Welp - I got the axe (not a guitar)

[BigBear58]

After 23 years 9 months, I got laid off from my Very Large Increasingly India-Staffed IT company Thursday. Nothing beats lookin' for a job at 62 in the worst economy in almost a century.

Yeah, I guess that means more practice time, which is good....I bought a new (demo) guitar last month when I was still employed and marginally flush. It's been at a luthier's shop waiting for a setup, should be done this week.

Will a steady slide down the socio-economic scale help my blues playing? Heh, I guess we'll see. I just hope I can keep it. We're okay for a little while, but the biscuit will start getting a little crispy in a few months.

For all you retired cats out there, I envy you, but can't join you just yet.

For all you laid-off cats, I'm with ya.

For all you still-employed cats, ride it !!

Peace out.

 

[PapaBear]

Sorry to hear about the layoff, beautiful guitar though!

 

[BigMike]

Sorry to hear that. Stay strong and good luck with the new guitar, she's beauty.

 

[JohnHurley]

Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank has a bunch of IT jobs we have a huge new project thats staffing up. Remote work may be possible.

PM me if interested.

Best luck man yeah i think i should be ok for 3 years and out at 67.

 

[BigBear58]

Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank has a bunch of IT jobs we have a huge new project thats staffing up. Remote work may be possible.

PM me if interested.

Best luck man yeah i think i should be ok for 3 years and out at 67.

Thanks John - coincidentally, I have ALOT of step-family in Cleveland, my wife and I - I swear not 5 minutes ago - were talking about how/when we can get back there to see them. We jointly own a house in Lakewood.

I'm step-grampa to 5, stepdad to three. I'll PM you, thx.

 

[CaptainMoto]

Drat!
Bad news never comes at a good time.

They can take your job but, not your music.
Play with passion.

Hope life spills a little light on you soon.

 

[BigBear58]

Drat!
Bad news never comes at a good time.

They can take your job but, not your music.
Play with passion.

Hope life spills a little light on you soon.

If they heard me play, they wouldn't want my music.

Thx Cap'n.

 

[Many Moons]

That's a beautiful looking guitar BigBear. I sincerely hope you get to keep it.

 

[Silicon Valley Tom]

Sorry to hear the news. I have been retired since January 2009. There was a time when employment was stable, but that changed about 30 years ago. I will send you a PM.

I was in the Air Force, worked as an electronics technician supporting manufacturing of F-111 Radar Systems, and LEM/APOLLO, while attending engineering college full time. Then I worked for Ampex, as an electronics engineer for 15 years. Electronics manufacturing left Silicon Valley beginning in 1989, and by 1992 we had 60,000 unemployed electronics engineers.

What do you do when your job is no more? Innovate! Time to take stock of the situation. Have a plan. Talk to your wife, family and friends.

My decision was to change professions, and I went into programming. There were no opportunities in engineering unless I wanted to move to Austin, Texas. The world of programming has its issues, but it is one source of employment.

Do you live in an area where there are opportunities for employment in your profession? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Create a network of individuals who can help you look for work.
   
   
2. Define available resources to assist you looking for employment.

3. Read books on creating resumes.

4. Looking for a job is a full time job in itself.

When I was unemployed I helped many people by keeping up his/her spirits, giving ideas how to approach the job market, and keep a positive attitude.

Tom - AKA Silicon Valley Tom - in "lovely San Jose, California"

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[Elio]

Sorry to hear about the layoff. Since I was laid off from my first two jobs after college, it wasn't until my third that I was actually able to quit a job as my own decision. Fortunately, I was in my 20's and life was a lot simpler. At 61, I wouldn't look forward to that today, but being mostly self-employed in this environment also has its challenges.

 

[snarf]

Job-seeking mojo to you mi amigo! I've been in your shoes a couple of times in the last 20 years (albeit much younger), and, even when you're expecting it, that conversation with your boss/HR/whoever-announces-it-to-you totally sucks. My dad got laid off from the company where he had worked for about 30 years when he was in his late 50s. He managed to land in an even better spot than he had been. Hopefully, this will work the same for you.

