I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself
Trying to figure out my next steps after getting laid off
(The White Stripes cover the Bacharach-David classic, video directed by Sofia Coppola, starring Kate Moss)
It’s now three weeks since I was laid off from my job. I won’t say it hasn’t been a stressful period. Getting laid off from work is no picnic, to put it mildly, but getting laid off at my age is borderline catastrophic - finding an IT management job at my age is not a trivial matter. My wife said I should retire and return to Asia. I don’t feel ready to do that yet.
Before I go any further, if you know of anyone who can help me in my search for a new job, IT Technical Program Manager or something similar, please please please drop a comment here or send an email to hongkietown at gmail dot com
I was laid off one week after I signed a one-year renewal lease on my current apartment. I looked at what it would cost me if I needed to break the lease early, and it was way too much. So I called the management office and was able to cancel the renewl one week before it was due to kick in. The way it worked out is that I have given them two months’ notice. If I find a new job in the next 60 days, I could negotiate a new renewal with them (assuming that I want to remain in Austin, which isn’t a given).
The two-year lease on my car came to an end this month, so I returned the car at the end of the lease. I have not leased or purchased another car. I’m car-less, and there’s very little in walking distance of my apartment. I briefly thought about buying some 10-year old used thing but realized it wouldn’t make a lot of sense.
The thought of packing up my apartment and returning to Asia is daunting. There would be so much - too much - to get rid of, everything from sofas to soap dishes, all of those little things that one accumulates to make an apartment into a home. It’s killing me that I just bought a new sofa two months ago, as one example. A bed, two TV’s, all sorts of furniture, all sorts of kitchen appliances that will not work in Asia, the list goes on.
The one thing I keep telling myself to remain positive is this: Two years ago, at what many would consider an advanced age, I only managed to find a new IT management job, it was in a different country from the one I was living it and it doubled my salary overnight.
In two years, it gave me two trips to Germany and four to Beijing. I felt that I was operating at the top of my game and I was not the only one who felt that way. That company converted me from contractor to employee after a year and they told me they considered me to be “mission critical” (until the mission changed).
I liked the job a lot. I was working 10-12 hour days, sure, but I was working from home, which allowed me to work at my own pace. It was rarely stressful and I had solid accomplishments that I could point to.
It took me six months to find that job. Perhaps this time around it would take less time, given that I am already in the US, so that barrier gets removed from the job search. There are plenty of jobs being advertised. How many of them are real I cannot say. So far I have applied for 60 jobs (I only apply for jobs that are a close match, things I can be successful at, with companies that I have heard of and would want to work for). I was rejected for one job … after 6 interviews. I have ongoing discussions with another place. I have been rejected, with an interview, from 15 other places.
I estimate that I have enough money to be out of work for 3-4 months and still have enough left over to ship all of my stuff back to Asia. So at this point, I figure I have several options.
Option 1: Remain optimistic, keep looking, keep applying for jobs, have a better resume, try to do some networking, etc. That’s what I’m doing now. Stay in Austin and find a job in Austin or another remote job, or relocate elsewhere for a good offer - those are all possibilities.
Option 2: Move some place cheaper - a lot cheaper - small town America, where my rent and monthly expenses would drop by a lot and find any sort of online remote work, not necessarily something with the same kind of salary I just had. The issues with that are, how happy would I be in small town USA, and is it worth it for me to continue here if I’m not putting away any money each month?
Option 3: Sell off what I can, donate a ton of other stuff, pack up the smaller items (clothes, books, etc.) and return to Hong Kong. The wife is working, the kid is working, and I could find some sort of online work as well (English teacher? proof reader? AI videos on Youtube?) I have a friend in Hong Kong who says he thinks I could find some IT contract jobs in HK, but he tends to be overly optimistic and I wasn’t successful when I tried this route in the past.
Here’s where I start to get really insane in my thinking. If you know me, you know I’ve been to most of the major places in Asia Pacific multiple times - Seoul, Tokyo, Manila, Taipei, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Saigon, Singapore, and so on. But I’ve barely seen Europe. I’ve been to London at least 50 times. But I’ve been to Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Munich once each; two trips to Paris. (And if I’d gotten to Paris when I was younger, I never would have left.) I’ve never been to Italy or Spain or Greece. I’ve never been to my ancestral homelands - Poland and Romania. Which leads me to …
Option 4: Don’t wait until January or February when I have run out of money. If I don’t have something by middle of December, pack up and leave. And then “celebrate” my retirement, or semi-retirement, or sabbatical, or whatever it is or isn’t, and spend 2 or 3 weeks traveling in Europe. Two solid weeks in Italy? A week in Portugal and Spain, a week in Italy? A stopover in Istanbul?
I know it’s probably not the brightest idea. But it’s the one I’ve been fixated on all weekend.
I plan to have a job, or at least feel that I’m close to one, before the Christmas break. That’s my real focus. But it won’t kill me to have some other options in my back pocket.