Friday, September 22, 2017

An interesting time of semi-employment and volunteer work

I've been unemployed for a long time now. Over a year. I never thought something like this would happen. When the old CEO retired, a number of us discussed the possibility of our being let go by a new CEO. Sure enough, the new one let every member of executive management go. She used a budget excuse, but that clearly was a lie. She just wanted to bring in her own people.

When we had those discussions, we agreed that with our experience, we shouldn't be out too long. Well, the joke was on us. I think age has something to do with it. People don't want to pay for experience, and they'd rather have someone in their 30s than their 50s. So I've now been out for over a year, passed over for jobs for which I was very well qualified. If some employers had done that, well, that's how it goes, but to have so many jobs where I can't even get a face-to-face interview, there's only one explanation I can see.

So I've helped some organizations for free, and I've been doing a bit of legal work. That pays pretty well per hour, but that's a couple of hours here and a couple there.

Thankfully, Marc is working, and we haven't piled tons of debt on ourselves. Still, this is beyond unsettling.

I'll keep doing things. I'm also working on some political efforts I believe in. So I'm staying busy and productive, but I look forward to a more normal work life one of these days!

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