[Oiler41]

I was working a consulting job in the refining industry for a couple of years; I knew it was a matter of time situation going in to it; what I didn't count on was the economy turning South at the end of it, and that my post consulting job situation was going to be much different (albeit much, much better) than what I thought it was going to be. I thought I was going to return to the company I was with when I took the consulting job, but that didn't work out.

I stayed in LA job hunting for a while and living on unemployment. I made good money consulting, but wound up not having much to show for it for several reasons that I'll skip. Anyway, after nine months of looking for work in California, I gave up. I'd met the love of my life in February (although I didn't know it for sure at the time) but in September, I did know. I was still unemployed and in order for us to work things out, we needed to be living closer together so, I left California and moved to Texas. After four months of job hunting here, and after a total of one year and six days of being unemployed and playing in between job hunting, I recently started a new job as an industrial Health, Safety and Environmental Manager for a manufacturing plant in here Texas.

If someone had told me twenty years ago that in 2009, I was going to take a year off of work, and still manage to be okay financially, I would have found that to be quite amusing. I had not been out of a job since 1983 prior to all of this. This economic downturn has been, and remains pretty tough for a lot of people. I was lucky that I had my unemployment and my rental house income to get me through. I'm indeed lucky that it worked out for me. I know many others have not been so fortunate. I've learned a great many lessons through this. I hope things improve soon, especially for you California folks. That place is an economic train wreck!

Glynn

Glynn