getting laidoff

The tale of my experience of transitioning from one job to another.

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Listen/purchase: Reigning Cats & Dogs EP by Sitari

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I have been blogging about music more.

Find me over here where I blog about a lot of albums that I liked from last year. 40 albums from 2012: http://40albumsfrom2012.tumblr.com. Be prepared for a lot of weirdness: jazz, metal, experimental, and electronic albums make up the bulk of my list. Feels good to write about music.

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R.I.P. 2012

Having had some time to collect my thoughts after a new year’s rager (well, as raging as a group of upper thirty-somethings get without embarrassing themselves too much), I’ve realized 2012 was a pretty unique year. Not only did I start playing drum synthesizers and develop some new painting skills, I matured as a person in some ways and reached a new outlook on life that is probably less intense. All in all, pretty interesting year.

It was a pretty eventful trip around the sun, what with all the politics of a big election year and all the other change-related stuff that many went through. As with any year of life, the first half was much different than the second. But for me it can be broken down into thirds for conversation purposes. Beyond that, it becomes novel.

The first third was life as it had been for a while, pretty much a holding pattern. Still had that job until mid-April, wasn’t thinking about changing cities. I did know about the layoff but had to remain status quo and finish up the job. Probably the most notable thing was visiting Detroit for the first time and checking out a psychedelic artshow, getting to know a new roommate, enjoying my jam room and recording music when there was free time.

The middle third was my bohemian experience. Free schedule. A first visit to NYC; lots of time to myself and being creative, trying to avoid a particularly wicked Chicago summer; visits to Columbus OH with a friend who was on a weird run for a used coin operated washing machine, and another to StL to meet with some baseball friends; tempered with a lot of job searching frustrations that never came to fruition. This all seemed very forward looking while the first third of 2012 seemed entrenched in what was the present.

Now the last third was a trip back to the past when I was a young guy, which has been both good and bad of course. Living near where I grew up, some things never change, and yet almost everything on the surface is different. The best part is getting to be around family and catching up on lots of rest. I’m quite fully rested now and ready to settle in somewhere in 2013. Where is anyone’s guess. While it has definitely been interesting revisiting the past, I am definitely ready to visit the future again.

I'm also quite ready to return to the workforce, I sort of miss the camaraderie and especially the routine of doing something that isn't completely selfish or left to my own devices. I'll miss having complete schedule freedom of course, but my freedom has been limited to living in someone else's space that I have no control over. Hopefully 2013 will bring a great space to live and work in, as well as an environment to have gainful employment in.

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It's official, I've lost all my grandparents. In this photo you'll see my Grandpa Tony who passed away way back in 1982 (the greatest grandfather of them all) and my Grandma Dorothy, who I just lost this week. She was 93, tough old bird.

My grandparents on my dad's side were sort of opposites of the ones on my mother's side. The other grandpa was mean and cranky, and aloof. My grandmother on this side of the family was more of a classic fastidious caregiver grandma who eventually devolved into dementia in her old age. This Grandma, Dorothy, was the country club golfer, socialite, card player, well-to-do grandparent. Her and grandpa Tony survived the Great Depression, later started a sporting goods store, and thrived on it. Treating customers generously and as friends, far from what we usually see today in the cold corporate culture.

Companies could do well to model themselves after such a business owner: help out your customer base as much as possible, help them out as kids so they become lifelong customers. It's too bad that the ma and pa shop is basically no more. But who knows, maybe it'll come back some day.

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Moving in with a relative while unemployed...

Is not such a bad idea. Especially if you are a renter, and a family member or friend extends an invitation to move in with them til you get back on your feet, is really a pretty great idea. Consider: if you need to brush up on or learn new skills, an ideal time to do this is while not paying rent. That's one huge monthly bill eliminated. And it is always more effective to be able to concentrate on your learning if not working full time. 

So getting beyond basement-based internet memes and moving in with your mother condescension, it can be a very good idea. For me it works out well, and for the owners of the lodging it also works out, as they need some help around their house. There's also a woodshop and large outdoor space to work on larger paintings and learn new skills such as woodworking and even welding. No way I could do all that and perhaps even take new college courses while living in an apartments with 2 other musicians.

I plan on working on music quite a bit too... I will still have time to do so and music is such a vast territory of creativity, that there are ways to work around not having an ideal practice space. Live with old folks? Set up some soundproofing (even a little helps quite a bit), keep volume levels low, use headphones and crank up those pre-amps or do direct-in recording with the mixing board. Or simply just compose on a computer, even a laptop can create intense symphonies of sound with the right software.

Be creative and enjoy your life!

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No Work = Actually Checking Your Myspace

I was joking around today that myspace>facebook>twitter just for shits and giggles, since I have 1538 myspace friends, 512 facebook friends, and only 104 twitter followers. That is, of course, ridiculous, since myspace destroyed itself and is not used by anyone; facebook seems eager to follow that self-destructive tendency but is still the Big Dog; and twitter uses a completely different contacts system.

I actually prefer sites like tumblr, SB Nation (an amazingly fun live blog but just for sports... I have many friends on there and we don't even officially have that traditional social media link), and various others. I eagerly look forward to sites like Readymag and Medium where your web presence looks like a magazine, whatever way you want to make it. It is an exciting time to be on the internet, lol!

So I thought I'd share some interesting myspace profiles and compare them to what the person may or may not be sharing on these newer sites. Without further adiue:

Starting with Hunab Ku, their myspace is here http://www.myspace.com/hunabku. Nowadays, you get a whole youtube channel showcasing their live music. http://www.youtube.com/user/soundestruction And of course, they have a facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/hunab.ku.733. From which, you can find out they are no longer a band anymore.

