Tired Middle Aged Man

So today I was smarting over an phone interview for a job that I didn’t think I had much of a chance.  I gave it my all but I was probably 10x too short of impressing the interviewer enough and so they told me right then and their I wasn’t going to meet their needs.

And then later in the morning at work, just I was on my way to a meeting to greet the person they’ve hired to replace me I got a phone call.  Oh yes, they’ve hired someone to replace me.  They need me so bad that they can’t afford to let my position got empty.  In fact the position is so hard to do they badly need me to train my replacement to do what took me about 6 months to learn.  They want me to teach my replacement to be 6x a faster learner than I was!  Ouch that hurts!

Oh yeah so as I was about to leave my office to go to this meeting which I was so badly dreading, I get a phone call telling me the result of a fantastic job interview I had a week ago.  I was so sure I was going to get a job offer.  The person on the phone answered in a friendly voice starting off with “we really thank you for your time …. “oh no that’s a setup introduction for the sucker punch in the stomach line that’s about to come”  And then the person follows up with “we offered this position to another candidate”  Ouch.  OUch.  Ugg Ummph.

I was devastated.  This phone call was the call back from the job which was supposed to be my fallback safety net job if I couldn’t get another job.  It was supposed to be the easy sure thing job.  And I didn’t get it!  So now the reality of getting layed off by the end of May is setting in.

Sigh.  I really need to cry.  I’m scared. I’m disillusioned. I’m confused.  I’m in denial.  How could this happen!?

So yesterday I was agonizing after being rejected during a phone interview for one job.  Then I found myself frantically trying to contact another person for an update on one of the jobs I originally thought I was a shoe in for.

I tried to call again and again, but got no return phone calls.  Which is a bad sign.  It’s a sign that they are trying to avoid you because they are in the midst of making a decision that does not involve you in their picture.

And so rather promptly and abruptly I got a phone call letting me know they don’t want me.  They described there were many strong candidates, but in the end someone else had many years of experience in a computer system I never used before.  It certainly gave me a feeling that I may not have even been number two in consideration.  In their “optimistic” voice they said they were sure I’d find another job, but a voice was crying inside of me that “NO NO! I really don’t think I have another job.  THIS WAS IT!! NO”

I must face the even more real possibility that I’m going to be unemployed.

I’m devastated once again.

And my boss started asking me to do more tasks, and I’m in a daze.  What?  I see my replacement happy and eager to get up to speed and take over my job.  There were a few times I was fighting back tears.

So, it’s been almost a month since I’ve updated this blog!

Yes, this job loss thing really has sidetracked my energy.  So since I’ve last wrote, I’ve been expending huge amounts of time searching for another job within the company I work for.  I officially become unemployed starting June 1st unless I can land another job.  It’s a really self-esteem testing experience to go from working for the same company for nearly 21 years straight and then suddenly preparing to be unemployed.

So I’ve had a few interviews some really great and some where I completely fell short of what they were looking for.  And with the great interviews nothing has happened which makes me nervous like they’ve already picked someone else.  And so I’m watching my chances fade away.

And to make things more tortuous for me I’m still at times expected to work hard in the remaining time I have left at my current job.  They’ve already hired a contractor to replace me!  And they would like me to work diligently to get him up to speed.  It really upsets me when they want me to bust my ass to pull them out of binds and technical emergencies yet they have no intentions of keeping me employed.  They are busy worrying how this new contractor is going to be able to do by job, yet they are so willing to get rid of me!  And they want to participate in this worry by doing my best job to insure his success in replacing me.  It hurts.

I’m trying my best to be helpful to the people I work with, and not burn any bridges with my current boss, but I need to recognize where my boundaries are and not follow the example of other people.  If someone works 90 hours a week don’t make that influence where I think my boundaries are.  So if I have a job interview for one hour on Wednesday, I can’t allow myself to be pushed into thinking I can balance my work load around that one hour time slot.  “Oh sure I’ll work on this emergency Wednesday morning, go to my interview and then come back and continue working”  On the surface that sounds reasonable, but if I work on an emergency that will suck out my energy so I’ll be sub par when I’m being grilled during an interview.  And if the interview doesn’t go well continuing my work afterwards will only rub salt into my emotions.

