When I lost my job at Mambu last June (baby’s first layoff!), it was only a little bit surprising. I’d done a darn good job making myself valuable there—hell, I’d hosted the company-wide gathering only a few months before. But they’d been taking on water, so to speak, and eventually even the morale officers find themselves holding a paddle.¹ I was sad, but already in the Acceptance phase when the fateful Zoom call came.

All things being equal I’d rather *not* be laid off (hot take, I know), but I was less than panicky. I’d gotten my Mambu job rather easily, and I’d chatted with some recruiters before I was even laid off, so I was confident in the job search ahead. As Kiki pointed out, it was kind of them to let me go at the beginning of the summer! I took an impromptu trip home, directed my improv play, made a “Funemployment” list of projects, and started my job search with a casual pickiness that I now regret. “I dunno,” I’d wonder, “do I really want to commute to the other side of Amsterdam?”

But an uncomfortable pattern emerged: interviews would go swimmingly and I’d miss the job anyway, rejected by templatized form letter again and again. This was genuinely confusing! I’m a competent person with a killer resumé, and was often told so directly. When I eventually hired a career coach, she almost immediately pegged one big problem: “Ah, so you’re in your 40s.” I’ve been earning 2-3% salary increases for 20 years, which makes me significantly more expensive than someone fresh out of school for the same job. You’re DAMN RIGHT I’d do that job a lot better! But as I’m sure you’ve noticed, capitalism these days prefers cheap to good.

The career coach was useful in several ways, not least helping me craft my sexy new two-page resumé² and website to go with it. And I kept on applying, cause what else are ya gonna do? When you’re unemployed, your job is the job search, and boy is it a crummy one. You’re thinking about it 24 hours a day while often having little to actually do. And the whole tech market’s having a bad couple of years, so job listings in my field slowed to a trickle, and I got less and less picky about what I’d apply for. Morale reached a low when I found myself completing multiple writing assignments for a marketing company, neither expecting nor particularly wanting a job offer in exchange. One company offered a feedback session after rejecting me—I accepted, but boy does it sting to hear, in essence: “If you’d just done these two things differently, you’d be employed right now.” I knew this couldn’t last forever, but that was cold comfort while in the middle of it.

Finally I got a job offer as a lead instructional designer for a company called SITA. And not a moment too soon! My “Funemployment” project list was drained, and I felt no urge to tackle what was left. The grass is always greener, but I was more than ready for something to fill my daytime hours. (And, ya know, ready for the money.) My final tally of job applications was somewhere around 50, which according to my job-search-influencer friend Bonnie Dilber is actually well below average. The job market’s rough out there, y’all.

SITA does airport logistics—the utterly dizzying mix of software, hardware, people, and systems that get you and your bag onto the correct plane. (Well, usually.) I was shocked to learn they were founded in 1947—this month is their 75th anniversary!—so they’ve literally been under your nose for your entire air-travelling life, and like a good umpire, they’re doing their job if you never hear about them. 

As you might guess, there’s a catch: my new office is in Rotterdam, an hour-long train ride from home, and I’m expected there three times a week. That long commute stings a little extra since Mambu was a ten-minute cycle ride from door to door. I also get to re-acquaint myself with Windows, which I haven’t used full-time since 2002, and didn’t miss one tiny bit.³ If you need me I’ll be googling Windows keyboard shortcuts for the next eight months.

I don’t want all these caveats to come across as a lack of excitement for the new job. It’s a good one in a super-interesting field. As I write these words I’m rolling through the Dutch countryside on a sunny morning, cows standing in the fields amidst a low layer of fog. Ya know, there’s worse commutes to have. But my first week was so full of bewildering acronyms and overcomplicated PowerPoint slides that I felt like I was in the army. So wish me luck.

1. For the record: Mambu is still in business and I wish them the best!
2. Nothing wrong with incremental change, but this was my first ground-up resumé rewrite in something like 20 years.
3. In my earlier, pickier days, using a Mac was basically a job requirement for me; by the time I interviewed with SITA I didn’t even ask about it.