Today, I got up at 9:45AM. Better than yesterday, but…

Recession: 104, CotR: 4

I'm beginning to feel the Dread. I didn't have a list for today, and I don't have one for tomorrow. The things I have left to do aren't related to finding work — renewing my license and cleaning my car. I spent a couple hours looking through classifieds and I'm going to try to put as much time into the same activity every day until I've found a job. Beyond that what do I have to do?

I've always been a proponent of taking a lazy vacation. Every year, I try to take at least one week to spend time around the house, sleeping in and watching tv. This vacation, however, doesn't have an end in sight. The not knowing is daunting.

Today, I got up at 10AM.

Recession: 103, CotR: 3

I started the day thinking about my future.

The greatest challenge I face in getting a new job isn't in getting the job (well, it might be—we'll see what happens when I start applying), it's in deciding what job I want.

When I finished college I needed to get a job. I wasn't looking for a career—just a way to pay for rent and beer. So I got a job taking personal ads and, at times, responding to customer emails related to problems with the company website. I managed to parlay that (don't ask how—I got the job even though I was wearing my sweater inside out and didn't know what a URL was) into a job setting up small business websites. From there I moved to positions in quality assurance and modifications (working on our more complicated sites). I worked at that company for over a year. Once I'd had enough of them (it was basically a telemarketing scheme) I started looking through the local classifieds, where I found my current—nay, former—position.

All of that is a long-winded way of saying that I didn't get my former job because I love the work. I got it because I needed a job, then needed a job, then needed a job.

So, what now?

Thanks to my severance package I have time to look, time to think. Do I want to continue on as a web developer? Do I want to do something else in the industry? Or do I want to do something else altogether?

At this point, I can't say I know.

Recession: 104, CotR: 3

After I'd wasted a couple hours thinking about my future I moved on to something a little more tangible: my resume.

Not much to say there—worked from a couple examples, attempted to cobble together something that might get me hired. Another piece of advice: even if you have a job, make sure to update your resume every couple months. Remembering the exact names of companies I worked for eight years ago, and the approximate dates I worked for them, turned out to be harder than expected.

Recession: 104, CotR: 4

Recession: 1, Child of the Recession: 0

A little background: I'd worked remotely for the last year plus, affording me a very flexible schedule. Over the weekend I decided that I should start getting up at 8AM every day during my job search, helping me adjust to working what I'm sure will be an earlier schedule at my new job.

Today, I got up at 10AM.

Recession: 2, Child of the Recession: 0

Now, you might be asking why I, a Child of the Recession (henceforth to be abbreviated as CotR), would be competing with his father rather than basking in his patriarchal glow. Well, what child hasn't wanted to slay his father and bed his mother (for our purposes, my mother is the Economy)? I am the bastard product of their union. I was brought into this world screaming and jobless, and now I aim to make him pay.

Upon further consideration I need to adjust the score - he scored his first point when I lost my job. It seems to me that an achievement of that level deserves more than a single point.

We'll give him one hundred points for taking my job, bringing our total to Recession: 101, CotR: 0

I started the day by making a list. Lists are the backbone of surviving, nay, thriving, in the chaos that is a jobless day. If you take any piece of advice from me (make sure I get a job before accepting any of my advice), take this: make your lists, check them twice and make sure you achieve those goals in the time allotted for their completion. These lists have become your job - you will get paid in the satisfaction of not having wasted an entire day playing Madden 08 on your Wii.

Here are the list items for the day:

1. Sign up for unemployment
2. Fill out and send in final expense report
3. Mail out waiver and keys
4. Work on resume

Sign up for unemployment: This was a soul-sucking, heart-rending experience I will detail in a later post. It's done now, and let us thank the gods that it is.

Fill out and send in final expense report: As a web developer, I often visited our clients and in those times incurred expenses for which I was regularly compensated. I filled out my final couple months of expenses and emailed them to my ex-manager. 'Nuff said.

Mail out waiver and keys: When the position I held with my company ceased to exist, the company was kind enough to offer me a severance package in exchange for me waiving the right to sue them. I wasn't really planning on suing them so I agreed to these terms. In addition, I included keys to the company apartment in New York. This is, quite possibly, the thing I will miss most about my job. Signed and dated, dropped off at the post office. Done and done.

Work on resume: Since I'd worked at my company for eight years, and in that time I hadn't pursued any other jobs, my resume has remained in the same state that it was those many years ago - on a floppy disk in a word perfect file format. Rather than attempting to recover the file (I don't even know where the disk is) I've decided to start from scratch. At the moment I'm supposed to be working on my resume, but since I've completed three of my four list items I've lost my will to work.

Hmm…

Recession: 102, CotR: 3