You see I need to be able to scope out boundaries around my emotional time.

God I’m definitely A LONG LONG WAY away from being masculine!!

But the fact is I’m a human not a machine. And so although I’m capable of putting in some tenacious technical efforts and pulling of some unexpected feats, it’s all still influenced by emotions. And if I’m feeling very conflicted like recognizing that at times the harder the work the more I’m helping get rid of my job, then my mind can go blank, my memory flounders and my IQ plummets.  And so I need to plan emotional processing time around some of the things I do, most especially when the things I do are all very stressful.

So anyway I’ve had a roller coaster emotional ride with one particular job as a program manager.  This would be a manager of managers kind of job.  A huge self-esteem boost because of the huge jump in responsibility, far beyond what I’ve ever done.  Last Monday I got called about it and managed to pull off a sales pitch that convinced the person I could do the job.  The that Friday during my formal interview that person changed her mind and had me interview for a less demanding position.  And to make things worse I wasn’t impressing anyone during the interview and I needed to impress someone to have a chance.  Finally, they gave me a chance to try again today. I prepared hard and in the end it was for naught. I definitely felt I did my best or as close to the best, but in the end it seemed what the person was asking for was may 10 x more than I could show.  So it makes me wonder a bit why they even considered me.

Well I guess it’s a positive sign that I’m doing the right things to sell myself so that I can get my foot pretty far in the door for something I’m not qualified for.  So at least I can give myself a hand for definitely doing my best.  Many people in a similar position would not have even tried.

But that emotional roller coaster of things happening better than expected only to be dashed not once but twice really pops the air out of my sails.  And then in it’s wake there is an undeniable sense of emptiness.  My mind focuses on a couple of other jobs I’m being considered for, and starts getting paranoid with each passing hour.

Why haven’t they called me!  Maybe I should call right now?  No, No.  I called on Friday, and they hadn’t returned my call and so if I call now maybe I’ll annoy them.  But this silence this waiting even for a day is becoming agonizing.  This uncertainty becomes more tortuous as time passes.  I feel defeated.

I’m a riled up middle aged man.  I’m not giving up the fight, but this kinds of defeats are wearing me down.

I want to go back to Never Never Land.  I want to live in Wonderland. Take me to Strawberry Fields.  Where nothing matters.  And in this place I at the idea of blogging for income feels so far away in terms of effort level.  Not that it’s not doable, but that it’s just far away, such a long long walk.  I couldn’t do it when I was operating under the comfort of long term employment so now facing the prospect of unemployment now what?  But it would certainly be true that unemployment grants me the time I would need, but in a scary undesireable way.

But I guess when you lose focus of the true important things in life you have to be dealt life shaking events, be it a death of a loved one, the loss of a job, or the threat of losing your life.

Monday was a wierd day to say the least.  I was advised to contact my boss about strange events that were happening to my job.  It’s like if I never took the initiative to contact my boss, I would still have my job.  But I did take the initiative and he responded by doing his best to get back to me in a timely fashion and apologetically hand me my walking papers.  What?!

But anyway the way I was told what had unfolded in some ways sounded like two organizations flexing their political muscle.  One side asks the other side to take me on as a permanent employee. That side says no and since you insulted us by asking us that question we’ll stop paying for his services in 2 months.  There that will teach you to threaten us.  So now are you going to sa sorry.

The other side says.  Ha.  Say sorry no way!  No what we’ll do is take him back today so he can’t do any more work for you. So you can save your stinking two months of pay, because we don’t want it.  And to teach you a lesson, we are going to set him up to get unemployed.  Ha. There you go!  Now who’s sorry.  That’ll teach you.  Next time when we ask you to take someone into your organization you’ll do it or lose that person immediately.

And it’s me who’s just a pawn in this political beauracratic mess.  And all anyone can do is apologize, and shrug their shoulders.  I’m being layed off not because there is no work for me, not because they don’t have the funds to pay for me, and not because I’m not highly appreciated and valued.  I’m being layed off just because.  Eh. Why not.  Monday’s are usually boring. Let’s lay off someone today to bring in some excitment. That’s all.

