Job Hunting, as a general rule...

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

Uh It was doing it too me on regular IE at work too.

[stacer]

I think the thing is that you spead such a large percentage of your life and it's necessary for so much of the rest of your life (eating, shelter, toys, etc.) that it becomes wrapped up in your identity. So when something happens to it you just feel slashed.

This happened to me recently, though it wasn't really a job, just the idea of jobs. My publishing teacher gave a better recommendation for a publishing scholarship for a couple other classmates, and I didn't do as well on my publishing project as I wanted--my own fault, because I didn't put enough into it. But it was disappointing, and I began to doubt whether I should even be doing this. Sometimes I wonder why I'm doing this. I enjoy it, but sometimes I don't think I'm very good at it.

Anyway, fuzzy, I still sympathize, on a number of levels.

[Mistress of Darkness]

Thank you Saint. It was really long, like 2000px or something and I have a hard time reading small text in such a long line.

Stacer, I understand what you mean. I've wanted to be a mother my whole life, and conciouseniously (that can't be spelled right) tried to learn what I could beforehand. Yet, I am so confused and flustered so much of the time. . . .

[Mistress of Darkness]

Saint, where exactly are (will) you be working? Is it the AOL job?

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

No, AOL never called me back, and I don't think they were prepared to offer me what MicroAnalytics is going to give me. I'll start in a week writing/revising/editing tech docs, training material, and help files.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

well Mon & Tues we can start hanging for lunch...

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

sounds good to me. My first day is Feb 28th. Should we meet somwhere at noon?

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Ugh.  Ok so today I came to disturbing realization that I'm reacting to losing this job as if I'd been dumped by a long-term boyfriend.  

I'm like actually on the rebound.  This new job? It's a rebound job, and I don't ever expect to fall in love with it.  So I'm in the crashing "HA! I don't need you, I can find a better job than you.... oh I"m so sad and lonely." phase.  It's been so long since I've been dumped by a guy I don't know how to recover from this. Normally I would say rebound is a bad idea, and I would hang out with my girlfriends and eat lots of ice cream but I still need money while I'm getting over being dumped.

I would like to hang out with my old friends from the job, (the ones who got fired too) but we're all busy trying to find new jobs, and I'm not sure if it would help.  wah.  I would go back if they would take me back.

Hmm...I'm not sure what to say, fuzzy. I've only been dumped once, though there was an earlier time I felt dumped and things finally fell apart a couple months later. Anyway the first time chronologically I rebounded by putting in my mission papers. Dunno how smart that was, as I ended up with (relatively mild, I supose) depression on my mission, but at least it saved my scholarship since I didn't go to school that next semester. The second time I rebounded by starting to play Starcraft, something that lasted for like 3 years (and got depressed again but got myself out of that somehow...maybe having friends at TLE helped me out there).

Anyway the first time I felt dumped I realized that I had been in love with being in love, not really in love with that girl (we didn't have anything in common besides being LDS and knowing how to use IRC in 1995). She wasn't the person I really wanted to be with for the rest of my life. So I went out and did something I did know God wanted me to do to prepare for my life. But it still hurt; I had a deep need for intimacy that now had no prospect for being met, and it was just painful even though I was glad I wasn't with that specific girl anymore.

Is that job really something you wanted to be doing for life? From what I gather about it, I don't have the impression that was the case. Yet you probably have a deep need to feel you are contributing to your family, at this time in some financial way. Will your new job do that any less effectively than your old job? If your core need is still being met as well as the old job met it, then maybe that will help you to get over the shock of losing it.

Or maybe there are issues like you felt needed at that job, and then they decided they didn't need you, so that's a big blow. I think most people have a need to feel needed. But how important was their need for you in the grand scheme of things? You've still got someone else that needs you much more than that company ever did. Maybe basking in that constant need will help you overcome the loss of the other.

Anyway, those are my thoughts, with what little I know about the situation. That page was too distracting stretched like that before for me to respond to anything on it in any meaningful way.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

Ugh.  Ok so today I came to disturbing realization that I'm reacting to losing this job as if I'd been dumped by a long-term boyfriend.  
 
I'm like actually on the rebound.  This new job? It's a rebound job, and I don't ever expect to fall in love with it.  So I'm in the crashing "HA! I don't need you, I can find a better job than you.... oh I"m so sad and lonely." phase.  It's been so long since I've been dumped by a guy I don't know how to recover from this. Normally I would say rebound is a bad idea, and I would hang out with my girlfriends and eat lots of ice cream but I still need money while I'm getting over being dumped.
 
I would like to hang out with my old friends from the job, (the ones who got fired too) but we're all busy trying to find new jobs, and I'm not sure if it would help.  wah.  I would go back if they would take me back.

Sorry I got distracted...

Your feeling a pretty understandable loss right now... getting fired for whatever reason is like rejection, only its harsher because the folks who did the firing did it for reasons that make taking you back harder than getting dumped. And they care less about kissing (which come to think about it is probably good)
So since you have to do things like eat... pay bills and function, a rebound job isnt bad. Just keep your eyes open for a better job. And Saints the rebound job master... so maybe ask him about it. Im kind of in a career where I have to really screw up to get fired (rather than just arbitrairily get fired) so the concept is kind of alien to me. But I do wish you luck.

[Entsuropi]

Offtopic:

Jeffe, you hear about the upcoming Brit army changes? They are closing down every regiment in the army and merging them into 'super regiments'. There will be no more black watch or highlanders, only the Scottish Regiment. The army guys say it makes more sense and will make it easier to do realistic deployments, but bang there goes the history.

Thought you might like to know.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

Yeah I knew... it makes sense but like you said there goes this history...

[Skar]

Does it make sense?

So, they're making the base units bigger?  Seems to me that with the state of the world today it would make more sense to make smaller units self-sufficient.  We have the technology logistical and otherwise to make a small air wing self-sufficient, small artillery battery self-sufficient, etc...

[Entsuropi]

As I understood it Skar, the problem was that some regiments didn't have enough men, so couldn't be fielded very effectively, and having a regiment with its own set of support staff made tweaking them for specific roles harder than it should be.

Plus, the MoD reckons it can save money this way.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

It makes sense if you understand how the british Military structure has been  regimentally organized for a long long time. Often instead of doing what we do in the US they perpetuate units long past their viability due to tradition, instead of fixing the problem. The new restructuring allows the army to focus on small unit tactics, and make a military thats more flexible while removing overlap in units. You'll still have light more mobile special forces, but heavier more specialized armor and infantry units will be consolidated. Its not like the SAS and Royal Marines are going to go away... but a lot of support functions will be merged makeing less waste and better logistics.

We do it by closing bases and merging units (the 9th Cav BDE being broken up and shipped off to different units stands out in my mind, but only cause it was my dads last field command) and thats basically going to be the end result of the British realignment.

[Skar]

I see.  That makes sense.  Thanks.