So far, this layoff business has been nothing but good. I'm sure that will change
if it lasts more than about a week (as it almost certainly will) but I may as well
enjoy the good part while it lasts.
The best thing about it has been
the uncanny level of support. I didn't know my support system was that good, maybe
because nothing especially bad has happened to me for quite some time. It
surprised me, because though I have lots of acquaintances, I'm not really great at
making friends (though I am good at staying in contact with the ones I do have).
Maybe this is because it's rare for me to find people in Real Life with whom I
have many common interests; the Internet has been a boon there.
I
sent off messages to former IIS coworkers right away (I figure it's fair game to
mention the company name now!), and then to everyone else I regularly correspond
with via email, so they would all know my work email address didn't work any more.
I told people at rowing, so they would know I was more available to do substitute
coaching (and, I admit, because there are a lot of good contacts out there). And I
wrote about it here and on the list I moderate. This was a layoff, not a firing,
so I figure there's nothing to be embarrassed about, and you never know who might
have useful advice.
I did get several nice messages from the former
cow-orkers, though they're all numb by this time -- I figure, since December, half
the company has been laid off or "let go". I also got both sympathy and help from
friends both here and in other cities. Rowers offered both empathy and more
concrete help --YSam told me to send him my resume, as he has a lot of contacts,
which I thought was extraordinarily kind of a man on the morning of his wedding
day.
The people I know over the net have come through just as
strongly. There were more messages left in my Guestbook here than I have ever
gotten from a single entry, every one containing some variant of "you rock, and
some employer will be smart enough to see that, very soon". And though I sometimes
complain about my list, and though this is minor compared to the deaths and other
upheavals some listsibs have undergone, those people have offered sympathy and
peptalks, virtual chocolate and vodka, and some very useful
advice.
So mostly, if you're in any of the groups mentioned above, I
want to say how grateful I am. All that outpouring of sympathy and love is one of
the main reasons my mood has stayed so good, and I'm sure that will lead directly
to more mental energy and self-confidence that will help in both getting
interviews and getting through them, and in a couple other plots I'm hatching. And
this is all teaching me how to help anyone else who might find himself or herself
in a similar situation, so I fully plan to pay my debt forward.
Thank
you.