| Step 1: file for unemployment immediately. Step 2: very carefully husband your money. If you have student loans, call them and ask for a deferrment until you start a job again. Likewise, ask your lenders for a deferrment as well. Step 3: if you have friends or family that you can move in with, consider doing so. Step 4: don't be fat. There is a lot of subtle discrimination against obesity, and not-so-subtle discrimination against being old (where old tends to be 35ish). In 2001, I got laid off like a lot of developers. At that time, I had about 6 months of money in the bank, and I felt that I could ride out the downturn in the economy. I was too proud to file for unemployment at the beginning, and as the money dwindled, I found out that the contract agency that I was hired through had claimed I was employed for 3 months after I got laid off (they did that sort of thing to reduce unemployment insurance premiums). It took months to get that straightened out with the unemployment agency and by the time I got my first unemployment check, I also managed to get hired - 9 months after getting laid off. I ended up losing my car that summer to the repo man, and I couldn't get my mortgage/hoa payments caught up either, so I ended up losing my condo about 5 months after starting a job that was a 40% paycut. The next time I ended up unemployed for an extended period (2003-4), I ended up using my lifetime benefits for unemployment in FL (if you make what most devs make, you'll hit that cap in about 6 months of unemployment). I moved in with friends, who had a hard time understanding just how bad the economy was, and that strained a friendship that has never recovered. Back then, I sent out dozens of resumes every day to anything on Monster (or the local news papers) that looked like a job I could do. In an absolute worst case scenario, talk to an Army recruiter. If they were taking 43 year olds in 2003, I would have enlisted. The army is taking folks that old NOW (marines, navy and air force won't take anyone 30+ without prior experience), but back when we were "winning" the cap was much lower. |