Vagrancy

I'm in a strange mood.

I like to kid that I'm now an unemployed vagrant now (which is partially true). The father character in the Sally Forth strip has been out of work for two weeks, just like me, so I read it to my wife this morning, where the wife says to her daughter that the father has had a 'rough couple of weeks'. My wife said that she thought I hadn't, to which I agreed, though, she added, if this company turns me down, I might be unhappy. I told her that I won't be pleased if that happens, but also that I expect it to happen, because I think that they're looking for a deeper level of technical knowledge than I have. She asked if I would look for another job if that happens, and I said probably not, which she said was okay.

But then she said that if she was laid off in the next seven years, she expected that we would both look for work, and somehow the image of me, looking for work after (X) number of years not working really flattened me. It shouldn't have; we said that we'd do that, and in the abstract, it sounded okay. It was the sudden realization that a) if I got a job right this minute, it would likely pay at about the level that I was earning, but b) if I looked for one in (X) years, it would likely be a much lower paying job, both because I wouldn't have skills that were all that current, and because I would be, gasp, in the position of being an older person looking for work. I had assumed that if I didn't go back to work now, I wouldn't, ever again, barring the possibility that something interesting came along (which seems to happen only to Fast Company subscribers), and I knew that should circumstances change, I would be willing to work again. The thought that I might have to do it, and do it at the barely 'unskilled worker' level, was disconcerting and more than a little discouraging.

Made me feel old.