Rant #2,028: Turn Down Year

This week is a one-year anniversary week of stuff that I really don't want to think about, but ultimately, I have to at least ponder.

On Thursday, November 23, 2016, there were many changes at my place of work being instituted, which began a week earlier, when two long-standing members of our staff were let go, after a combined 50 years or more of service to the company.

For those who were left, including myself, we relocated from one building to another, a year ago this week on November 23.

And we had absolutely no help; we had to do it ourselves. And for me, with more than 20 years under my belt at the time, it was a very difficult move, both physically and literally.

But it was not as difficult as realizing that our world was crumbling before us. Our 401K plan was canceled, and pretty much any type of enthusiasm for this job also came to an abrupt halt.

It has been exactly one year, as of tomorrow, November 22, that I have set my sights on trying to find another job, because where I am working now is going to hell, or perhaps is already there.

In the one year I have been looking for another job, these are the results:

Three over-the-phone interviews;

One interview where there was miscommunication, and I was interviewed for a part-time job;

One face-to-face interview.

Nothing else.

I also had two other potential interviews crap out on me, trying to justify what they did and put it on my head. They lied, period.

I had another where I was told to call after 5:30 p.m., did from my car, and the people I spoke with had no idea what I was talking about. Even though I could not visually see them, they were lying through their teeth.

And I must have applied for probably well more than 250 jobs during the past year, and I have absolutely nothing to show for it.

Nothing.

I have applied for jobs in my realm of business, I have applied for jobs that are just outside of that box, and I have applied for jobs that are way outside that box.

Nothing has come up.

It is quite frustrating. I know I work in a dead field--print media--and I cover an area that no one knows about--military resale, or military stores if you will--for a trade publication, not a mass media publication.

The move is to digital. If you have no contacts in print, you are dead.

You are also dead if you are my age. No one is going to hire a 60 year old in most fields, and certainly not in a field that is moving toward a millennial reading base.

It has been darn frustrating, and yes, I do believe my place is in hell right at this point.

I don't understand how it has kept on going for this long, probably on a very thin shoestring.

This year, we lost two employees--our salesman, who took a better job somewhere else; and to show you how bad it is at work, the other person we lost as a result of suicide. He feared looking for a new job at this point in his life. He was in his late 40s.

I look around me, and the place is as dead as a doornail. There is little enthusiasm for anything, and there are long stretches where there is little to do.

Nothing gets a pat on the back, "you did a good job" is never uttered, and the walls are coming down on us, we just don't know when.

In fact, our direct competitor--the only similar trade magazine covering this field of endeavor--just folded. They went out of business because the ad revenue is not there anymore; and it isn't coming to us either. It will now be directed to other areas by those who advertised in that other publication.

So right now, we--and I mean, it is now about a dozen of us, down from near 40 or so during my earlier time here--are all in a holding pattern.

There was a rumor that the last pure salesman we have put in his resignation, but if that is true, it has not kicked in yet. Perhaps at the end of the calendar year.

We fight windmills in this place, and like Don Quixote, we often don't get anywhere by doing so.

We take our time doing our books, we waste time squabbling over nonsensical clauses, words and phrases, and when someone says something about it, people show paranoia like I have never seen in the workplace in my nearly 22 years employed here, or my years employed anywhere else.

But what can I do?

I figure I will milk this long as long as I can, and when the walls do come down, or at least, the walls come down on me, I will have to continue to do what I do each and every morning, and that is search the job sites for something to grab on to.

I haven't stopped, and although, with the year I have had, I have contemplated it, I simply cannot stop looking for a job.

I generally do it after I write this column, but in slow moments, I have also done it at work ... and let me tell you, I have seen others do it at work, too, so it isn't just me.

Look, I am 60, I won't be 61 until the end of April, and I cannot contemplate this place remaining open until I turn 67, when I can supposedly get my full Social Security benefits.

And 67 is not an end for me; I would love to work beyond that.

But something tells me that the road will continue to be very bumpy if I make it that long.

Next year, my wife and I are going to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. We have scheduled a cruise for the late summer/early fall, and I have said time and time again that I very well might be taking this cruise as an unemployed person.

I hope that isn't so, of course, but I am prepared for it.

So as I go into Thanksgiving, I have lots to be thankful for: a great family, good health, and a sense of humor that keeps me going, whether others happen to think that I am funny or not.

I can laugh at life's foibles more than most people can, and that has sustained me through bad periods as well as good periods.

It is a bad period now, yet as we move into the holiday season, I am very hopeful that things can and will change for me, and for the better.

I have to think this way; if I don't think this way, I am cooked, period.

It is not a great way to go into the holiday season, but what else can I do?

I have now beaten this dead horse to a pulp, but I ask you to bear with me during this bad time.

Like the old song by Howard Jones said, "Things Can Only Get Better."

Yup.