Officially unemployed

[P5se Camelback]

... There is going to be a huge knowledge and information gap. Earlier this week, I literally had to explain to someone (who still remains) how to save their excel file. Those people are the ones that remain.

Kevin,
For what it's worth, I know just how you feel, sorta. Except, in the corporate world, it works the opposite way!

After 38 years as an Industrial Design professional, working my way up from "Designer" to "Staff Designer," "Senior Designer," "Head Program Designer" and finally "Design Manager" of a locaal plant in a major corporation (300,000 employees, world-wide) I found this "little" job, here in Florida, designing furniture for a "Ready-to-Assemble" funiture manufacturer. Never having designed any furniture and not knowing their manufacturing processes at all I had a ton of homework to do to get up to speed as fast as I could! But after two years I had won them their first National Design Award.

Jump forward three more years. There were four of us designers, a VP of Design and an admin assistant in this little design office in Ft. Myrs, Florida. Between the four of us there was close to 150 years of experience. The whole rest of the corporation was (is) in Jamestown, NY. One day we heard that they had hired three new designers, fresh out of school. A week later, these three pups came down to pay us a visit. I was doing a marker rendering on my drawing board (I was gettinig to the point of giving a photo a run for the money.) This "kid" of 22 or 23 asked, "How did you do that?" I looked at him. :?: "With all these markers, some pastels, a little white gouche on a 4/0 brush, why?" He couldn't draw, only use CAD. He had no practical design experience ... and the furniture business is cutthroat! hock:

Long story short ... within a month they closed our office and laid us all off! Save that annual rent, save by not having to pay all those big salaries. As a result of going with "No Experience" they have lost over 60% of marketshare and are in danger of going Chapter 7 ... Bankrupt!

Lay off the guys with the larger salaries (and the most knowledge and experience) and keep the guys with the lower salaries, "They only draw pictures, what do we need them for anyway?"

And so it goes.

Good luck finding suitable employment, Kevin. I feel for you!