Prefuse73, who always had sort of a bizarre online presence on myspace. An artist of this magnitude of course has their own website, which has a link to his twitter (which I didn't know about til now, now following!).

What was great about myspace is mostly still there: access to a whole bunch of underground bands. Weirdo experimental/industrial/ambient artist DCLXVI. A band I actually shared a bill with as a metal bassist in another band, Cygnus Loop, still only has a myspace page listed. Another band that mysteriously has no indication of presence outside of myspace. The last time this band released an LP, myspace was still in its heyday. Now, it would be wise for fans to check their website as it links to the bands full albums in their discography on bandcamp, as well as a preview for their highly anticipated new album.

That's all for now, stay tuned for more myspace reminiscing and other randomness of the interweb.

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An Update

Not in my wildest dreams did I think I would still be unemployed after this long. Sent out over a hundred resumes this summer and probably wrote cover letters for over half of 'em. That's a lot of optimism, thinking about random possible futures, and tertiary stress. I can't stand to look at craigslist but I suppose I'll look at it again.

Went to a couple great parties last weekend, a reminder of what I would be missing if I leave Chicago. I don't know if I'll be doing that but it is looking like a much bigger possibility nowadays. I have to decide real soon if I'm moving away. I sent out 3 resumes to jobs I really want tonight, so hopefully that will amount to something. One is the first job I've applied to in years outside of Chicago.

Am staying very positive though... a change could be a good GREAT thing. Also if I find the proper job here that would be the same situation, so fooling myself into thinking it is a win/win situation... which it pretty much is! There are of course negative aspects to whichever happens, but such is life. And life is good.

Positivity... I might have an artshow featuring some of my abstract paintings I've been displaying. First in a year and a half if I get it. Excited. Also excited about my continuing musical development, even if others are not (I think a few are, at least, so not totally crazy). Music makes my life interesting and beautiful, both as a listener and a learning experience (you'd be surprised... the learning isn't all about music either).

What has saved me from utter boredom other than being creative is going on a few road trips this summer. This last one was meeting some people I often converse with via a popular user-oriented blog about baseball. The cool thing is that it's about new statistical analysis of baseball as well as many other things. I learn a lot from the people on there too. This is an amazing time in history, as we are all interconnected so much more than even before. We were always interconnected, it is just more direct now.

This opportunity to learn from each other and share is unprecedented. We just need to learn to be more patient and tolerant towards each other. Not all of us are as understanding as others, or as evolved in consciousness. Now more than ever before, people need to help each other. That is what we all need to learn most now.

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Either i have unemployment insomnia or i'm a vampire

Probably both. I have always been a night owl since a young boy. Beginning to arrive at the conclusion that to find stable work I will need to: A. Take less money B. Go back to college C. Uncharted territory I am liking b with some c the most. A. = having similar job but taking a pay cut from what i had worked up to. B. = new knowledge and skills! C. = winging it, odd jobs, attempting to sell art, marketing, contacting labels about my music, creating. As you can plainly tell, b & c are far more interesting and exciting. As for studies, computer science seems more and more interesting every day.

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Visit Original Link

guitar demo track I'm working on

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So I jumped the gun a little bit on the job post

Getting laid off is not quite dead yet! The job I trained for is something I can do in my free time. So the job search continues for a regular gig. I have not made any money yet with The Power Company, where I'm an energy broker (kinda like sales, but not exactly). I plan on working with businesses to reduce their electric bill costs by up to 30% at no cost to them. But I don't think this will take up all my time.

Due to energy deregulation, everyone is eligible to retain Comed as their energy distributor and they will maintain power lines, connections, transformers, etc. BUT, the exciting part is that companies can use another electricity source (a company who deals in energy and is compliant with the New York Mercantile Exchange). All of this is overseen by the ICC and is perfectly legit and safe.

If anyone would like to reduce their energy costs by thousands on a year by year basis and lock in their energy rates, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me at [email protected].

Thanks!

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It Appears That I Have Found A Job with Craigslist

Start training to be an energy consultant soon. I didn't hear about pay or benefits, and people ask me about that stuff. But I know you don't ask that question during the interview. And they offered me the job, what was I to do not take it? 

It just seems to be a slightly mysterious job. The website divulges some details... but being a consultant should be interesting, since it's new to me and I don't really know many consultants. I know they are usually paid well though... so there's that!

So this appears to be the end of Getting Laid Off tumblr. I'll start a new tumblr as something else, I guess maybe one more post on here of whatever that is will be a good idea. Thanks for reading!

My other blogs:

http://xenochrony.wordpress.com which has mainly music writeups, and other forms of culture as well, going year by year since 1975 when I was born.

find me on twitter as @gbowles where I talk about baseball and music mainly, and the usual twitter nonsense

my own music is at http://sitari.bandcamp.com

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Friday Twitter Review

Since I have exhausted all online attempts at hand wringing, not having a job, and being creative in your down time, I've decided to veer off in another direction...

A twitter-y direction.

Some tweets from the last two days or so that caught my eye:

The Reader reminds of all the foodstuffs we be missin http://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2012/06/21/dinners-festivals-and-more-food-and-drink-events

Single individuals are more influential http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21961-facebook-study-reveals-what-makes-someone-a-leader.html

I guess this couldn't hurt http://networkedblogs.com/z2ENP google yourself

Band gets signed by Sire from a kickstarter campaign http://www.thedailyswarm.com/headlines/how-kickstarter-helped-delta-rae-get-signed-sire/

Go manipulate some guitar pedals, the musicians will play the guitar http://chicagoist.com/2012/06/21/manipulate_sound_at_concatenating_p.php

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