Happy New Year (I Hope)

Hi. Happy New Year. Happy 2025. You’re here. I’m here. We made it. Another spin around the sun. Another year of who knows what? I didn’t send out many “Happy New Year” messages to people this year - because I’ve mostly been in a shitty mood - so I’m doing this.

Let’s look back at 2024 for a moment. Starting with, well, let’s start with something positive.

November 15th was the last day that I smoked a cigarette. I hadn’t been feeling well and smoking had become difficult. I’d light a cigarette, start coughing uncontrollably, put it out after 3 puffs, so I figured duh, take a break.

Once I started feeling better, I figured I’d see if I could keep going on the no-smoking thing and so far, I have. I haven’t done patches or gum or anything like that. I just haven’t been smoking. As I wrote last time, my wife is thrilled.

But even as I approach the 2-month mark, there hasn’t been a day that I haven’t thought about having “just one ….”. I think that’s natural. We’re talking about something that I did between 20 and 50 times a day for over 50 years. The reason that I don’t, aside from everything my wife tells me, is that I know I need to quit at some point, I’ve made it this far, and if I start smoking now, I’ll just need to go through this again in the future. No thank you.

Speaking of my wife, that’s the other good thing in 2024, her US visa finally came through. I think she’s starting to appreciate some aspects of life in the US. Some.

That’s the good stuff. Then there’s the shit stuff.

I started 2024 six weeks into my job, having been converted from contractor to employee at the end of 2023. I ended up having 3 more trips to Beijing in the first half of 2024, and loved being there so much.

But when that whole Rivian deal got announced, I saw the writing on the wall. VW was putting US$5 billion into Rivian to get their software. Where did that leave me and my coworkers? It started becoming increasingly clear what that was going to do to my division. And my trips to China showed me firsthand how China was going to be less important to VW’s future (for reasons I won’t bore you with here).

When the hammer came down and I was one of many laid off in October of 2024, it was sooner than I expected. I figured I had until the first quarter of 2025. The best I could say is that I received a generous severance package considering that I’d been an employee for a relatively brief period.

I’ve made the decision to remain in the US for the time being. I’d like to work here for another year or two. The amount of money that I was able to sock away was more than I expected - thanks to both of my previous employers doing some degree of 401(k) matching. Also, the more I continue to work in the US, the more I pay into Social Security and the more I’m going to get. My monthly check is already well above average; more won’t hurt (duh!).

In the meantime, we have cut back in some significant ways.

I no longer live in Austin. (Surprise!). I now live in Leander, which is a suburb of Austin - it’s the last stop on the Cap Metro red line, which might come in handy.

The thing is, rents in Austin have dropped faster than in the rest of the nation. That’s because of all the tech layoffs in the past year. Austin is kind of over-built right now. The place I was in was offering to renew my lease with no increase - something that I thought was generous until I started looking around. (Interestingly enough, I just checked - that apartment still has not been rented and the asking price is now $200 a month less than we were paying.)

We found a new development, 2 years old, pool and gym and all of the usual stuff, spitting distance to an HEB Plus (if you know, then you know), 780 square foot 1 bedroom apartment - and they were offering 10 weeks free on one year leases. That effectively cuts my rent in half from the last place. My wife was convinced that a one-bedroom apartment was all we needed and, since I didn’t have a job, I couldn’t argue that I needed a dedicated work space. My wife did an amazing job of figuring out where to put everything and now she claims that she likes this apartment A LOT more than the previous one. Me, there’s stuff I like here and stuff that I’ll put up with.

So there’s that. The other major cut was in terms of transportation. This is not a practical place to be without a car. Instead of the Audi A-5 I would have gotten had I remained at my job, I got a used Toyota Corolla. It’s fine. I don’t take cross-country trips. I go to the supermarket and to restaurants. It’s all I need.

There were three times at the end of last year that I thought I was close to a job, but obviously each time something didn’t work out. I have faith that I will find something in the next two months. Am I old? Yes. But I’m still operating at the top of my game and I don’t know what the fuck I will do with myself if I retire - on purpose or otherwise.

The job market in 2025 is unlike any that people have seen before. One example - for every job listed on LinkedIn, hundreds of people apply. Hundreds.

You have to tailor your resume to get through the AI resume scanning software. There are more than 400 Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS software systems) in use today. The odds are that your submission will not be seen by human eyes. I have applied for close to 200 jobs in the past 2 months. I use ChatGPT to compare my resume to the job description and suggest changes. I also use ChatGPT to write my cover letters. It doesn’t seem to matter. The only interviews I’ve had so far have come from applications that were personal referrals. I’ve also spoken with at least a dozen recruiters in body shops. They have submitted me to clients. They have not gotten interviews for me. And then they ghost me.

It’s not pleasant. Some days it’s fucking depressing. But I keep at it because I know something is out there for me. I know 25’s gonna be a good year. I don’t “think” or “hope” or “believe” - I KNOW.

(And also, just to toot my horn one final time this post, if I can go through all of this stress and bullshit and I’m STILL NOT SMOKING, I think that says some good shit about me, no?)