Next Monday, yours truly will walk into work for the first time since mid-July. Oddly enough, it’s the same place I was laid off from.
Confused? You’re telling me.
As the economy has worsened, so have the prospects for good jobs. Obviously, businesses still need to run and lives need to evolve, so openings do happen. I estimated that I have applied for roughly 50 jobs since August and got interviews for a whopping two of them. Time after time after time, I was either ignored or rejected, not even getting the courtesy of a 10-minute chat on the phone for positions that were right up my alley. Of those two interviews, I came justthisclose to landing a gig but I lost out to someone that had more experience. Drat!
I’ve equated the feeling of being out-of-work as being in a dark room with a large group of other people. You see an open door filled with light and you all run to it, but only one person gets through. You wait and wait until another door opens up. Sometimes, a few open up and other times, weeks go by and you see nothing but darkness. I decided to expand my search for a light back to Manchester, where I had just left. Ideal? Not really, but I needed a job and I liked the Queen City. If there was any place I would have come back to, it was the 603. I sent out a few emails to key people, telling them I was looking. A day later, I got a call.
The call was from my old boss, the same guy who had given me the bad news to begin with. He told me about an Account Manager-style position he had heard of and with a company he knew well. I said I was interested and he said it was with them. Honestly, I was in a bit of shock as it was the last offer I had expected. We left on good terms, but still, you never think that the place that let you go would ask you back. It turned out they had some needs they were having a tough time filling and they needed some help. I was the first person they thought of, which I feel says something about the job I did while there. I chose to forgo the thoughts of ‘Why now?’ and rather focus on the task at hand.
After a few days thinking and getting advice from some key friends, I decided to accept their offer to return in a slightly different role than what I had when I left. While some (including one irrational friend I have) would say they would shovel horse manure before returning to a place that cut you, it came down to a few key points:
- I need the money. My unemployment benefits run out in just over a month and I’m not guaranteed the government extensions that are out there. Even if I had got them, there’s no guarantee I would have had found something when those ran out. I still have bills to pay and a minimum wage job at Borders wasn’t going to cover them. When I first moved back to Maine in September, I expected that it would take just a couple months to get a full-time gig. That was before everything went to hell and an already tight region became tighter. Taking the position provides me a regular paycheck, benefits and as much security as today’s economic times allow.
- I liked my old job. Honestly, I really liked working at my old company and enjoyed the people and work involved. It’s not every day that someone gets to say that, so I’m excited to get that opportunity again. Everything that happened in the past is in the past. I’m just focused on doing the best job I can for as long as I can. Period.
- I liked my old city. Same as above, I really liked Manchester. I built a nice life there over the past seven years with great friends and plenty of contacts. It’s less than an hour from Boston and just under two hours back here to Portland. While I hope Portland is my long-term goal living-wise, it’s just not realistic right now and probably won’t be for quite a long time. Things could be a lot worse though and I feel pretty blessed that I don’t have to uproot myself completely and will have plenty of friends happy to see me back (I hope!). I love New England and am glad that I get a chance to stay.
- Maine is in a very poor economic state: For the better part of a decade, I read and heard stories about young people leaving Maine because of a lack of diversity with jobs. Even in Portland, I figured that talented people could always find a place somewhere and that it wouldn’t be hard for me to find a good job to land in. It’s diverse, cutting-edge and the Seattle of the East, right? Oops, not so much.
In learning about the various business philosophies of state government and the lack of foresight from the residents here, I worry about this state’s long-term business viability. I could go on, but it comes down to this: unless Maine decides to stop thinking about itself as solely a tourist destination and an opportunity for commerce of all kinds, the slow death will continue and it’s a shame.
So, that’s that. In less than a week’s time, I’ll be back in the same physical place I was roughly five months ago but in a much different mental place, armed with more knowledge and introspection than I had before. You learn a lot about yourself and those around you when you’re down in your luck and I’m confident in knowing that I’m coming out of this whole business a lot stronger and wiser than ever.
It was a strange fall and winter of 2008. Here’s looking forward to a much-better 2009.
