Once again, laid off.

[Bob S]

Best wishes for a short layoff Lefty - and to all our brothers out there dealing with the difficult job market.

[LeftyStrat]

My thoughts to all of you out of work. I worked seventeen years at Michelin Tire Corporation, starting out as an apprentice machinist, moving up to tooling designer, and then programmer. At least I will get a modest pension out of that (though who knows if that will be there ten years from now).

The Dot-com area was kind to programmers, and I worked for one startup that had a pretty decent payoff when they were acquired. Would have been a years salary if I had sold the stock off all at once. I sold the first third for $40 a share, the second third for $12 a share, and the last third for $5 a share.

Of course I worked for several others that just folded overnight. One owed me about $10k in wages I never saw.

Maybe I can go down to the docks in Seattle where the Disney cruises come in and busker for a living.

Anyone have a design for a battery powered tube amp?

[Gibsonman63]

"Anyone have a design for a battery powered tube amp?"

Start with a 50's era car radio perhaps?

Best of luck on the job front.

[Cygnus X1]

Bad thing is great toolmakers (and REAL machinists) are getting tougher to find.
I too am a lifelong machinist but am now a safety guy at a steel mill.
I like the change but miss my old occupation.

Good luck on you, you might have to relocate to find the opportunity though.

[Richie]

I wish I was closer to retirement age but I still have a few years to go so I need to come up with something before my wife kicks me to the curb....

You can retire whenever you want. It's just that then you have to hope to be dead soon. Life can be a bitch sometimes.

Thats about right. Before you retire, you better check into many things. Mostly,things you probably don't know about. And wow, if it wasn't for all the ins,and taxes,you might have enough to get by.
The old saying, if only i knew then what i know now. Other things that are unreal, are years ago seem to care about employees.
Now, they may say they do, but its all a bunch of lies. They don't care one bit about you,what you have gave, or put in, or done to help the company.
They care about getting rid of older workers, and hiring a younger person for less money to do your job.

[cbass]

Sorry to here about your job.My work is just picking back up after the 2008 crash.I had been doing remodels just to keep busy

If you own a house you could sell it and move here and buy one similar for 1/4 the price.But then you'd be in buttholeville

[tag101]

Wouldn't really matter if it was just me. But being devoted to a wonderful woman and three kids, kind of makes it hard.

Really sorry to hear that. I am down to 6 Full time employees from 17 just 5 years ago, and that may be cut in half in the spring if things do not turn around, and I see no sign of that. My business is down about 70% from 2008. Each year is getting worse and worse. 2012 is my worst year $$ speaking in over 30 years of being in business.

[sharkboy]

Just so you guys know, there is a really big and famous software company on the eastside in the greater Seattle area that also makes a lot of hardware/devices and is increasingly dependent upon that. There are lots of jobs in most disciplines, which is why I stayed in the area when I was laid off by them.

[boots]

Good luck to all of you who are out of work.

My job is either feast or famine, and we have been feasting pretty hard for the better part of the last 5 years. To the point where I have become burned out.

But it can change abruptly. For most of the past 2 weeks, I have been sent home on "voluntary vacation". Wouldn't be surprised if I get laid off pretty soon if it doesn't pick up again.

[Firestorm]

I think a lot of money has been sidelined over the last four years because of uncertainty: whether the healthcare thing was in or out; does President Obama get reelected or not; is sequestration going to happen or will the idiots in Congress come up with a better approach? For better or worse, we know where we're going, so the money guys can plan for future profits. So it might be better soon. Or we could be Greece or Iceland. I don't know, which is why I had to stop trying to outguess the market.

[selloutrr]

Lefty do you have any moral issues toward adult entertainment?

[LeftyStrat]

Lefty do you have any moral issues toward adult entertainment?

No, but I probably don't have the physique for it.

Actually, the problems are pretty much the same for any internet industry, a lot of work to scale for traffic, which has sort of been my role ever since my days at Amazon.

Since I've put my resume on Monster and Dice, I've got a lot of enquiries, so the market still looks pretty good for developers. Between Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Facebook, etc, the demand stays pretty high in Seattle.

[rp]

NYC friends are very positive on Linkdin, might want to get on that. I'm a lifelong slacker freelancer and used to swings and hard times but 2008 scared the crap out of me. I moved to Italy as I have a small place my mom left me that I don't have to pay rent on and comprehensive health insurance. The later at 52 was the prime mover. I sleep at night now. The country's a sinking ship however, and I hate palm trees. Why couldn't my kin have been Scandinavian?
Best of luck, it looks like you are at the tail end of one hell of a long slump.

[cbass]

http://youtu.be/5-llJ9g1dOg?t=51s

[cbass]

Sorry Lefty I didn't mean to make lite of your situation.Best Wishes

Clay