Feeling Better and Getting Around

Of course I'm starting to feel better, this a day after I set up a doctor's appointment for Monday. But since this is a potential new primary physician, I will dutifully go and tell him what my symptoms were and go from there.

My day at home yesterday worked out well though. I napped, listened to the radio and got some personal computer stuff out of the way. Later on last night I began to play around with LiveJournal again. I originally got a profile so that I can join in on the fun and commenting since I have friends that are sworn LJer's. Now I know why they stay there, it's because of the communities. (They are probably reading this and saying a collective "dUH!!1")

A while ago I had joined up on an engineers community that allowed us to post at will a long as we kept it on the topic of engineering. So, at around midnight, I test the waters and see who else has been laid off because of the economy. And much to the statement "misery loves company" I got a decent response over the course of the last 12 hours. People relaying their lay off stories and more importantly, what they are doing to pass the time. Another benefit was that we're all experiencing a lack of interviews when in years past, we would all have offers up the wazoo (technical term). Former blue chip's are now experiencing multiple months of unemployment with no interviews on the horizon and we're all floundering around a bit.

It's funny because I'm probably being a big baby, "waaaahh, it's been 2 months, waaaah," but you have to understand, this is a new feeling for me as well as for others in my profession. We're used to being scooped up within weeks of changing jobs and pretty much naming our salaries. So in a way this is a good example of bringing our expectations back down to earth, with the economy shrinking and construction money not being at the ready. But it's still scary and it was nice to hear from other engineers in similar prediciments. It's nice to band together and share our recession stories.

I remember my grandmother would recant stories back from the Great Depression; how they used to reuse everything and anything (hence why she was a bit of a pack rat), food never went to waste and you found friends where you could since any connection could mean work for a few weeks, "hey, my friend downtown has a sidewalk that needs pouring..." (for me it's more of a phone call for a house that needs framing, but very similar). Now I understand, you have to band together during tough times. It keeps your outlook positive and it helps you out if you need a few bucks to not overdraft or if you have extra eggs for someone to whip up dinner for their family.

It's nice to have a sense of community again. :-)