Homegrown Texan

Born and raised in Texas, I've found the home of my heart and soul in the Pacific Northwest. I love trees, cool weather, and rain. I'm a back to basics kind of gal just trying to raise my family and find a bit of time to slow down in this hectic life.

First off, I already know that I'm only guaranteed about 20-30% of my normal salary for the month of April.  Yep, you read that right.  My company is in huge financial trouble.  Basically we're trying to get our product done and sold to what I think are some very good potential markets in the October timeframe.  Only thing is, some of us (like, ahem, me) need money *now* to pay our bills, buy groceries, etc.  I can handle 25-30% paycut, but 70-80 just doesn't work.  That doesn't even pay our basic bills (and I've already paired down everything...keeping certain things because breaking the contracts would cost us enough that cancelling the service is pointless; plus it increases our immediate expenses which is the opposite of what I need to do).  Our owner keeps saying he's going to secure investment funds, but I haven't seen that come to fruition, and I"m not sure it's going to.  We do have an outstanding payment from a client that will bump us up to the 50% mark, but that still does nothing for the upcoming months.

Bottom line is I need to find another job.  And I don't trust our owner.  I think he's just hoping he can keep things going long enough to get this product out.  Why he bought us at the end of last year when he didn't have enough funds to see us through a year is beyond me.  He owes the company he purchased us from a considerable amount of money.  I just think it will be  a miracle if this thing takes off.  And I don't have the personal funds to make it through this.  I spent up all of my savings (which wasn't as much as  it should have been) when I was laid off *last* year.  My home equity line of credit just got revoked for no reason, considering what I owe + the credit limit was still way less than the house is worth, even at today's standards.  So right now I've got a couple of thousand plus credit cards.  That's it.

My used-to-be-manager/very long-time coworker and friend called me today and told me to spend most of my time job hunting. And that if my current manager starts asking about my assignments, to tell him and he'd figure out a way to ward him off.  That's not a very good sign.

I've been submitting resumes, but I'm convinced that they go in bitbuckets.  I have strong experience and skills.  I have glowing references, although that does nothing if I can't get far enough for people to read them.  I'm lacking in some of the newer technologies, although I do have the drive and ability to learn new things as needed.  If someone said "here this is in Ruby on Rails" I could go learn it, but I don't have the time to just go learn every technology out there so I can talk about it intelligently in an interview.

So I've resubmitted my resumes on the job boards, based on my suspicion that "new" resumes generate contacts.  I think that's where I got contacts for my other job prospects last year.  I'm looking at some freelance sites.  Toying with the idea of doing websites for people.  I have experience with parts of that, but not all of it.  I know I could figure it out.  I'm not sure how to get those contacts.  I'm not a very good salesperson.

Also trying to think of what else I could do, for myself.  It used to be that you took risks to work for yourself, at the return of being your own boss, having flexibility, and having the potential to make more money.  You worked for companies to get stability and security.  Well now companies don't offer that, so what's the point?  And the salaries aren't that great anymore, either.  How can I compete with engineers who work offshore for $10/hour?  I think Jim and I could do personal IT support/repair for people, although again, not sure how to break through to get enough from that to live off of.  I'm just out of ideas and feeling so panicked that I can't think enough to make any reasonable decisions.  So I sit here and churn and accomplish nothing. 

At least I did get my resume updated and resent today.  And I did apply for some more jobs.