I have a new job.

I walked into work on the morning of Wednesday, July 8th and discovered I no longer had a job. My supervisor Mike, who was obviously upset, informed me due to the negative effects of the pandemic on the economy the company had to eliminate several positions throughout the branches and mine was one on the list. There was no warning. One day I’m an essential worker and the next I’m unemployed. I let my team leader know where I was on the job I had been working on, cleaned up any of my tools that were out and went home to tell my wife that I had lost my job. The next couple of days are sort of foggy. Much to my surprise, I discovered myself moving through the stages of grief. It then occurred to me that this was the first time since I was in High School (26 years ago) that I was without gainful employment. I’d move from lethargic disinterest to unreasonable rage and then fall deep into a pit of despair feeling hopeless. I eventually got myself to where I was able to sort things out and begin to set about fixing this undesirable situation. I sat down at my computer and set up my account for Wisconsin Unemployment Insurance. I located “my proudly assembled 26 page resume including scans of all my certificates” in one of my desktop folders, added my last job to it and promptly headed over to Craigslist to check out all the excellent job opportunities they had listed. Oh brother…. It turns out finding a job...during a unique global pandemic….with 22 million other Americans also out of work can be tricky. I had no idea what I was doing and no idea how to improve my odds. I would see a listing on Craigslist or milwaukeejobs.com, go to the website, fill out a contact form or an application, upload “my proudly assembled 26 page resume including scans of all my certificates" and eagerly await the phone call from a shop manager weeping with joy and finally finding an applicant with such a shining work history. Strangely, I never received that call. A couple of days into this I was in my garage shop trying to fix something when my neighbor Michael got home from work and stopped over to say hello and remark on the gigantic toolbox I now had in my garage. At a socially responsible distance we chatted and I told him what I was experiencing even though I was diligently scouring the help wanted ads with my “my proudly assembled 26 page resume including scans of all my certificates”. Very kindly and tactfully he suggested I might try out a couple different websites. One was called “My Perfect Resume” and the other was called “Indeed”. He explained that in the current job market, resumes shouldn’t be more than two pages at the most. He also impressed the importance of something called a cover letter. He is a very good person and I will be alway grateful for his advice. The next day I logged onto My Perfect Resume, set up an account, paid the nominal fee and got to work. This site is fantastic. It walks you through all the steps, offers wording suggestions and formats the document in a few different ways to suit your “image”. It also helps you build a cover letter to accompany your resume. I really can’t express how helpful this site is. Once I was armed with an improved brochure for my services I headed over to Indeed and started looking for jobs.This process took the longest. I also found a website called "Government Jobs" which got me several promising interview. I am blessed with friends who made suggestions and provided tips on jobs that were available. I did begin to get replies to my submissions. My resume was getting some circulation. I began to get interviews. I began to get calls from employment agencies. An agent named John from Argus Technical Services was specifically helpful. He got me a couple real promising interviews and was really helpful and supportive. In the end it was a tip from my friend Sarah that landed me a job and she had my gratitude. As of the writing of this over 350,000 people have been lost to this pandemic and my story pales in comparison to that. I was unemployed for almost six months. I had to make some tough financial decisions which will take me quite a while to recover from but many, many others had it much, much worse. I was privileged enough to have a dad who helped out significantly with everything. I also had friends/family who check in with us regularly to give support and love. 2020 was a pretty horrible year for us and I’m glad we’re through it and able to start repairing the damage. I hope we all can begin to mend our lives, our country and our world as soon as possible.