I only mention this experience because it’s just more of he sign of the times of people somehow unintentionally being dishonest with you.  Like a President who fervantly campaigns for a cause and then quiet in the mix abandons the campaign.  The reasons aren’t quite known.  But yet this kind of disconnected behavior is more of the sign of the times.

I had a frustrating day trying to talk with a medical reimbursement claim person over the phone.  Basically, I was trying to get reimbursed for vision care expenses using money I had set aside because I don’t have vision care insurance.  They told me they couldn’t reimburse me from the money I set aside because the person wrote on the receipt that they examined my eyes and fit contact lenses.  They were fine covering the eye exam.  They were fine covering the fitting of the contact lens.  They were not fine with the combination of the two together!?  They wanted me to drive back to the eye doctor and get a revised receipt with separate charges for the eye exam and contact lens.  But the eye doctor doesn’t have separate charges for eye exam and contact lens fitting so he would have to just make it up.  Alternatively I could have the eye doctor rewrite the receipt for just an eye exam.  For me it unfortunately will require about 2 hours of round drip driving, or coordinating getting a rewritten receipts by fax (which I don’t have).  In prior years I’ve always submitted my eye exam as one receipt.  Now it’s changed.  Another person then chimed in that I would also need to show an explanation of benefits summary from my vision care insurance to show that I’m not getting paid any benefits from my vision care insurance.  I explained I don’t have vision care insurance.  They replied I should submit to my medical insurance.  I explained my medical insurance, Aetna, doesn’t cover vision care.  FYI, the person I was talking to and disputing my claim works for Aetna?!  The person is stumped, puts me on hold, then goes away for a while, comes back and states they will need to reprocess my claim and it may take up to 10 days but also reminded me that if things go past April 15, my claim may be forfeited.  Ahhhh!

Maybe I’m being impatient, but this is just one more evidence of what I consider Society as a whole becoming Stupid.  I can no longer point the finger at one person being less capable of reasonable thinking but at a whole system that enforces stupidity.  By enforce I mean if you work for one of these companies you could get reprimanded or fired potentially if you don’t follow the procedures and rules of the system, no matter how much they don’t make sense.  So in fact in these situations it’s best to hire people that don’t ask questions and just follow rules.  And when the rules and procedures are ambiguous you interpret them in the way that’s most likely to protect your employment.  On top of this throw in continual efforts to reduce cost while “preserving quality”.  You reduce costs by laying off higher paid more experienced employees to and then you replace the “expertise” once held by the experienced employees with documented rules and procedures.  Initially you can try and outsource to a company in India.  Eventually, the idea state is that you handle it all by computer.  To “preserve” quality you either eliminate or reduce the ability of customers to give direct feedback on their satisfaction.  You create a quality measurement system that is assured of 100% satisfaction no matter what. If for some reason a customer complaint comes thru successfully you concentrate on cutting costs which will cause the layoff of the person that allowed the successful complaint thru.

In my case the more frustrated I am, the more likely I’ll give up and forfeit my right for getting reimbursed.  So me the customer is the problem.  Reduce costs and eliminate me, quality goes back up.  And once there are less complaints and phone calls you can justify reducing the workforce once again.  Costs down.  Profits up.  And someone is thinking our society is getting more advanced and intelligent.

The movie “Up in the Air” gives a bit of a taste of what I mean by Society becoming Stupid.  If we look at the whole of let’s say Westernized Society as a single organism, that single organism places highest priority on profit, acquiring, building and consuming.  The more we profit, acquire, build and consume the more we believe we have progressed.  With the use of computers to streamline the process we are pushing more towards that goal.  And if you think far enough ahead we can probably maximize profit, acquiring, building and consuming if we eliminate humans and just have machines take over.  Sounds a bit like a script in many Sci-Fi movies.  But it is happening now, not so much in the physical elimination of humans (although if you look at job layoffs, crime and wars that might actually be happening), but in the elimination of humane behavior.  We are dehumanizing ourselves somehow with a blind eye.  This action of dehumanizing is our Society going Stupid.

