I lost my job -- pop the champagne!

@Chumly,

I tried to do it with macros -- but the work was just enough less menial and less repetitive than it would have for me to handle it effectively with macros. There came a point when debugging the macros, cross-checking all possible errors in the hand-edited tables the customers sent in, etc., was just as menial as doing it by hand -- and where both ways of doing it got incredibly awkward.

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@Thomas,

I can relate!

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I think Thomas isn't crapping in his pants because he has a year's cushion stashed. I wonder how many of the American-based peeps do.... The most I ever had was 3 months...

Congrats on the canning, THOMAS!!! Have a blast!

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@Lash,

As dlowan once pointed out to me, I'm an ant, as opposed to her, whom she considers a grasshopper. True or not, I kind of resent this insight. The ant, after all, is a stingy, tactless, mean-spirited, bourgois, musicophobic douchebag in this fable of Lafontaine's. But whatchagonnado ... I am who I am.

Thanks for the congrats!

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@Thomas,

You're kind of a Renaissance Ant.

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@dlowan,

In fact, you're a star:

http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/antnebula.jpg

Ok...you're actually a nebula...gimme a little room here already!!!

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Thomas, I hope your next job is the best ever.

I envy your attitude. When I got laid off six years ago, I threw myself
immediately into finding a new job. I worked as long and hard at finding a job as
I ever did in a job itself. I wish I'd taken some time to relax, but there was no
way I could. Just a born worry-wart.

You've got some cushion and some freedom. Enjoy!!!

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@George,

I threw myself into finding my most recent job, too. But long bouts of unemployment will do that to ya.

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In Canada there are far fewer consequential cities for good employment. In the US, if things are not so great in one city, you can shift to another much more easily!

However, because I have diversified my working abilities between music, electrical, and now teaching, I have spread the risk somewhat. I don't know if you are similar in that regard Thomas, but employment diversification is not a bad thought going forward if you have the inclination/resources/abilities/time.

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@Chumly,

That's the problem, Chumly. At the moment I'm mostly a specialist in a narrow field where employees highly paid and sought after, but that won't survive until I collect retirement benefits. That's one of the reasons I'm taking a few months for soul-searching and playing around with ideas; I need to branch out again. My background was more diversified ten years ago than it is now. I'm sure I can find a way to re-diversify. But I need to do it.

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@Thomas,

My premier principle of investing is diversification of assets relative to risk tolerance and time horizon: equities / fixed income / hard assets. In a sense employment skills are an asset class with potential for diversification.

The question then becomes is the effort to diversify your employment skills worth the cost and time?

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@Chumly,

That's indeed the question, but I'm pretty sure the answer is "yes" in my case.

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@jespah,

Quote:

Re: George (Post 3573967)
I threw myself into finding my most recent job, too. But long bouts of unemployment will do that to ya.

I was out for 4 months - not long for that time - , but it seriously changed the
way I look at things.

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@George,

When you've had two separate runs of 3 years out, you don't relax when you lose a job. Oy, I wonder if, when I retire, I'm doomed to read the Want Ads through all eternity. Shocked

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@jespah,

Three years each? Ayah! I'd have ulcers.

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@George,

Three years twice = two hundred pounds overweight, I suppose. Not an exact correlation but definitely it was a part of it. Lotta self-medicating; I'm glad I don't turn to drink. Oofa.

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Thomas, this is great news. I'm so happy for you!

Renaissance ant? Perhaps a hybrid of some sort.

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@mac11,

Hi Mac! Anything to make you happy! Smile

George and Jespah -- I'm sure that I, too, be much less content if the money is beginning to run out and I still have no job. But Jespah's story about her overweight made me think of my own weight gains; it occurred to me that the worst happened during my graduate studies, where lots of things went seriously wrong. (Gained 100 pounds in three years, of which I've only lost 40 in the eight years since.) I guess that jobs going bad do give me a harder time emotionally than unemployment does.

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@Thomas,

When you've got five people living off that one paycheck, it also adds to the stress.

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@George,

That makes a lot of sense.

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I lost my job -- pop the champagne!

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