Tag Archives: #being laid off

Count My Blessings

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I guess you’ve all probably figured this out by now, but I’m generally not an optimistic type. It seems I just always automatically see the downside of everything. The “what if”. That serves me well in my job, but I think not the best for my sanity when I’m home.

Since I got back from my last trip to Chile/Antarctica, I’ve been in a pretty lousy mood. I had expected to be able to pick up some work over the holidays. That’s almost always the best time of year for me to pick up a temp job.

Usually, everyone wants to spend Christmas at home with their families. Since I don’t have any family left, I’ve always been happy to fill in. Problem is, for the last 5 years, no one has taken any time off. Everyone’s afraid their job won’t be there when they come back.

I spend time every day looking for work. I call all my agencies at least once a week. Not even a hint of any work on the horizon (when all the news is about how this is -finally- the year the industry will come back. I’ve been having a real hard time getting motivated to do anything else. I hate being broke and without options!

But yesterday, while I was taking my daily walk around the neighborhood, I ran into an old friend. I hadn’t seen her in a couple of years and it was good to catch up. Sadly, her news was not good.

She was visiting a friend of hers who lives on my street, but was staying at the Salvation Army. Her boyfriend broke up with her and threw her out the day after Christmas. Her car broke down. She lost her job.

Like me and quite a few other friends, she’s been applying everywhere with no luck. It doesn’t help that we’re all over 55 now (and age discrimination is definitely a thing).

Without a car, she’s going to have a hell of a time finding a job. At least we have a bus now, so maybe that will help. It’s not at all convenient, but it goes to the main commercial/government areas. Before I got my truck (’97 F-150), I spent more money paying off the local cops for ‘hitchhiking’ arrests trying to get to work than I made working!

I’ve been thinking about how lucky I really am. I have a lot more options than my friend does (or those billions of people around the world living on $1/day). I have a house, a car, food in the fridge, can still pay the electric bill to keep me warm/cold, I’m still fairly healthy, and even manage to travel every so often. I should stop worrying about “what if” (I never get back to work, I can’t pay the bills, I get hurt, etc). I should be grateful more often than I am.

But I still hate being broke!

Now What?

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Well, I’m back home again. I’m so grateful that I got to go on that fantastic trip. Cruising to Antarctica has been a dream of mine for decades, and I’ve wanted to see Chile for a while too.

I had hopes that I’d be able to get some work when I got back, but I’ve already been home a week and there is still NOTHING at all going on out there. This time of year is usually the best time for getting work. People want to be home for the holidays. But for 5 years now, everyone has been scared to death to take a vacation. It’s still THAT BAD out there. 🙁

My friends ask me if I’m retired yet? Well, I probably would be if I hadn’t been laid off 4 years ago and not able to find any real work since. Yes, I’ve managed to get 1-2 real jobs every year and lucky to get that. No more than that- when I used to work 8 hitches or more. I’ve beat the bushes and scrambled to make a few bucks doing other things like teaching, selling some art, garage sales, etc.

So far, I’ve been able to survive. I’ve even been able to do a bit of traveling over the last couple of years. Not nearly as much as if I’d have been working, but enough to keep my sanity.

Now I’m home and after spending all week looking for work again I’m at the point of being extremely frustrated- also bored and depressed. I have a million things I could be doing: cleaning the house, pulling weeds, cutting down the damn mimosa trees that never stop coming back.

I could be figuring out how to publish the book I’ve been working on. I could be finishing the pastel drawing I started. I could be uploading more of my photos to the stock agencies. I could be pitching stories.

I could be doing all those useful and productive things, but I don’t feel like it. Instead, I spend my time on the computer (not doing anything useful). Why?

I should change my attitude- my outlook on life- but HOW? I’ve never been able to figure that out. How do you change your most basic thought processes?

Looking Forward to Monday Morning!

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Who’s looking forward to Monday morning?

I am!

Thank god I’m going to work tomorrow morning! I’m scheduled for a grand total of 3 days of work this month and hope to hell I get all 3!

I’m not eligible for any unemployment assistance, even tho I’ve paid into it for over 40 years. Now, when I really need it, I can’t get it, simply because my last job was with a foreign company (for a year and a half). A job I took mostly in order to get ‘insurance’ which is now mandatory according to ‘Obamacare’.

So, now that I’m laid off, I can’t qualify for any of the programs I’ve been supporting for over 40 years. And people wonder why so many Americans are pissed off?!

So, I’m very thankful I can get ANY work at this point. It’s not much, but it’ll pay the gas to get to and fro, it might even take care of the electric bill (tho it’s summertime now and I seriously doubt that- AC running 24/7!).

I know most people are happy to see the gas prices so low (not nearly as low as they should be), but since my job is tied to the price of oil, I’ve been wishing it higher for months now. It’s been creeping up slowly, and I’ve heard that some land rigs have been starting up again.

Offshore drilling needs a stable price and it needs to be higher than where it is now. I’d guess around $80/bbl would start work up again. I’ve been working in the offshore oilfields for the last few years. Simply because that’s where all the work was.

I’ve been trying to find work on ANY kind of vessel since I’ve been laid off, but all the available openings have already been taken by people laid off before I was. It doesn’t help at all that the US Coast Guard keeps restricting our licenses so that we can only work on very specific types of vessels.

Basically, the rules we have to work by now state that if you don’t have so much time on 1 type within the last 5 years, you can’t work on that type of vessel any more, ever. At least not until you go through a time consuming, expensive, ‘training’ rigamarole. They treat you like you’ve never been on a boat a day in your life before! It doesn’t matter at all if you’ve previously spent 20+ years on one type of boat, say a towboat, and then you went fishing for 5 years. Doesn’t matter, you start from scratch to go back on a towboat!

Companies just refuse to hire you if you don’t have the exact, specific, ‘training’ and certificates they insist on. Even tho it would take less than a week of time onboard to re-qualify. Nope, they won’t let you on til you have it already. Catch-22 in action.

My original license said “Freight & Towing”. Since I haven’t worked on a towboat in the last 5 years, my license now says “Steam & Motor” and I’m not qualified to work on a towboat. Not until I get a TOAR. That takes a minimum of 30 days onboard a towing vessel. There is VERY little in that assessment that a licensed mariner isn’t already completely proficient in. The only items are those specific to a tug and tow (about 10 things on the list).

All the towing companies I’ve talked to since I’ve been laid off want me to spend at least 2-3 YEARS on deck before even considering upgrading me to tankerman (I job which I previously worked for over 13 yrs). I need 2 transfers to get back that license (tankerman PIC), but without it, I can’t get onboard a vessel to get those 2 transfers. See what I mean?

Smaller and smaller boxes we’re shoved into. Is it any wonder they’re having a hard time finding qualified mariners? (They say this, yet hundreds of thousands of us looking for work around the world).

What a paradox!

All I know at this point is that I’m very happy to be going to work in the morning for a change.

Anybody else been out of work for a long time? How did you survive it?