Hire Me or the Economy is Gonna Get it

I’ve recently found myself looking for gainful employment which seems like a poor idea from a numbers perspective. I’m not sure how much of our country’s GDP is based upon ungainful employment but I’ll bet it’s a fair chunk and, given the current economic climate, it really doesn’t make sense to limit myself. Unfortunately I don’t have much experience in ungainful employment and my late forties doesn’t seem like a good time to start.

The good news is that I have been blessed with experience in a few other areas, one of which seems to be a knack for searching for jobs during times of economic difficulty. Then again maybe that’s just what happens to a lot of people during a recession.

It took me six months, a lot of emails and, finally, a move to Chicago to recover from the fallout of the dotcom crash in 2001. I’d been working for a small financial software startup with a cashflow problem by the time the recession really kicked in. As capital dried up the startup’s owners came upon an unusual solution to their financial woes and chose to stop paying their employees. It was a bold financial move but one that was doomed to fail. Most of us eventually quit in search of a position with a company that believed in the novel idea of compensating its employees for work with regular pay. I couldn’t say what happened to the people who decided to stay but I’m sure they’re in a better place.

Flash forward to 2008. The nation was mired in the subprime banking crisis and I was soon to be out of a job. I’d been working for a small broadband company in IT, programming, and marketing, despite only having any real experience in the latter. Full-time employees for the company had become something of a rarity given our new CEO’s penchant for letting people go and taking on multiple roles was necessary if one wanted to remain employed.

The economic environment wasn’t doing the broadband business any favors and, to make matters worse, our investors were enthusiastically gutting the company to raise capital. First the programming department was outsourced. Then the IT department was reduced to a CTO and one Vice President. By that time I had become the only person left in the marketing department and the CEO was running out of people to fire. Not two days after I completed an overhaul of the company’s website I was notified that my services would no longer be required largely because there was no longer going to be a marketing department.

It took me quite a bit of time to find another position after that. So much time, in fact, that I became a stay-at-home father before becoming otherwise occupied. It’s a position I’ve held for the better part of twelve years and I can honestly say that I’ve enjoyed some of it. Sure, making meals that no one wants to eat or getting screamed at for no apparent reason doesn’t make for an ideal work environment but I’ve dealt with worse.

By the latter part of 2019 it was becoming apparent my position as a 24/7 stay at home father was becoming somewhat redundant. My daughter was in school full time and could perform the tasks necessary for survival as long as Nutella and a ready supply of sparking water were at hand. All things considered it seemed like a good time to start the interviewing process but it was not to be. Some poor soul in China ate a contaminated bat or a lab attendant forgot to wash his hands and the novel coronavirus swept over the world leaving tragedy and economic devastation in its wake. For the sake of the global economy I decided to put off my job search and wait for less tumultuous economic times.

Which brings me to my current plight. Now that the economy is starting to look a bit shaky it should come as no surprise that I’m, once again, searching for a job. Sure the Federal Reserve is cranking up interest rates but that’s really no guarantee that a recession isn’t just around the corner. From my past experience it seems like the best way to ensure any sort of economic stability is to be certain that I’m employed. So, if you’re looking for a marketing professional who’s a self-starting, energetic team player please feel free to give me a call. It’s really the very least you could do to stave off an economic disaster that could have dire consequences for us all.

About the Author

derekbremer Prior to his life as a stay at home father Derek spent more than a decade performing public relations and marketing functions for financial consulting firms and found the job to be precisely as exciting as it sounds. When not tending to his wife or daughter Derek enjoys subjecting the public to his unique take on fatherhood, travel and animal husbandry. He has been published in Scary Mommy, Sammiches and Psych Meds, The Good Men Project, HowToBeADad, Red Tricycle, RAZED, HPP and the Anthology "It's Really Ten Months Special Delivery: A Collection of Stories from Girth to Birth.