The Layoff Times: Final Thoughts, Lessons Learned

Well, it finally happened. Day 232 was indeed the last day of my layoff times. Exactly 51 weeks after I learned I was to be one of 10,000 employees to be laid off within a month, I finally started a new full-time job. This is a 6-month contract for now, potentially longer. Oddly enough, it's with a company that's on the same street that my first office at National Instruments was on ... and this company abbreviates itself as NI too. As for the freelance gig I seemed to have, well, no word from them since I sent them paperwork a couple weeks ago.

But this post is not about the new job. Any thoughts on that will go on Blogacharya. Today's entry, about a week overdue, is all about closing up The Layoff Times at long last. I started writing this in my head back in late April. Then in May, I started to think I'd never get to write this. So, here are my concluding thoughts on this period in my life:

• With the exception of a couple of weeks following the lightning strike, the first 7 months of my layoff times were amazingly fun. I had a great time! I loved the freedom, the relaxed pace, everything about it. And it was great to spend so much time with my girls, even if it was just them sleeping on or next to me while I watched TV or was on the computer.
• The last 3 1/2 months of my layoff times nearly ruined the first, longer, fun part. But I guess that's what happens when money becomes tight, the feeling of freedom turns into the feeling of being trapped and frozen, and you're home so much you can overanalyze every sip of water your now-diabetic cats take.
• I didn't do everything I set out to do, even though I was out of work longer than I'd planned, but really, who ever gets everything they want to do done? Fact is, I got a lot of crucial work done discarding junk and otherwise organizing and sorting things around the house that has really come in handy.
• Turns out, I really needed a sabbatical. Sure, over the years I've taken a couple of 3-week vacations, but those were family trips, so I couldn't call those relaxing. I really needed this break.
  
• However ... I really needed that sabbatical to no more than 7 months long.
  
• I have too much faith in my qualifications and work abilities. I'm not saying I think I suck at my career. And I know I can still nail an interview even when I'm off my game. But being good and being qualified may not mean shit. My plan had been to start working again by November -- last year. I'd felt I had the freedom to look for the perfect job, to find something I really wanted. In the end, I was starting to scrounge around for positions with insulting wages. One reason I let myself be strung along by this new position for so long was because it's actually a good salary. It wasn't the position I wanted as much as the rate.
  
• Severance packages and unemployment benefits rock. When they run out, and you have to start paying for Cobra on top of that ... everything changes.
• Life threw a few tests at me. Pop quizzes, really, nothing major. And for the most part, especially this year, I failed. Miserably.
  
• I can handle one or two minor crises in a row. I can handle a few if they're spaced apart. But start adding a third, a fourth, a fifth in a row, even if they're tiny problems, with no balancing small victories in between, and my foundation collapses. Which leads to...
• "Dipu Fatigue." It's still a risk for anyone near me. If I get into a major funk and can't get out, hoist the red flags. My negativity and hopelessness can wear down even the most patient and understanding person. Contact with me becomes a building cycle of frustration. It's no fun at all for my friends. I'd thought Dipu Fatigue was part of my past, part of the "pre-Trish" Dipu (the person I was before Trish decided to help me turn my negative mindset around). Sure, there were occasional relapses, like after the lightning strike last year, but I'd get out of those ruts fairly quickly. But not so with this spring's downturn. Not since late February. The one positive with this major relapse is that I didn't lose any friends. But I've sure frustrated the hell out of a lot of them.
  
• I am alone for a good reason. Fate, God, the Universe, whoever, is sparing someone from having to spend her life with me. Sure, I'll be okay to be around when things are good, but when things aren't so good, well, see the aforementioned Dipu Fatigue. If you've ever experienced Dipu Fatigue, and I know many of my friends have, that's just a taste of what my poor girlfriend or wife would have to endure.
• On the other hand, things would've been so much worse without my friends. The same friends who likely suffered Dipu Fatigue at times. I'm not sure I could've made it through these past few months intact without your support.
• I was a lot more of an optimist these past few years than I ever realized. I knew I was feeling good and positive about life in general (dating being the glaring exception) and considered myself to be very happy overall. But with the recent (and continuing) downturn in my attitude, it's so clear to me how unpessimistic I was for all those years. And it sucks not to be there anymore.
  

I know I had more I wanted to write, but I can't remember any more now. If I ever do, I'll post it on my main blog. This is plenty anyway. Hopefully, I won't have to post on here again for at least 6 months, if ever. And even then, it'd be starting over from a new Day 1. So either way, this round of The Layoff Times ends today.

Unfortunately, this blog did not end like I'd hoped it would. Until recently, I'd thought I would end this on a high note, excited by a new job, a new opportunity that I didn't have before. Instead, I'm taking something because I need a job. I'm concluding this blog not with the optimistic outlook I started with and retained until nearly March, but with a battered-down, worn-out, and weary demeanor, merely plodding through life. Yes, my finally getting a job and a paycheck (well, that won't be for another week, but I assume I'll get one) are good things. I'm glad about that, to be sure. But instead of being the joyous occasion I'd hoped it would be, it's just a sigh of relief. It still feels temporary, like a stop-gap solution. A badly needed stop-gap, but a stop-gap nonetheless. In the past, when I started a new job, it was new and exciting. This job is simply new.

If only this blog could have ended 4 months ago.

Thanks to everyone who visited this blog over the past year. As I said in the beginning of this blog, it really was more for myself than for anyone's amusement, so I know this wasn't the most stirring of blogs. But that wasn't the point. Thanks for reading despite that. My other two blogs will continue with new entries, but if all goes well, this is the finale for The Layoff Times. Thanks for reading.

-30-