God dammit. Another job opportunity evaporates.

[backscatter712]

This one would have been nice - been closer to my preferred stomping grounds in Fort Collins, had me hacking Linux and web development.

Then one of the bigwig PHBs there decided to switch the entire company to .NET, and as I have zero experience in Windows development, NO JOB FOR YOU!!!

Again.

Seems to be the times I guess - I've been shooting emails with a few friends and former coworkers from my last job - many of them were laid off or otherwise ended up unemployed, and almost all of them are still looking.

I've been looking for five months now, and there's virtually nothing. At first, earlier this year, the calls from recruiters were more frequent, but they seem to be dwindling now - especially with the credit crunch, the bank clusterfucks and the stock market crash. Nobody's hiring. NOBODY.

My savings are dwindling - I just had to put a new transmission in my car - that cost $2,000. I had to spend a shitload of money maintaining COBRA insurance and getting treatment for a damaged tendon in my ankle - that sucked away even more money. What I thought would last me to the end of the year didn't even get me close. I'll probably have to pull money out of my 401Ks, but it looks like those are shrinking on their own, and will only enable me to last a few more months at best.

I don't know what I'm going to do. Suddenly, I'm gonna be having difficulties scrounging up money to pay the rent, or make my car payment. I can't bring myself to move in with my parents again. I did that before, and that was the most humiliating experience in my life. I can't do it. I can't bring myself to sponge off of friends either. I'm just alone and fucked right now.

Get a McJob? I haven't worked such jobs since a decade and a half ago, and I never lasted long in those jobs - and the pay's not going to be enough to be able to pay rent and bills. Forget health insurance. Maybe call center work - I have some experience working in various call centers, but I hate the work with the heat of a thousand suns. I'll do it for Obama (and trust me, that says a lot for Obama if I'm willing to phonebank for him, given my hatred for cold-calling,) but doing it for a living in a call center that's far more regimented, with computerized dialing, bosses looking over your shoulder, people getting fired on a whim, the whip cracking at all times, that's asking a hell of a lot from me.

[Dora]

1. Any state universities near you?

I hate to sound boring, but I work at a state university, and it's stable employment with fair bennies if you can get it.

I saw this IT opening at the Colorado State U website: http://www.colostate.edu/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/cwis202/db.cgi?db=jobs&uid=staff&categories=Information%20Technology%3A%20Professional%2FTechnical&sb=10&so=descend&view_records=1

I hope things improve for you, on all fronts.