Aggrazel's Journal: What a funny coincidence

Today slashdot runs a story on the benefits of being unemployed, and I'm informed that as of October 31st my services at this company are no longer needed.

Yay.

Last time I was unemployed, it took me 14 months to get a new job. 14!! I suppose some of that could be my fault because I don't want to move away from my home in Dayton Ohio. But I'm just upset at how casually companies seem to toss me aside.

I'm going to say something here that you probably already know. There are really only two kinds of people in the IT industry. Those who love technology and would do this job even if it didn't pay that much, and those that jumped into it for the money and money alone.

Of the people of the first group, there are pretenders, and then there are the real deal. The pretenders are the ones who really like this stuff but don't have the "gift" of being able to just ... know things. Do you know what I'm talking about? How long does it take you to learn a new system, or new technology? For me, it takes surprisingly little time. Give me a new piece of software that I've never seen before and odds are I'll have it mostly figured out fairly quickly. Give me a new piece of hardware and not only will I know how to make it work, but I'll know how it works and why it works, and whats the best thing to do with it.

I have this talent. Many people who congregate on slashdot seem to. But many of my coworkers here do not. Many of them are what I call "Process Followers". You give them a list, and they will follow the list, and they can do that with great success. Something deviates from the list and they get upset.

They don't, and perhaps, can't, make their own lists. Nor do they know what to do when things don't follow the list.

I'm not saying all of them are, I've met some really brilliant people as well. The guy who sits across from me, for example, is fantastically brilliant and I love to hang out with him because of that. He's smart, but he's not the kind of person who makes you feel inferior just because he's smarter than you.

Thats not to say I am an idiot. But I do have trouble figuring some things out, like, how do I keep a job? I thought to keep a job I had to work hard, do good work, and be productive. I do that. But it doesn't work. It doesn't help that every manager I ever worked for didn't want me to leave when the company was terminating me. "Budget reasons". I always get caught in the middle.

The first time I got layed off from my IT job was a bit more understanding. My company went bankrupt. But they gave me 0 warning. My boss from there fought them to try to keep me for just 6 more weeks while they were shutting things down. He even offered to have them fire himself instead. I know, I saw him say it. But they wouldn't agree.

The second time I got downsized I got selected because of my age group. I am young, and they needed to fire a few young people so they could get away with firing all the old people before they were fully vested for a pension. I know this. They got sued over it anyway. Still, my manager fought to keep me on the team because I was so talented. No good.

This time, my manager wants to keep me but there is no money. Oh well, I guess this makes for good references. Hah.

I can only hope that I will not be unemployed as long as I was last time, for a fear this time, my financial health couldn't survive it.