Unemployed and feeling useless

June 12, 2017 4:24 AM

I had a job offer withdrawn, leaving me unemployed. I now feel worthless and really anxious about the situation. I need tips to survive.

Long story short, I left a relatively good job to take up a position at a friend's company which was withdrawn for no good reason. This was a month ago. We'll call them an ex-pal now.

I've had two interviews so far (yay) and have been doing okay at applying to things. But I'm moving house this week (yay again, somewhere cheaper) which has put a dampener on my efforts. Unfortunately I have limited patience with myself, and a bit of control anxiety which normally fuels good work out of me... This lack of progress + combined with being rejected for a job has sent me into a tailspin of suckittude today. Rationally I know it's early days, considering I can not dictate when I will get a job.

Do you have any tips for surviving unemployment and being kind to yourself?

posted by teststrip to Work & Money (9 answers total)

Have you talked to your former employer? They might still need you. If someone told me this story, and they had been a good employee, I'd rehire them.
posted by tillermo at 5:13 AM on June 12, 2017 [4 favorites]

Response by poster: @tillermo Unfortunately I have, and did a really good job of replacing myself!
posted by teststrip at 6:09 AM on June 12, 2017

Sign up with a temp agency, you will likely get a job within a week. Something that requires short-term commitment. I know lots of smart, well-educated folks who have done this. There is definitely some interesting temp work out there.
posted by waving at 6:23 AM on June 12, 2017 [6 favorites]

Unless you're broke, from one angle this is an unexpected bonus: you'll have a window of free time to set up your new living space. You always need a few new odds and ends for a new place, right? It's much easier to do some of that shopping on a weekday. So gird your loins and work on preparing a solid home base for a new job and a new life!
posted by zadcat at 7:19 AM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Temping is exactly what I did, in a similar situation. A company that turned out to be sketchy hired me away from a pretty good job with the promise of more money and a higher position... only to close less than a month later, leaving me jobless. I drove straight to the nearest temp agency, who had me working in no time. It was a tough job market at the time so the first couple of jobs were short-term and kind of bullshit in terms of pay, but it was better than nothing. Better positions followed. I would likely have been hired full-time at the last temp job they placed me in but I wound up moving out of the area.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 8:38 AM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

For being kind to yourself during unemployment, I found it helped a lot to have things every day that I was working on so that I could feel good about what I had gotten done. That might mean spending all morning networking, exercising after lunch, and then spending the afternoon writing cover letters and looking for job openings. Or spending the morning doing some important personal tasks or chores, and then preparing for interview questions in the afternoon. You don't have to be working 100% of the time, but it helps a lot to have some things you can be proud off - I got out two really solid applications today, or I updated my resume and reviewed it with a friend and emailed 4 recruiters on LinkedIn, or I called my elderly grandma and did the grocery shopping and cleaned the living room and let my friends know I was looking for jobs in __ field. Moving​ definitely could be part of that. You can't do everything at the same time, and you can't control outcomes, you can only control what you put in. So do a decent day's effort each day and if that doesn't make the progress you hoped for, you can work on strategy (getting help, changing your cover letter style, looking for tips from people in your industry...). Because you know you've put in that day's work, and you couldn't have done two days' work (moving AND job hunting) in one day instead.
posted by Lady Li at 10:29 AM on June 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

Structure helps -- a daily exercise at X:00, for instance. Also keep a list of what you've accomplished. A lot of things need or could be done but might not immediately pay off, so it helps to be able to look at a list of what you did. Updated LinkedIn profile, learned XYZ skill to add to resume, etc. Good luck, sorry this happened to you.
posted by salvia at 10:53 AM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Hi,

I was laid off in January because my boss decided after 32 years he wanted to do something new.

The longest I have ever been unemployed up until that point since I was 13 was 3 weeks. I have never been fired, I'm very good at what I do...

AND

I'm also a 50 year old cis-gendered straight white IT dude in the Bay Area, I'm basically HR poison.

Interviews have been a hoot.

I have met with a couple of unemployed friends and we have all come to terms with "it's a process" give it all some room to breathe. If you give yourself some time to think and retool, you are going to make a better decision than "next job".

Find the fit, don't fit the find.
posted by bobdow at 6:42 PM on June 12, 2017

I'm also a 50 year old cis-gendered straight white IT dude in the Bay Area, I'm basically HR poison.


??? Why would be cis-gendered, straight and white make you HR poison?

OP, I'm sorry for what you're going through, but you are far from useless. You made what seemed to be a wise choice, and due to circumstances outside your control, you got burned.
posted by daybeforetheday at 1:50 AM on June 13, 2017