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Janine had come home with me and we spent the next morning trying to get a Team Fortress 2 Dodgeball server up and running. First, I loaded the wrong server type, then I loaded the wrong server type again, then I put it in the wrong place, then we learned the plugin was borked. It only took us four tries to do what we found out we couldn’t do. I consider that a successful morning.

Suzie came over later for baby back ribs, rib eye, and peanut butter pie during a “steak n’ cake” luncheon. The baby back ribs were good but not so much better than the spare ribs to justify their being triple the price.

I dropped off Janine and made my way home to get ready for my first day of work. I went to bed at a little after 10pm, stared at the ceiling for 45 minutes then walked until I was exhausted around 4am. I’m going to be totally fresh for my first day of work.

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I received an employment offer today from a reinsurance firm in Philadelphia. About this I am happy as I both like the firm and reinsurance. Once I received the offer, I forwarded the details of it to another firm who was trying to hire me but was having trouble getting a package through their HR department. This is when I learned four words that I didn’t expect to hear: “We can beat that”.

I don’t think I’ll take the counter-offer, but it make feel good.

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The suit slid on comfortably for its first wearing and the gel in my hair was stylish without being sculpted. The pens were in the left inner pocket and phone in the right. The Fossil watch draped over the left wrist had enough give to slide up under the shirt cuff but not enough that it would rotate. I looked good.

I made it to the interview location within 30 seconds of on time and sat down to speak with the hiring manager. 30 minutes in, I hadn’t cursed, made an innuendo or forgotten how to speak and I was passed a competency test for SAS, SQL, and statistics. On this I did well and thence spake with two more people, the hiring manager’s manager, and the VP of Operations. Things were going well. I shook hands, I got business cards, I thanked the receptionist, I strolled, no strutted, out. I did well.

The car ride home went slowly and at the intersection of County Line and York Rd I was gripped with terror. One of the question was “how much greater is 5/8ths than 3/8ths”. Somehow, I responded “40%”. Whoops.

Return home, remove suit, hang up suit, unpack bag, find competency exam somehow in folio. Whoops.

Maybe I didn’t do as well as I thought.

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My day started at 9:30 with a call from the NJ Unemployment office that started “this is your 10:00 o’clock call regarding your employment status”. My 10:00am call at 9:30. Ok.

After that was worked out, I prepared for my 1:30pm phone interview for a job as a statistical analyst. By prepared, I mean I paced back and forth, reviewed flashcards and sweat a lot. I hadn’t lifted weights the previous day and kind of had a nervous energy. I thought to myself “I could probably do a pull up right now” and I did. My first pull-up brought about by me wanting a job.

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I applied for six positions today and nudged two HR people about resumes I had submitted. After that, I lifted for a bit, fed the animals, then ran 10 miles. I returned to my desk, saw my resume open on the screen and again had that feeling that everything on it was shit.

So I’ve created a 3rd resume with less stuff on it, focus on software and coursework, and have started on another iteration of my cover letter. I’ll figure this out eventually.

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Joe, Carl, Everett and I got together for dinner this evening. I cooked and the food cost was covered by everyone else, an arrangement I enjoy. We had pork tenderloin, a reduced spinach side, and some golden cake and caught up on what we each had done since the diaspora. Carl continued on at my previous firm and spoke of his work load. Joe mentioned how easy his job was. Everett and I told tales of unemployment. At one point we were bullshitting about dogs and Everett said “Yeah this is kind of like being in the lab again, except we were paid there”.

He’s right, we were paid there, somehow. We were paid to advance the frontier of knowledge in our particular domain and enjoy each other’s company. I hope I can’t believe I’m getting paid at my next job.

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With so many people having been removed from my previous work place there was a strange freedom to everything I did.  If I needed a stapler I could just grab it from the cube of someone who had been dismissed.  If I had a question or a concern, most of the people I could ask were too busy to reasonably answer it so I simply went with my gut and checked back when I had an answer even if I had wasted a chemical or material.

I haven’t had that kind of freedom since I was an intern.  I missed it.  That was back when science as a career was still in the cards.  After eight hours or so cowboy science I had to fill out a lab report to describe what I had done.  Immediately I remembered why science as a career was no longer in the cards.

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While traveling, I received a request to return temporarily to the firm that had fired me to take care of some testing needs that had popped up. Rather than my standard rate, I would be returning at my contractor rate which is 50% higher so I was glad to be back. Even thought I was gone for two weeks a few things were different:

  • 85 people had been laid off since I was last there, the hallways were a little less crowded. This trickled into other things like shorter cafeteria lines and a closer parking spot.
  • The new blank space in the refrigerator allowed me to bring in a 2-liter iced tea container. Something I should have tried to do at least five years ago.
  • The candy dishes were brimming and someone had even brought in a cake. Now that I was a contractor, part of me wanted to bake a cake to bring in and then bill for “off site work”.

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Today was my first day of non-temporary unemployment as an adult since… ever. I had a theoretical stream of payments in the form of unemployment and a few thousand dollars in savings that have come from me saving for an abdomenoplasty but it appears that frugality would be the watchword of my near future.

It was 10am, I had woken up earlier than I often did for work. Max didn’t know I was jobless, the cat didn’t know I was jobless. Most of my friends had no functional idea that I was jobless except my sudden free schedule.

I set myself a goal that I’d apply for at least five positions per week in a successively wider geographic region. I also set myself a limit of two social engagements per week until that application quota had been met. I cancelled a few recurring subscriptions like Audible, and made a leisurely lunch.

I was unemployed and wasn’t dead. Here we go.

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Today is my ninth last day at my current firm. I had three last days while I was an intern followed by one about every 18 months when my contract was renewed. Over nine years that’s added up and I’ve been labeled as a bit of a boomerang. A parade of people said “oh, you’ll be back” but this one is a bit different. This isn’t a contract issue, or a school thing, this is a restructuring. I won’t be back in any similar capacity.

There were a lot of outstanding tasks to finish and my boss asked if there was anything he could do to help, I replied “bring me back Monday” but he didn’t see the humor in this. I stayed late to finish up what I could and on the way out I turned out the lights as the last person in my area to leave.

I’ve worked here for nine years and I am not bitter in my departure. Disappointed, yes, but not bitter. A little more heads up would have been nice so I could appropriately wind down my work but I should move on.