Back in Feb 19th a software engineer comes to wits end with his dealings with the IRS.  I can only imagine that no single person is to blame. Everyone is doing their job, following he rules and procedures and that software engineer just has to be patient even though his financial well being is being threatened.  He feels completely dehumanized, emotionally exhausted from countless contacts with the IRS department and he loses it. In a time where everyone is downsizing more things just fall thru the cracks.  This software engineer eventually loses it and does a terrible act of violence.  Within days the incident is put to rest and forgotten.  Life goes on.  Everything is just fine.

I don’t know about you.  Have you been feeling like things aren’t fine?  That more and more things are becoming less caring and less humane?  That our human society as a whole is becoming more stupid?

I’ve been busier working on things related to www.touchthesource.com and so I’ve definitely been slacking big time here.  I’ve started to get into the technical realities of trying to record some meditations and then publish the recordings in a way that it can be easily listened regardless whether you’re on Windows, Mac or an iPhone.  I recently got familiar with familiar with the company soundcloud.com, which is a really slick website for anyone trying to share audio recordings but in a way that allows you to limit who can listen to it, who can download it and even handling the sale of a recording.  So I’ve been really fond of this website.  The only problem I’ve recently discovered is that soundcloud.com can get really expensive.

As long as you limit the total amount of recordings to under 2 hours it’s all free.  If you need 12 hours of audio storage then it jumps to about $107 a year.  For unlimited storage it skyrockets to $680 a year!  So this forces me to look for less expensive solutions to distribute recordings, but I still want it to be as fast and easy to use as soundcloud.  So now I’m investigating things like YouTube and iTunes.  But this is once again just all more work for me to do.

I clearly have too many things I want to do.  I can’t keep juggling things and fool myself into thinking I’m not already dropping so many things on the floor.  This past Friday I definitely was having  “Twighlight Zone” experience.

It all started last Thursday when I noticed a big dent in the left fender of our Toyota Prius.  I was not happy.  I had no idea how it got there.  It was a very noticeable dent that I at first thought came from another car hitting our car while it was parked.  But it was odd though that this dent was smooth, no scratches, no sharp creases, more like it was hit hard with something like a basketball.  But who plays basketball in the middle of a parking lot with no basket net within a mile radius and when everything is covered with snow and ice?  So after I saw this I thought of the headache of trying to get this repaired.  It was already the end of the day so I planned to call it in on Friday.

Come Friday morning I drove my Honda Accord.  As I was passing by the Prius I could not see the dent.  I did a double take and drove by and looked again.  No dent?  Obviously this was another Toyota Prius.  I drove by again taking a look at the license plate. It was our Prius, yes it was.  I strained my neck at all angles to see the reflection coming across the left fender.  No dent? Perfectly smooth?  I didn’t have time to stop driving and walk up to the Prius.  I just drove off and concluded that my eyes must be bad, because surely the dent was there even though I couldn’t see it.  So I held off calling my insurance company to report the damage until I was sure it was there.

While at work my boss asked me to contact someone named Stewart who works out of California.  I looked him up and called his number and a female voice answered.  She initially said I had the right company but no one named “Stewart”  works at this branch.  That kind of puzzled me.  As far as I knew Stewart ran a company that  was pretty much a one man company.  Why would he want to hire someone to answer the phone to make it appear he had multiple branches?  So I thought maybe I dialed the wrong number.  I looked at my phone and I saw that the last number I dialed was the right number.  I went thru my recent email to see if there was another phone number.  The email showed the same as what I had dialed. “Strange,” I thought to myself.

So after an hour, I dialed the number again. The same woman answered.  I asked if this was a software company, I was dialing.  She replied “No, this is Artisan Bank”.   So now that made a bit more sense.  She was just saying I reached a branch of a bank and not a software company so obviously Stewart doesn’t work at Artisan Bank.