You said IT. What part of IT is your experience, and what part of the country. If the rest of us hear of something that fits, I'm sure any of us would be happy to pass along any leads to you. If you don't mind government work, be sure to hit usajobs.gov. I know that my team (infrastructure and security) is still hiring despite the downturn. At least we were as of a couple of weeks ago.

 

[Silicon Valley Tom]

I remember when I was looking for a job, it was very difficult for a number of reasons. One is age. A Silicon Valley CEO was very honest in that regard. His name is T. J. Rodgers. Some of his comments were:

1. If you are over 45 years old in Silicon Valley, no one will hire you.
   
   
2. If you have worked for the same company for ten or more years, you are brain dead and of no value.
   
   
3. I will hire you, pick all the knowledge you possess, and fire you within six months, so I do not have to give you medical benefits.
   

Sounds cruel, but the man was so honest. No BS, just reality. By the way, having worked with many “programmers” from India, I must say that I never met one who had the ability or knowledge to sit on his or her own hands. That was too complex a task. H1B's are worshiped in this Valley. Why? I will never know.

Ours is not to reason why. We just get to do it to it. The little guy in the trenches just does not get the “big picture”. The reality is that the little guy knows more than the guys at the top, the problems and issues that threaten a company or organization, and what to do about it. The guys in charge are too involved with politics, and three Martini lunches.

Our EDD office created a group called “Pro Match”. I was an engineer at the time. It was comprised of professional men and women who were looking for employment. One thing they told us about our resumes, is to not discuss anything related to age, or when we graduated from college. We had a guy who was in his early 60's, who disobeyed all the rules. He got hired within two weeks of joining Pro Match.

His hair was gray so he died it black. He graduated recently from college with his masters degree, so he indicated date of graduation. He got an interview, and was hired on the spot, even after being instructed you never indicate when you graduated. We were so happy for him, and he proved how smart he was. You have to find your own path, as the “experts” may mean well but then there is reality.

Tom

1. 
   
   

 

[BigBear58]

Job-seeking mojo to you mi amigo! I've been in your shoes a couple of times in the last 20 years (albeit much younger), and, even when you're expecting it, that conversation with your boss/HR/whoever-announces-it-to-you totally sucks. My dad got laid off from the company where he had worked for about 30 years when he was in his late 50s. He managed to land in an even better spot than he had been. Hopefully, this will work the same for you.

You said IT. What part of IT is your experience, and what part of the country. If the rest of us hear of something that fits, I'm sure any of us would be happy to pass along any leads to you. If you don't mind government work, be sure to hit usajobs.gov. I know that my team (infrastructure and security) is still hiring despite the downturn. At least we were as of a couple of weeks ago.

Thanks, snarf. I worked for the Services Division of IBM. We handled servers, service desks, middleware support, application support...etc. My particular role was a Metrics/Analytics Team Lead - our team basically analyzed contracts, figured out SLA/SLO reporting requirements, designed ETL processes and reporting solutions. We were basically the business analyst glue in between the matrixed development teams and the stakeholders. I was a lower-middle management guy; dispatched work, escalation point, management POC, special projects. A fair amount of SQL, a little Python, plenty of report and relational database design, process design and a lot of workload management. Some project management, too. Denver/Boulder area.

My US Team got wiped out on Thursday, including my manager. All work to India, period/full stop. I got the talk from a Director, who I've never met or spoken to once. She read from a script. She asked if I had any questions - I had four, she couldn't answer a single one.

Got nothing against government work; I've heard it can be soul-crushing, or steady and predictable...or both.

Tentacles are out, but given my age, the Pandemic and the fact that I'm not really a code jockey, my expectations are tempered. Ready to slide a ways down the scale; just don't want to hit the bottom.

 

[BigBear58]

I remember when I was looking for a job, it was very difficult for a number of reasons. One is age. A Silicon Valley CEO was very honest in that regard. His name is T. J. Rodgers. Some of his comments were:

1. If you are over 45 years old in Silicon Valley, no one will hire you.
   
   
2. If you have worked for the same company for ten or more years, you are brain dead and of no value.
   
   
3. I will hire you, pick all the knowledge you possess, and fire you within six months, so I do not have to give you medical benefits.

