Unemployed in 2002

March 1: It's 10 a.m. on Friday morning, and I'm sitting at my neighborhood coffee shop reading The Wall Street Journal — in its entirety. For three years, I have been running in here for my morning coffee on my way to work and I have always envied the people I saw doing exactly what I am now.

I was laid off yesterday and this was my first decision. Before revising my resume, calling all the recruiters in my Rolodex, setting up an account at Monster.com, or any of the myriad tasks that will become part of my daily routine over the coming days and weeks, I will join the folks I have envied and spend a morning sorting through the emotions that seem to change with each article I read.

Until yesterday, I was a vice president at one of the preeminent consumer promotion agencies in the country. I'll spare the details — they really aren't the point here anyway. My story is the same as any of the hundreds of promotion marketing professionals across the country in my same situation. The editors of this magazine were nice enough to ask me to share my story and, in so doing, to give voice to the challenges facing a lot of us who call ourselves promotion marketers.

Through sharing my successes and failures, my emotional ups and downs, and the challenges that are incumbent to a job search in today's economic climate, I hope folks will glean some good ideas and, most importantly, some hope in their own efforts. For everyone else, perhaps my experiences will remind them that they can help through advice, contacts, and ideas.

March 5: I finally feel like I'm getting organized, and am definitely more focused than the last few days. It's funny, but I haven't really gotten angry yet; I'm mostly relieved that I have closure on the 18-month purgatory that my office experienced after its biggest client was acquired by a cross-town rival. I always knew that this outcome was highly likely, so I was mentally prepared for it. Still, the feeling of closure is tempered by anxiety and, occasionally, sadness.

I had a laptop at my old job so I don't even have Internet access at home. A couple of expensive days at Kinko's updating my resume and running to the local library to access e-mail was enough to convince me to invest in upgrading my home computer. I feel good about my resume, thanks to some good critical feedback from several friends in the industry. I am finding the Internet to be a remarkably good source of job information, though rather overwhelming. More than once this week, I started searching for jobs and wound up spending three or four hours online. I need to step back and formulate a plan.

March 6: My old employer called and needs help on a one-day consulting assignment in Chicago. Since I had expressed interest in doing just this type of thing during my severance meeting last week, they took me up on the offer. I used to live there, so I can stay with friends and visit with a few recruiters I know in town. I'm looking forward to it; it will be a good story to tell in interviews and it reaffirms my self-confidence. That's one thing that sneaks up on me at times, the creeping sense that I did something to get laid off. I have to keep reminding myself that this isn't about performance — it's about profits.

March 7: My wife and I have been doing some soul-searching over the last few days regarding the “where” part of the job search. She is finishing her residency in family practice medicine in the next two months. We originally narrowed her search to Minneapolis because of my job — and because we like it here. She has a couple of offers in town, so it makes sense to stay here rather than starting from scratch to move somewhere else. We have the freedom to look elsewhere now and we're going to at least consider some other areas where we might like to live. I'm not sure that freedom makes things easier.

To be continued.