But wait just a day ago I dialed Stewart’s number and it worked?!  Stewart was there.  Maybe Stewart went out of business and his line was disconnected.  But I don’t think you can get a number disconnected and have it reassigned to a new customer in just 1 day.  “Strange indeed”

My boss stopped by later in the day and asked if I reached Stewart. I told my boss that it seems his phone number is wrong or doesn’t work anymore. My boss looked at me strangely.  I showed him the number I dialed and he confirmed it was the right number.  My boss then asked me to pull up a recent email which definitely had the right number.  I did so and it was the same phone number.  So then my boss told me that he’d leave me alone and suggested that I take a break, and try the number again. He gave me a “are you sure you’re OK” look and closed my office door to leave me time to gather myself.

So I dialed that very same number and Stewart answered!

So all I can say is I swear, I swear there was a big dent in my Toyota Prius.  I even showed the dent to my wife.  And it’s now gone, poof!  I swear, I swear I called Stewart at his phone number and I kept reaching the receptionist at Artisan Bank.  And now his number works.

Clearly I had entered “THE TWILIGHT ZONE”  Maybe I need some rest.

Oh Geez why’s it so dark here. Wait there’s a bright light in the distance. Should I walk towards the light?

SNAP OUT OF IT WILSON!

The way I’ve been feeling this month, it reminds me of a time nearly two years ago.  I had had the habit of taking on more and more responsibility. It’s OK I can handle it, I can handle it.   I came to awake in the realization I was in what was a severe depression.  And when I realized this it somehow shoved me way to the bottom, and all my worries spilled all over the floor and I could no longer afford to care about things. One thing I clearly remember is that I no longer cared that much for silly things like paying your bills.  I had significant money coming back in a tax refund, I didn’t care to collect it.  I had bills to pay that I could very much afford to pay but it was too much effort to pay. It was too confusing, so I didn’t care.  Go ahead and send the bill collectors, I don’t care.  Well after several months I eventually did get myself together and got back into the pace of the real world and settled all my financial affairs.  I even got ahead of the game last year by getting my tax returns way ahead of the deadline as opposed to filing for an extension.

But lately I’ve definitely have had glimmers of those overwhelming feelings.   You work extra hard to get yourself back in line.  Your life starts to get scattered and then things like trying not to lose your job hit you.  You find a new job and find your energy is spent trying to get back up to speed at the new job.  And whammo a month clicks by in every blink of the eye.

So a week ago I got a late payment notice in the mail from a doctor I had seen many months ago.  I could swear I paid all my bills, but was mostly too tired to defend so I just let it sit.  Then a couple of days ago I decided to at least give the doctor’s office a call that I really do want to settle my accounts, but that I think I did pay my bill, and that I’m feeling so overwhelmed that I felt like the very best I could do is just acknowledge that I do see your bill and I wish I could do something about it.  So right now all I can offer you is this call now because if I didn’t at least call now I’d never look at things until another blink of the eye, another month.  If you told me I had a rebate offer for a million dollars and that rebate offer expired in a month I’m sure I’d forfeit the million dollars.  I’m too busy doing things like trying to make and save money to worry about doing things to make and save money.

I have a physical therapist bill closing in on 2 years over due!  It’s for like $5 but I’m so sure I had settled this over a year ago yet they still keep hounding me.  The bill is based on probably a few hundred tiny charges with cryptic descriptions like “Commercial Adjustment” and “Offset Adjustment”  I swear if I pay the $5 they’ll take on $3.23 and give the reason of “Yippee Kayaaa adjustment” on the bill as the reason why I owe them money.  I don’t care but I swear they’ll keep hounding me till the end of time.  I’m too tired to defend by bill.  I did that a year ago.  They’ll forget my story and they’ll be a new person ready to hound me. I’m too tired. I don’t care.

I have a desk the size of a dining room table.  It’s cluttered with medical related items that I could file for a few thousand dollars in reimbursement from something called a Flexible Spending Account.  It’s money that I put aside last year that I might just elect to forfeit.  I mean I do care and that part cause me stress. But I sort of don’t care and that part causes me relief.  It’s odd.  If my bank said they were going to just clear out all my savings to save on computer costs I’d almost resign myself, oh well. And so as I write this it’s snowing outside and things are quiet and I’m shoveling out from a pile of to do items in my head one snow flake at a time.  It’s all I can do

So anyway more and more I really don’t want to hear about special offers.  Please don’t offer me 20% off for a limited time.  Don’t offer me a $100 rebate good for purchases by 1/31 and submitted on a special form postmarked by 2/28.  If you ask me what’s wrong?  Don’t I want to save money?  Don’t I want to save time?  Don’t I want to take advantage of a special opportunity?  Do I want to lose out on a once in a lifetime opportunity?