Well, there's some truth to all that, Tom. Which is why I'm also exploring options other than a traditional IT environment. 70% of the companies out there need someone who can look at data, explain it and render it in a pivot chart, and only 30% of the people out looking for work can do that. At 62, I'm happy to fill a role like that quietly, reliably and honestly. If something magnificent comes along and lands on my noggin, so be it. Just want to keep myself in guitar strings, a roof over my head, well fed dogs and a little something for my wife once in a while.

 

[snarf]

My particular role was a Metrics/Analytics

Funny you mention that. That's actually me for my group. The team plans, implements, and maintains multiple data centers, and I monitor and tell them how things are working. For 10 years I ran the team that ran a call center for one part of the gov't, but got tired of being on call 24/7, so last year I found a spot in a different agency, and am a metric monkey now. Splunk, SQL, pivot tables, and slicers are where I live these days.

My team has been looking for project managers and developers. I'll see if I can find one of the postings for the PM team and message it to you within the next couple of days. The location is flexible, and we've got parts of the team all over the country (including Denver).

Got nothing against government work; I've heard it can be soul-crushing, or steady and predictable...or both.

In the private sector, I got laid off twice. First time, it was a small shop. The guys that owned the place made some serious mis-steps, clients started pulling out, and suddenly there was little work. They ended up closing. There were like 5 of us left when the owner called one morning and talked to the guy that answered the phone. Told him that he was on his way from West Texas to our office, he's closing the business, leave your keys on the desk, clean your desk out, and he wanted all employees gone when he got there in 2 hours. He'd drop our checks in the mail when he got to town. Then told him to put the next guy on the phone. Told him the same thing. I was the last one to get the hand-off, so I knew exactly what was coming. I was on the phone with him for less than 30 seconds.

The second time, the client decided that they could do it without us. So there were about 200 of us that cut. Called all of us into a meeting and let us all know at the same time. It was a 6 month ramp down. My team got chosen to train the client and turn the lights off. That gave most of us time to have the next thing lined up by the time we left. I accidentally ended up at the gov't at that point. It hasn't been any more soul crushing than the private sector had been, but the steady, predictability you mention has been nice.

 

[JohnHurley]

I will PM my cell phone tomorrow also ... you sound like a good fit for what we are doing huge project just ramping up ... keep the faith!

 

[BigBear58]

All you guys are awesome ! Many, many thanks for the tips and potential leads. Wife and I spent a rainy Sunday yesterday working through expenses, calendar and sacrificial offerings. This morning, the sun came out.

 

[Silicon Valley Tom]

All you guys are awesome ! Many, many thanks for the tips and potential leads. Wife and I spent a rainy Sunday yesterday working through expenses, calendar and sacrificial offerings. This morning, the sun came out.

Well, my suggestion from above about creating a network, seems to have begun. Great job everyone! I receive great joy in helping others, and seeing others help each other. Let us know how things go.

Tom

 

[sloslunas]

All you guys are awesome ! Many, many thanks for the tips and potential leads. Wife and I spent a rainy Sunday yesterday working through expenses, calendar and sacrificial offerings. This morning, the sun came out.

This forum is all about brothers helping brothers. Kudos to all for stepping up for this one...

Steve

 

[Grateful_Ed]

Well, there's some truth to all that, Tom. Which is why I'm also exploring options other than a traditional IT environment. 70% of the companies out there need someone who can look at data, explain it and render it in a pivot chart, and only 30% of the people out looking for work can do that. At 62, I'm happy to fill a role like that quietly, reliably and honestly. If something magnificent comes along and lands on my noggin, so be it. Just want to keep myself in guitar strings, a roof over my head, well fed dogs and a little something for my wife once in a while.

You've got a great attitude.
Being unemployed, (retired) from a skilled trade, I'm sorry I have no connections that may be able to help you, BigBear.
But if you can take care of the roof, the dogs and the missus (no small task), you just PM me if you need any guitar strings. I got yer back.