Monthly Archives: December 2016

Starting the Second Act

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Today’s featured image is of me sitting on the grave of Corinne Elliott Lawton (born September 21, 1846, died January 24, 1877) in Savannah’s Bonaventure Cemetery.  According to legend, Miss Lawton’s expression changes depending on what she thinks about her visitors.  I did not know this when I took my seat and tried to mirror her, but now that I do, I assume that she’s smiling.  Right?

If you like cemeteries, you really owe it to yourself to visit Bonaventure.  It’s an amazing place with lots of famous dead people, fantastic statuary, and long avenues of old man’s beard-draped live oaks.  There’s also generally a really nice breeze coming in off of the Wilmington River.  Great place to spend an afternoon.

So I spent a fairly quiet Christmas at home yesterday.  Did some laundry, hung out with the cats, took a couple of naps, paid some bills, and contemplated the fact that my final paycheck from AT&T will be deposited in less than two weeks.  For all intents and purposes, my final day at work was last Friday, though I’ll go in today or tomorrow to finish clearing out my desk, wipe my laptop’s hard drive, turn in my company phone and ID badges, and continue to wonder just what the hell has happened.

I had an interview with a company called The X Company last Thursday, which is somewhat heartening.  At least I got past the initial phone call and actually got to go somewhere and sit in front of two hiring managers.  That led to a background check by their boss (in Bozeman, MT).  Assuming no murders are found, maybe I’ll get an offer.  If so, I’ll be starting at the bottom again, handling support requests from CPA firms who use The X Company’s cloud services.  It’s a small company (just over 100 employees), which is nice.  Not sure how interesting it’d be, but a foot in the door is all I’m looking for at this point.

I also had a phone interview with Americold, a company that provides refrigeration services from farm to market.  110 years old.  I’d never heard of them.  That job, should I get it, would require a bit of travel (domestic) and would feature working in “environments as cold as -20.”  I told the phone interviewer that I grew up in Vermont, so that second bit wouldn’t be too much of a problem.  The call was on Thursday and I had a pretty good reference as a lead, so maybe something will come of it.

Another lead came from a bar friend of mine who works for Ricoh.  After I told him that I didn’t see any jobs that I could do listed on the Ricoh website, he went to his boss and asked.  Boss said, “Get me his resume.  Sounds like we could use him for something.”  So I sent my resume to my buddy on Thursday afternoon and we’ll see if it goes anywhere from there.

And, finally, I got an email introduction from one of my tubist friends to a guy who owns a number of IT-related businesses.  Introduced myself and told him I’d get him a resume after the first of the year.  Not hugely hopeful about that, but who knows?

Regardless of all of that, unless I get a miraculous job offer from AT&T today or tomorrow, it’s time to start over at something new.  I never envisioned myself looking for a job at 51 and I’m not entirely sure what type of job I actually WANT, considering that it’s probably going to be my last one.  Don’t see any reason to throw in the towel on my computer experience – it’s the one thing that I know I can do – but I’ve let my mind wander about other possibilities.  Teaching beginning music – to adults or little kids – is something that I’ve thought about quite a bit.  Have also considered freelance programming and/or web design (a friend of mine in Canada does the latter – basically just tweaking WordPress themes for people and sometimes updating content).  And I’ve talked with a couple of people about helping the online side of their small businesses.

Then again, maybe I should just get a license to sell insurance or houses or something….though I’m not a salesman in any sense of the word.  Ideas?  Email them to me.

So the weather in Duluth has been nuts lately.  Today is supposed to be rainy and in the 60s.  Yesterday hit 70.  Last week it was clear and in the 20s.  It’s an adventure deciding what to wear for my morning walks every day.  Will I need long-johns or just sweat pants?  Sweatshirt or light jacket (or, this morning, just a tee)?  Wool socks? No socks?  I make more decisions before 6AM than most people do all day….

Anyway, the house and car are paid for through another month, I’ve got one check coming, and hopefully a big one due in February.  Combined with my renewed Costco card (which got two workouts last week….I’ve got enough food to last a year, I think), I just might make it for a little while.  Long enough to figure out the second act, hopefully.   Here’s hoping 2017 has something good in store.

