State of My Union Address 2011

My fellow Americans .....

Well it has been a while, so first of all happy 2011 to all, I hope the new year brings everyone happiness, and a job (if you're looking). So lets start out with a review of what I learned in 2010 and how we can use that experience to move forward.

In 2010 I started the year working a part time retail position, I wasn't making a lot of money so I quit the position to dedicate myself to finding my next full time career. Well what a long strange trip this year has been. I ended up getting 4 or 5 phone interviews that turned into 3 in person interviews and one of them turned into a 2nd and 3rd interview.

Now I'm going to keep the names out of this to protect the innocent (and my butt probably), and as you can review in my earlier postings, I did not get that position, or any of them for that matter, but it's a pretty tough landscape out there, if I have 5 years of experience, then 4 other candidates have 10 years .... and so on . The one that really got me though was a position I applied for at consisted of two phone interviews and a 2 hour in person interview with 4 people, after all that I NEVER HEARD from them, sorry but that's just not cool, I mean just call or email or send a letter and say, sorry man you lose ... nothing ever, jerks.

So what else did we learn this year, well I keep hearing about Networking, Networking and more Networking! Well this year I networked my arse off, I'm on Linked IN, Linked OUT, Plaxo, Smaxo, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and so on. Trying just to stay in touch with everyone and keeping everything updated is a full time job. I keep hearing that most jobs these days are achieved through Networking, sorry kids, in my opinion that's a crock. All of the positions that I applied for SAVE 1 this year were me just surfing the job sites and looking at companies that I want to work for, when I tried Networking to help me out at a company where I knew some people, they told me they couldn't help me, I'm guessing they probably could, but I don't know.

Oh, that SAVE 1, where a friend did help me out, I lost out to a woman who's husband worked there, and apparently she had no experience where I had years of experience .... story of my life. I still thank that friend, he's a good man and one guy that has reached out in my time of need, that won't be forgotten.

One of the reasons why I have not written too much lately is because I don't want this to sound like a bitter or negative blog, I'm really not a negative person and so it really does depress me to write these blogs. This was really just supposed to me writing about my trials and tribulations on landing my next career move but I think some other things have creeped in here (project managers call it Scope Creep) wow I haven't used that word in a while, ick!

So in 2010 I did everything from trying to sell cars to cleaning toilets on airplanes overnight, I took 4 piss tests and I passed them all (haa!) and I got fingerprinted, background checked and retinal scanned .... ok I didn't get retinal scanned but I was on a roll.

I can't believe it's almost been 2 years since I was laid off, in some ways it feels like only yesterday and in other ways if it feels like a whole lifetime ago.

So here we are, 2011, I'm right back where I started from last year, working part time at a retailer. Well I guess I can't complain at least I am in fact working. I could be worse off, but all of my financial reserves have been depleted, I give it 6 months and then I either have to sell my house or cash in 401K's - let's hope I don't have to make that decision. I have good friends and good family, so I remain optimistic.

Good night and God Bless!