I lost my job at Microsoft today...thanks to a wonderful economy... (page 5)

Farkel

dolphman,

I guess I feel sorry for you, but consider my case: 56 years old, lifetime self-employed, a pioneer in desk top computer programming (since 1981), out of work, unable to find any job and doing manual labor in a 105 degree temperature starting Tuesday morning and henceforth just to eat and keep a roof over my head. I haven't done manual labor for a long, long time, I'm not very strong physically and could die of a heart attack in that heat and doing that work. But I need to eat. Being self-employed for so long, I don't even qualify for unemployment compensation.

Bottom line? Quit whining because it could be worse for you. Wait until you get to be my age and the very profession you chose just passed you by. I once made $325,000 in a year and now I will be working for $6.75 an hour. Just to eat. And I'm halfway smart, too! After a long and difficult 8 hours doing hard work in high heat, I will bring home fifty dollars, less deductions and gas.

I used to make that amount of money in twenty MINUTES of consulting.

Life sucks. Quit whining. It could be worse for you. It most certainly is for me.

If it wasn't for several friends offering help to me, I would have offed myself several months ago out of sheer despair and desperation. Thanks to their help I'm ok now, and will dig ditches and pick up trash next week. But I'm alive. I don't really care about whether or not I die right now anymore. Life has become very difficult for me and I'm happy with what I've done with mine so far. Mostly. The only thing between my being morose and not being morose is simply having some decent work. And I really don't care what it is, anymore.

Farkel

confusedjw

Dolph, I am sorry you lost you job. Really that sucks, but I have to wonder what any president really does about the economy.

Fact: The recession started while Clinton was in office.

Fact: It wasn't Clinton's fault

Fact: We came out of the recession on Bush's watch

Fact: It wasn't Bush's doing.

You worked for a company so rich and dominant that it could buy Greece.

Microsoft isn't touched by either Clinton or Bush and I can't believe it was the economy that caused them to drop whatever product or dept that they cut.

Blame MS not [insert Current President here]

But I hope you find a good job soon.

Farkel

confusedjw,

It's fairly obvious when someone does not read the entire thread before posting a reply. You certainly didn't, because if you did, you would put his situation in relative perspective.

Farkel

confusedjw

Not sure if I agree with you Farkel. but I'll play along.

DolphinMan, quit whinning.

Hope you find a better job soon to Farkel. Doesn't sound like you could get a worse one. By the way what line of computer/software/consulting were you in?

Farkel

confused,

: By the way what line of computer/software/consulting were you in?

For what it's worth: VB, VB Script, Javascript, ASP, and Data-Aware websites, using ASP and SQL with various RDBMS. I specialized in desktop applications in VB and web-based apps. for smaller businesses (non-Enterprise-app.-type folks). I never failed to find a solution for their business problems. I didn't have the time nor opportunity to learn the .NET technology. Basically, I'm screwed as a dinosaur in a discipline I was a forerunner in and a pioneer in promoting and exploiting.

Farkel

confusedjw

Now it seems like there would be work for someone with those skills. Obviously if there were you would have one. Now you have me scared. Where will I be in 10 or 15 years?

"Will automate and harden your Linux box for food"

"Set up your mail server and virutal hosting for a place to sleep" (and for breakfast will scrap the gold off your old pc boards)

"Perl and Python scripts for music lessons"

"Give me a muffin and I won't delete your active directory"

RevMalk

I just fail to see how it's so difficult to make a living. I mean, I've seen slow times here and there, but when I put my mind to it I pull out just fine. If I wake up tomorrow and for some reason there's no food on the table, give me till the afternoon and the shelves will be stocked. All it takes is to sit down and brainstorm. I'm still fairly young, so that helps, but I just don't get most people.

I'm sorry you guys are having a tough time, and I know it sucks to be out of work, but day in and day out I listen to people complain about the economy and the lack of work and it just baffles me.

I live in an economically depressed area no matter how the rest of the world is doing and I can't get people to work for anything. I have constant ads running in several papers around the northeast and rarely get calls on them. When people do come in to fill in an app, it's so I'll sign their stupid unemployment card stating they've applied. They don't want to work, they want their weekly check.

Even those not on unemployment are a pain in the ass. I can't get half my sales force to actually sell much of anything because if their commissions are too high they'll lose their food stamps. The sad thing is, they opening admit that!

We can blame President Bush, President Clinton, or whoever, but the real problem is the laziness of the American people. Work ethic is at an all time low and that's exactly what the problem is. Being a virtually unproductive nation, is it any wonder we're continually going down the drain?

BrendaCloutier

Hey, Fark, I understand the dinosaur bit.

As a secretary, I started on an 8086 in about 1983 with Dos 2.? WordStar and SuperCalc. (I hard-wire networked 4 computers to share 3 printers! And they said it couldn't be done.) l learned how that bitsy beastie ran and ended up in the computer industry for 15+ years doing everything from tech support, teaching, R&D, net admin (unix, vax/vms, novell, windows server), whatever.

Today I still use dial-up on a Win98 box, and don't even own a cell phone.

I'm also no longer working because of FibroMyalgia and arthritis. Working on getting SSD.

Never been without work unless I've wanted to, or because, like now, I've had to.

Hugs, y'all

Brenda

PS - Dolphman wasn't whining, more like venting. It's a total shock to loose a job you felt secure in.

I lost my job at Microsoft today...thanks to a wonderful economy...

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