Mud

“We were all at once terribly alone; and alone we must see it through.”

-Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front.

A friend told me that in the context of my job hunting, I have a fight in front of me. I feel like it. I feel like I’ve been dropped in a no man’s land between the lines, but I don’t know which line is friend and which is foe. I don’t even know if there is a friendly side. I stumble across pickets who throw me back into the mud and barbed wire, confused, and angry, and depressed. I can’t keep my head down and wait for the shooting to stop because only by fighting to one side or the other will I ever again provide for my family and myself. But it’s a fight I am ill prepared for. I don’t know the weapons that win these kinds of battles today, and I have few resources from which to draw. I’m afraid that by the time I gain veteran status in this war, we’ll be living in the poor house, or worse; Los Angeles.

I keep getting ambushed by an enemy I can neither see nor hear, whose weapons are unfamiliar to me, and against which I have only the thin defense of 30 years of showing up, doing my job, and keeping my nose clean. So I stagger and throw blind punches but never land one. When these ambushes are over I’m left wondering why they felt the need to attack me when all I did was ask for a job.

This week, and it’s only Tuesday as I write this, I was ambushed twice. On Monday I got a call from a man who worked at a cloud computing company in San Francisco where I applied for a job building virtual networks and maintaining network connectivity. I can do this in my sleep. I had written in my cover letter that my experience looked like a great fit to the job description and that I could start right away. He agreed, even using the term, “Hit the ground running.” He said he would pass my resume to the hiring manager right away and I should expect a call within the hour. The company was in what he called the old Hills Brothers building, standing in the very shadow of the Bay Bridge. He went on to talk about $10 membership to the gym downstairs, Free Lunch Fridays, free fruit and drinks every day, and commuter assistance. Throw in Giants tickets and I’d work there for free. I quickly wrote a bunch of notes on the specific protocols and devices where experience was required in the ad, and waited by the phone for that call. I was going to kick ass. Instead I got an e-mail after about a half an hour saying I didn’t fit the job and they were going with someone else. Back in the mud for you.

Today I got a call from a recruiter for a flat screen monitor manufacturer where I’d applied for a job providing technician support. They wanted someone with a lot of experience with Cisco CLI (I have 12 years), Linux (I have 3 years), and customer technical support (16 years). Then he asked me about my experience with VMWARE, something that wasn’t on the job description. I have almost none. He said something about deal killer and hung up. Up into the barbed wire for you.

I was tired after the recruiter call. I decided to drive up to Shaver Lake. Get some windshield time, listen to some music, grab some fresh air, and see some blue water. They are working on the dam at Shaver so the lake is the lowest it’s been since, well since they built it. I looked at the rocky moonscape, the stumps of long ago cut down trees, and the puddle that was all that could be called a lake today. I feel like that lake. Not too long ago I was full and I was strong. Now I am far weaker than I ever thought I could be, the stumps of my unfinished accomplishments are exposed; no college degree, no technical certifications, no equity, and little retirement. But the good news is they will begin refilling Shaver in January. Maybe I’ll be refilled soon too. Then those recruiters, those hiring managers, and those pickets better watch out.