I have been fortunate that my job has remained secure during the recession but a lot of people are struggling and taking positions that they usually wouldn't in order to make it. There are a lot of people working temporary jobs while the economy recovers. What sort of impact is this going to have on their resumes when they try to find something better? You could leave the temporary job off but then there will be the question of what you were doing for the past X months/years. If it is brought up in an interview after leaving it off would it be best to just say you didnt have any meaningful employment in that period or what? I don't know if it would be worse for some of these people to lie on their application/resume/interview or admitting to working at the local adult toy store or equally embarrassing job.

I say put it on your resume, BS about how it helped improve your interpersonal skills or something.

Honestly?

Most of them are fucked.


One would hope that employers will being willing / learn to see past a 18-36 month gap in employment within your field, especially if it was hard hit, but you know they won't bother.  A tiny few of those people will be very lucky and struggle very hard to get back into their field at all, and probably will end up with a permanent handicap in their career advancement.  The rest are going to be stuck in the hellish limbo of being overqualified for lesser jobs that don't pay enough to support their basic needs, and uncompetitive for their field because they've been out (through no choice of their own) for months on end and have the stigma of a gap PLUS starting to get out of date in their skills and knowledge.


I work in a highly skilled field that took a massive hammering right at the start of the crash.  Despite busting my ass for years, my family and my kid (hoped to have another one, not looking financially feasible now) are never going to be able to enjoy the fruits of my labor or the benefit of all the hard work my parents put in for so many years to give me a platform I could start from.  My dad's 25+ years of climbing the ranks in GE, saving carefully, and making a better life for us is trashed - he can't even afford to retire now.  Everything I tried to do to capitalize on the work he did for my sake is a wash - my career was just getting off the ground and now I have dwindling hope of ever getting anywhere, much less employed in my field again.  All the work I wanted to do to build off my parent's work and make a better life for my family?  I never even got a chance.


This recession is going to affect millions of workers and their families for generations, and there are going to be a LOT of very bitter, very disillusioned people who have had to watch everything their parents worked for, and everything they themselves have worked for, vanish in smoke because of shady bullshit.  The dream of capitalism and traditions of hard work lose their appeal pretty quick when playing the game and following the rules gets you, your parents, and your children royally fucked nine ways to Sunday for the rest of your life.  

A lot of the ignorant bullshit that gets bandied around here will just inflame things, too.  "Uproot your life and move to where there MIGHT be menial work"?  "Sell everything and live out of your car"?  "Go starve to death, you should have planned ahead"?  Folks, if you walk around saying crap like that to the faces of people who busted their ass and got raped for everything they had, well...   I'm not going to feel to bad if they choke the shit out of your ignorant, narrow-minded ass.

There is only so much screwing people can take before they throw their gloves on the ground refuse to keep playing a rigged game.  

And I'm starting to worry we're very, very close to the limit for most of them.

Nothing in life is guaranteed.



Put it on your resume to atleast show that you were willing to work instead of just sitting around worrying about how something might look on your resume.

I was layed off for about a year and a half, but I used that time to go back to school. I got the first year done of a two year program for gunsmithing, so that went on my resume. That was noticed when I had my first interview with the company I'm working for now. Right now I'm working for wages I made ten years ago, I'm not happy about it but it's a job.

Hey - listen - remember one thing if nothing else: no matter how good or bad things are, they ALWAYS change. You sound like you got the worst of it all the way around, but believe me, it won't last.

In 1992, I was a Fire-Protection guy - Sprinkler Fitter. I went from making a living to 6K - for the entire year. Yeah - talk about fucked. I was eating one meal a day and having water with it. Buddy, one meal never tasted so good in my life. Now if I had some money left by the end of the week, I'd get REAL coffee and REAL cream - OMG - how great that coffee tasted - a downright luxury is what it was.

My buddy was lucky enough to get a part-time job in a grocery store and he'd bring me the past date stuff.  Eggs and milk mainly - never steak or anything.  Scrambled eggs, fried eggs, over easy, french toast, hard boiled eggs, egg salad - every fucking way an egg could be eaten, I ate it.

I had an oil furnace and no $ for oil, so I ran the stove for heat.  People die doing that sort of shit.  For entertainment, I played hide-and-seek with the utility man - who actually needed to get inside to cut me off.  I could hear that truck as it turned down my street.

The worst part of the whole thing?  I'd get up in the morning, dress for work and stare out the fucking window.  NO PLACE TO GO.  Eventually, I started staying up late - because WTF, I didn't have to get up for anything.  Naturally I slept late and fell into a downward spiral.  Holy hell is what you go through without some kind of productive thing to do.  Having skills and knowledge that is 100% useless to you eats a hole inside of a person.  Good thing I didn't have any money to buy booze - it would have made things even worse.

Not working destroys the ego and no matter it's not your fault, deep down you feel somewhat responsible.  Lots of anger, depression and feelings of helplessness. Yeah you wanna grab the person responsible and choke the shit out of them.  But who the fuck is it?  The guy who laid you off and got canned himself a month later?  The guy above him?  The owner or CEO?  The problem for me was it was circumstance that felled me and no one can fight ghosts.  Fate itself conspired against me and there wasn't a single thing or person I could lay the blame on.

The one thing I had you don't, is I was alone.  I didn't have to look at anyone else, or better yet avoid looking at someone else, as I certainly would have done.

Friend, it blew chunks and then some.  The stress and pressure is beyond words, as you well know.  It affects everything about you, mentally and physically.  You're not even the same person.

So what could I really do?  Nothing but put one foot in front of the other and keep plodding ahead, so that's what I did.  Things got better - and it took a lot longer than I imagined.  Then I made changes in order to best avoid that catastrophe in the future.

A buddy of mine lost his entire fortune - like 4.5 million dollars.  With the current crash, I also lost a significant amount.

I sleep like a log because I have my children, I have my wife and thus far my life, on the whole, has been pretty interesting and I've been very fortunate. A damned lucky Irishman is what I am, damned lucky.

I'm not trying to minimize the suffering you are being subjected to, but all the chippy phrases actually do apply.  Tough times never last, tough people always do.

Look at the depression - some people struggled on and some jumped out of windows.  IMO it takes a lot more guts to face the music than it ever will to jump out a window.

I am getting a very deep, dark reading from your post.  Go talk with a priest if you are a religious man, or anyone with some perspective.  Talk to a depression survivor - something - anything but allowing the darkness to swallow you and especially your family.

I'm not a very religious man, but I do say a short prayer each morning.  I will include you and if there is anything I can do for you, drop me an email or IM.