the Wait Week. It will be handy, coming in time to cover my house payment for Feb. I'm not as worried about money as I could be right now because I have a couple income sources over the next six months, one of which I earned (profit sharing bonus) and the other I wish I was not getting. However, since I am getting it, I want to use it well. (My Dad is still looking out for me from whatever ethereal casino he's in now.)
So I have three things on my agenda. The first is, of course, to look for a job that pays a reasonable percentage of the one I got dumped out of, and one with some sort of social significance. Frankly the only times I've really been happy in a career are the times I've been doing some good on a larger level, like when I worked in an optical lab and made glasses for people, or when I did fundraising for Democratic parties and organizations and candidates.
The second is to build a replica of Stonehenge in my front yard. I was checking out zoning regulations (see item 3) and determined that it's allowable. It's my house, it's my yard, (at least unless the bank decides otherwise, which it might, at some point, I'll worry about that one later) and it's my choice how to landscape it. If I want to build an old-school astronomical computer, that's my huhu. Besides, my wife wants to put flowerbeds around it, it will complement the vegetable garden nicely (we might even be able to sell flowers from it at the farmer's market, who knows?), and most important, my kid thinks it the greatest idea since we build the trebuchet last summer.
Item 3: I am going to start my own phone center. A small niche-market sort of thing. There's no way I can compete with the big boys on their turf, or with offshoring, but... there's a lot of business for a small operation that isn't interested in a lot of growth. Small organizations that need 50 or 100 people called, to fundraise or to inform or to survey. City Council and school board candidates, local neighborhood preservation or improvement organizations, you name it. If someone needs a little work done and doesn't have a group of volunteers and available phone lines, they'll need someone like me.
I spent the last 5 years working in phones, both making calls and doing the needed stuff in the background. I can let these skills atrophy like my glasses-making chops, I can rent them out to the first bidder and have no control over what I do, or I can be in charge and, just maybe, break even while doing a little bit of good.
It will be six months or so before I can get this happening. Maybe there will be some SBA grants in the stimulus package to make these sorts of small dreams happen all over the country. They say the nation was founded on small entrepeneurs. People survived the Depression by doing things like this, with applecarts and shoeshine stands. The technology has changed, the culture has changed, but there's still room, maybe even more room than before, for small dreams to grow in the cracks of the international corporatist sidewalk.
I'm doing research now, on what it will take to launch. What kinds of phone lines, equipment, whatever will be needed. That's why I was looking up zoning. Turns out, even though my house is zoned residential/SFH, if your business takes up less than 25% of one floor, does not deal in commodities, your sign is less than one square foot (non-illuminated), and you don't violate parking regulations, it's legal. Whoot! I have also started the process of pricing telco services and autodialers (and answerers).
I have to make sure not to waste too much time. Example: on Friday I spent most of the day following a meta issue here at Kos. I will be staying out of those as much as possible from now on, as it's an easy trap for me. I once spent a couple years hosting/moderating on a message board pretty much composed of metaheads, and I can get too fascinated with Talking About How We're Talking as opposed to What We're Actually Talking About. It's a personal weakness, and last time I resolved it by writing a series of articles comparing and contrasting a dying message board and a thriving web community going through its own meta transition. (Short version, the place that was dying was dying because it lacked a constant flow of new members, and there was no transparent and verifiable trust metric, and the other community was conflicting over the whole Freedom Of Speech ethic. Kos has done a good job, in my view, of handling the whole free speech question. Oops, I'd better put that in iambic pentameter!) This time I will resolve it by turning off the computer when I find myself sitting in a lawn chair eating popcorn watching other people fight.
I have to be sure to leave the house on a daily basis. I cannot spend an entire day inside, unless the weather is so bad that no one goes outdoors. This is Minnesota, that does happen!
Unemployment has reunited me with a couple old friends I had not been spending enough time with. One of them, a guy I have known for years, was laid off months ago. We've formed the Mutual Unemployment Support Society, or MUSS, and we open meetings with the Possum Lodge Oath -- Quanto Omni Flunkus Moritati. If you don't know what that means, go loiter in the duct tape section of your local hardware store until you hear someone say "Ah, the handyman's secret weapon" and tell them you need to find out about Edgar K.B. Montrose... You will thank me. Another friend I have been missing is my wife, who I barely saw for years because we worked opposite shifts. My child is glad to have me home at night. Saturday we went sledding.
It's good to get reaquainted with myself, as well.
UPDATE: Thanks for the rescue!! Wowza, I seriously jumped around the room for a while. It's tres cool and feels good that someone enjoyed it enough to highlight on the front page. -- Epo