Crunch Time

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It has been chilly for the last two days, with temps in the 20s when I take my morning walk.  That being the case, I finally turned on my heat this morning (it was 48 degrees in my living room), which is something that I dread doing every year for a few reasons.  First, I’m always mildly paranoid about firing up the furnace for the first time of the year.  I have this idea that all of the accumulated crud in my ducts is going to immediately burst into flame and I’ll have fire shooting out of my ceilings with no way to put it out.  I meant to have the ducts cleaned earlier this year (not sure if that would have done much good for my paranoia), but didn’t do it.  Also haven’t had the furnace checked since last spring – my furnace people are supposed to do it twice a year, but they haven’t called me so far this winter – and frankly I’d rather not have to write them a check right now.

Second, I really hate turning on the heat because, obviously, my gas bill will now increase – and I don’t need increased bills at this point.  As of 12/28, all of my AT&T crap is going to double in price already.  I’m currently determining what I can afford to do away with.  Cable (DirecTV) is obviously the first thing to get nuked.  DTV, to put it mildly, sucks.  However, once I get rid of it, then I no longer have unlimited data on my phone, which is kind of important.  I’ll go back to having 2GB/month, which normally would be enough, but when I’m sending resumes out from my phone, data adds up quickly.

Had to take Boo to the vet yesterday because she had an ingrown claw.  Jenny and I spotted it about two months ago, and I’d been hoping that she’d bite it off herself, but she didn’t.  Came home for lunch on Thursday and noticed that she was holding up her paw.  Wasn’t complaining, wasn’t limping, wasn’t averse to putting weight on the foot – but every time she sat down, she’d hold up her paw.  So I looked at it and the claw was completely embedded in her pad.  Off to the vet.  They cut it out (bled like a stuck pig), and all’s well now.  Boo took it like a little champ.  Only cried once and settled back in at home happily after the ordeal was over.  I’m a bit worried about infection, but she’s doing a good job licking at the wound.  Hopefully that will be enough.   The bill, by the way, was just shy of $100 (she also, by law, had to get a rabies shot.  Stupid).  That’s $100 that I didn’t want to spend.

So I got a letter from Meditech yesterday informing me that I’m not going to be working for them anytime soon.  I knew it was a long shot, but I really wanted to land that job.  The rejection definitely put me in a funk.  I’ve still got decent leads at Georgia MLS and The Salvation Army, but haven’t heard back from either of them after great initial contacts.   I’ve also become convinced that applying for jobs online is sort of like pissing into a storm drain and waiting for a glass of water to come out.  So I’ve decided that, next week, I’ll start contacting recruiters.  Didn’t want to have to go that route, because the recruiters that I’ve dealt with tend  to want to put me into jobs that I don’t particularly want, but as the title says, we’re getting to crunch time here, and I need to get a paycheck lined up somewhere.  As far as I know, I’ll get a check on 12/21, get fired on 12/27, get a final check on 1/6, and then – sometime, hopefully before March – I’ll get a severance check.  The danger zone in all of that is February.  I’m glad, of course, that I managed to pay off all of my credit cards this year, but doing so depleted by basically non-existent savings.  If I don’t have a paycheck or a severance check by March 1, I can’t pay the mortgage.

To that end, I’ve investigated the possibility of getting an hourly job at Kroger or somewhere.  I really don’t need to make a bunch of money to get by (and, obviously, making a bunch of money prior to now didn’t do me a great deal of good), and I figure I can get by fairly easily if I can take home about $500/week.  The only drawback to going an hourly route, be it at a grocery store or in retail or whatever, is that I can kiss the IT gig goodbye forever if I’m out of it for too long.  Not sure how I feel about that, considering that it’s what I’ve done for the last 26 years.  I have no problem with starting a second career, but I’d rather it not be a dead-end one.

Have been wracking my brain trying to figure out a way to make money on my own.  Internet-based stuff, home computer/phone repair, something like that.  I really am trying to see this as a good thing.  A way to have a second act.  The world’s my stage and all that.  But I’ve got to take care of the cats, and that means I’ve got to keep paying the mortgage.

And the high heating bills, apparently.

The caption for my picture, by the way (which I created in the months after AT&T acquired BellSouth) is “AT&T.  Your World.  Destroyed.”

I thought it was a fitting image for the way I feel today.