Two-Time Victim of the Economy

I've got a confession to make. I got a job...and then was laid off two months after I started...to the day.

After the 4th of July, I was hired through a recruiter to do some sales and marketing support for a prominent, well-established company in Des Moines. (The challenge of working with this recruiter may be its own blog post at a later date :P)

I took the job because it was sort of in line with what I had done before and incorporated some of the social media skills I've acquired over the past several months. AND because my husband and I decided I'd been laid off long enough...mostly my husband...

I'll admit, it was a HUGE challenge having a structured day, sitting in an open cubicle (I previously had an office) and thinking about all the other projects I had going on that I had to put on hold.

After about a week, I realized that this job wasn't for me and began my job search with earnest. Let's just say that the "prominent, well-established" company in Des Moines was being sucked dry financially by a start-up company they began three years ago. I bought my own office supplies and had to bring my own cleaning supplies from home to clean my cube on Day 2. This was all a little strange to me. Why did they hire a support person if they can't buy legal pads or pencils?

After the two months I worked there, of the job duties I was hired to do, I would say that I devoted about 5% of my time to them. The other 95% of my time was devoted to cold calling in order to drum up business for the start-up side of the company. This was a responsibility that wasn't made known to me by the recruiter or my supervisor before I was hired. There are a lot of things I'll do, but cold calling isn't one of them. Let's just say that I'm not that good at it...Had I known this before I was hired, I wouldn't have taken the job.

So, 2 months after I was hired, the day after we returned from our Labor Day vacation in Northern Wisconsin, my supervisor called me into his office at the end of the day and told me that they were going to have to let me go:

"You've been sitting in on all of our meetings; you know what the state of the company is. We just don't have any money. We'd hoped that there would have been an improvement in the last 30 days."

I asked him 2 questions before I packed my things and left. "Was it something I've done?" This determines whether or not they'd contest my claim for unemployment. He confirmed that it was through no fault of my own. "When is this layoff effective?" He said immediately. That's all I needed to hear.

Now I'm back to being Unemployed in Des Moines and loving it. I am working part-time for the Iowa United Nations Association planning events for the Des Moines/Ames Chapters, but I am still looking for a full-time gig or freelance opportunities. If you'd like to connect, please let me know.

I've noticed that there aren't that many networking opportunities this week. Wondered if any of you would like to meet up for coffee - the more the merrier. Just let me know and we can make a big group of it. I'm thinking Thursday at 10:00am at the Caribou on Ingersoll downtown...send me an email suzanne_hull@hotmail.com or make a comment below this post. Have a great week!