Where do I start? At the beginning???
I am an Informix database administrator (DBA) with 6+ years of experience. I've worked in the IT industry for 20 years.
I landed a position that began in September, 2000 for a large theme park/entertainment company located in Orlando, Florida. I was part of an Informix DBA team with 6 members, we rotated the on-call on a weekly basis. Along with the 2 Oracle DBAs, and 1 SQL Server DBA, we supported ALL of the production and development databases in Informix, Oracle, and SQL Server.
In February, 2001, our team was reduced to 5 --- 1 employee and 4 consultants I was surprised in February with the early termination of the 6th member's contract.
At lunch on September 11th, we "guessed" that theme park attendance would suffer and that our next jobs might be for a defense contractor. We suspected that additional layoffs might occur.
On October 4th, all IT "employees" (not consultants) met with management to receive a company update. On October 5th, consultants were told that all avenues were being explored, that theme park attendance had suffered, and the company's primary goal was to retain as many employees as possible. Being the low man on the totem pole within the Informix DBA team, I suspected that I could be first to go....
I was given a 4 week notice on October 19th that my November 16th would be my last day. Was I blindsided? I think not.....however, a little surprised due to the very nature of my work.
I believe my family is prepared; however, we do not have 6 months of living expenses in liquid assets. My wife and I will be cutting short the renovation we had planned on an empty real estate investment to put it on the market. We bought a house as an investment and will be painting it, re-finishing the hardware floors, and re-surfacing the kitchen cabinets to sell it. We will not be completely renovating the kitchen prior to selling the investment.
I am very optimistic that I will find another job within 6 months. I'm collecting the maximum unemployment benefit in the state of Florida; however, that does not pay our bills.
I seriously doubt that I will find a job in Orlando, and we are prepared to move again if necessary. I don't want to move. I would accept a sizable pay cut to remain in Orlando. My next job will be for less money. Maybe as much as 50% less.....
Pay rates are a lot lower now than in 1998 & 1999 --- remember Y2K???
I am not depressed nor I serious doubt that I will become depressed.
I think if the Senate would pass or compromise with the House and the President and get some type of Economic Stimulas Bill passed, our economy would recover quicker.
I think would really made our economy stop was the continuing interest rate increases by Alan Greenspan ....so what if we had exurbance in the stock market....when dotcoms failed, we would have learned our lessons, right?
Any questions?
David |
