Laid Off with Little Skills

Laid Off with Little Skills

I know it’s never a good time to lose a job. I had 2 children and 1 of them was a new born baby. A mortgage. Two car payments. My wifes student loans. Did I think it was all over? Heck Yeah! But it wasn’t. I learned tons from the experience. Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, but believe me I thought this was going to kill me.
See I’m just a blue collar guy, probably average intelligence, nothing special by any means. So the story starts in 2001 when I was a young buck. For those of you who remember the economy wasn’t doing so great. Our country just experienced the 9/11 tragedy and the tech bubble just popped. I was searching for a job but had little luck. My Dad said perhaps I could try to get a job where he and my Grand Father worked I applied. BAM I got the job! I was a Third Generation employee. Now this job didn’t take a whole lot of brains but was a lot of physical work. It was a warehouse that delivered food to Mom & Pop grocery stores. It was a Teamster job so it paid fairly well and had great benefits. I was set!
Being a job that delivered groceries it was a stable job since everyone needs food. I got comfortable, perhaps to comfortable. To make a long story short. Wal-Mart took out a lot of the Mom & Pops and they closed. My work slowly lost customers and after 13 years of comfort I found myself with no job, no prospects, little skills and too many responsibilities. I really hope my advice can help out at least one person out there going through the same situation.
Now I knew the things that I needed. First and foremost I needed a paycheck to provide. Two I needed new skills. So basically someone had to pay me to teach me new skills. So here’s a few tips I have to give someone based on what I been through. The whole journey wasn’t easy but it was worth it.

1. Consider a temp job
   So the first thing I did was I applied everywhere. I ended up accepting a temp job. So I started in the warehouse of a major pharmaceutical company that was near my home. It’s one of the best companies to work for in the area. I was hoping to get hired there but it can take up to 5 years and that’s if they hire you. I didn’t have 5 years to wait and see. But my whole point is it gave me experience and badly needed new skills I could speak about on my resume. They would have never hired me on full time, but as a temp I made the cut and got my foot in the door. I felt like a loser at a temp job but it was the beginning of something and in my book something is better than nothing.

2. Lower those Bills
   I had a ton of them. It stinks to see co-workers or family on vacation and you can’t go but it’s just a fact of life. I had less money coming in so I needed less money going out, it’s that simple. The whole thing really opened my eyes. I’m sure there are a lot of luxuries you could cut out of your life. Sure they are nice but not necessary. You know your situation and if you find a few bucks you can shave off you budget this is the time I’d suggest doing it.

3. Don’t get your wife pregnant!
   
   I had to laugh about this one. My wife was a teacher’s aide I think made $12/hr., but had health insurance. So here’s the deal. I’m a temp worker with no benefits and now a pregnant wife. So look I know at this point you’re probably thinking I’m an idiot and honestly I think you have every right to do so. We got a healthy baby girl at the end of 2015. She’s very affectionate and a great addition to our family. Looking back it was a great blessing.

4. Trade in that temp job.
   I think it was 7 months I was at that temp job before I landed a full time job at a dairy. There was good and bad about this new job. The good: excellent health insurance and vacation (which I so desperately needed). The bad: worse pay and terrible hours (midnight-8am including weekends and holidays). Hey I was desperate. So know I was earning $6 less than I was before I originally lost my job so money was beyond tight. I found great joy in the simple things like sleeping and going to the park. You got to put things in perspective.

5. Don’t be ashamed of government assistance if you qualify.
   So at this point in the process I was making little money at the dairy and we just had our third child. Luckily I had good health insurance to pay those medical bills. I filled out the form online through the state to see if our family of 5 could qualify for state assistance. We qualified for I think $300 in food stamps.
   When I used to be at the grocery store and saw someone using a food stamp card my mind would always go to they were gaming the system. Boy has my opinion changed. I hate to hear about people lying in order to get tax payer money, but I have no problem with helping a struggling family like it’s designed to do. We only received food stamps for 4 months but the experience was humbling.

6. Pray
   I’m sure not everyone reading this believes in a higher power and that’s okay. When I was fighting to keep a roof over my families head I sure prayed. I recommend to anyone willing to try it. If you believe in a higher power this is your time to connect and grow.

7. Never stop applying for jobs, you never know.
   At this point I was still at the dairy scraping by. I had a lot of good experience from that dairy. Now at this point I was at the dairy 9 months. It was the dirtiest hottest job I ever had but beat being homeless any day. I didn’t want to spend the next 30 years working there but I would have if I had to. I continued to look for work. Then one morning I woke up and had an email on my phone saying a gas company down the road wanted to have a phone interview with me. I think I wanted that job more than anyone.

8. Do your homework harder than anyone.
   So I passed the phone interview and now was time for the face to face. I used to be terrible at interviews but I believe I got better over the years. Here’s a little advice for what it’s worth. Study the companies “About Us” page. That’s going to tell you everything about them they want you to know about them. Print out copies and take them everywhere the days before the interview. Study it and know it. You should never lie, if you’re caught you’re done and the famous golden rule of interviews “Just be yourself”. I’ve been at the gas company 2 years now. My family is better off finically then we have ever been. I’m still learning new skills here and who knows maybe one day I’ll upgrade jobs again if I ever have the chance.