I will answer I think nothing is wrong, but NO …. I do not want to save money, I do not want to save time, I do not want to take advantage of a special opportunity.  YES I do want to lose out on a once in a lifetime opportunity. I want to waste money paying late fees. I want to forfeit all coupons and rebates.  I want to pay extra.  I want to waste my time.  I WANT TO BE INEFFICIENT. I want to BE STUPID.  Go ahead and laugh at me and profit from me.  I don’t care.  And this is how a really tired person feels.

I’ve taken off several days of vacation thinking I’ll catch up on things or make some serious headway in launching my first website following the Michael Jones process, but alas I’m having serious doubts now.  I’m starting to realize that the holiday time during the end of the year is a becoming just a time to go into a time warp where I’m watching things I want to accomplish before year end just slip away. I guess it’s me being kind of burnt out and instead of  using my extra time during my days off from work to push forward, I’m using the time to catch my breath.  I most certainly am not “vegging” out.  But probably “vegging” out would be the best for me.

The analogy I see is like when a car is stuck in mud.  The driver could stress out impatiently and spin his tires and get nowhere.  Or the driver could just sit there relax, ponder a bit and get nowhere.  I think I’m like that car at times and I may just need to sit there and wait for someone to help or for the mud to dry up and use the time to get my mind in order.

So in the end, even though it seems like I’m not moving, it’s all good.

Last night I went with my wife to our 25th high school reunion.  The last reunion we were at was the 5th year reunion, so it was 20 years since.  I was definitely anxious, because reunions tend to be about finding out how each of us has fared in life versus our high school peers.  I guess I had been very ambitious 20 years ago and now felt somewhat inadequate to poke in my face no closer to my ambitions as I was some 20 years ago.  But I have to say that feeling of inadequacy didn’t factor at all.  Everyone seemed fairly easy going and comfortable in their lives.  No one was their to impress.

The biggest thing that threw me was how much older everyone appeared.  With 20 years of aging everyone really looked like they were in their 40s to 50s.  I seemed to hardly recognize more than half the people there.   It was surreal standing in conversations with grown women and men.  I don’t mean mere adults as you would consider someone in their 20’s or 30’s but genuinely gracefully aged people with thinning, greying hair, and noticeable wrinkles.  I think I dissociated as someone was talking to me and I found a little voice talking inside saying “why the heck am I talking to this old person?”  I mean I feel like I’m talking to my parents.  But in the back of my mind I know that these “old people” are my age.  They were kids as I was a kid.  I just couldn’t piece together “people that look and sound like my parents” with “people that are teenagers in high school”  I then went into the restroom and when I looked into the mirror I heard that same voice go “who is that old man?”

Oh my God, I’m an old man!  Look at the wrinkles in the forehead, the creases around the eyes, that aged skin complexion.  I had disheveled thinning hair.  And to top it all off it seemed my face looked fatter and wider than it did a couple of days ago.  I know I couldn’t have gained that much weight in 2 days!

I realized that I had experienced some kind of reality shock.  When I saw the youth of my high school person juxtaposed against middle-aged men and women it’s like the youth in me left.  There is still a little boy but buried and scared inside a much older stranger body.  I am not a young man anymore.  Long gone are the days when I get carded when purchasing alcohol.  Long gone are the days when people say “I look young”.

It’s just wierd why I never perceived myself as this old until last night.  Now I’m feeling like I’m living in a strange body that has met many other strange people who where once supposedly people I knew in high school.  Maybe it will wear off and I’ll grow back young again.  Or at least my shattered reality will piece together and I’ll be back together in acceptance of who I am in the present.

Just another Tired Middle Aged Man.