Unemployment does get boring

I have been a techno recluse for the last few months and I know that a few of you might have been wondering where I disappeared to. Well, I can tell you now that I have been through a very frustrating time.

In July I was made redundant from my very short lived role of Brand Manager at Renaissance Brands. I don't consider myself a vicitim but more of a casualty of the current economic climate. I was employed to bring on the 'next big thing', an investment for the future; unfortunately I quickly became an expensive liability. The digital Freeview PVR was going to be the hero product but the TVNZ TiVo announcement gave Renaissance management cold feet so the project was dumped. We had actually signed an agreement with Magic TV which I thought was an excellent product regardless of TiVo. It is good see that freeviewshop has picked up the product.

Fortunately money has not been an issue for us, well not yet anyway. But we have had to change our lifestyle slightly. For the first 2 months of unemployment I worked on our house during what was apparently the worst Wellington Winter in 30 years and I managed to paint the house inside and out. Quite a feat when you consider that we hang off a hill and the scaffolding was 30 meters high! I even painted the roof which is probably one of the scariest things I have done. All the work paid off as we sold our house in 7 days and at a good price. In the next 4 weeks we are dramactically downsizing. Moving from our modern, 3 storey house in central Wellington with the hell harbour view to a little 2 bedroom old house in the Hutt hills. Fortunately we have this option, the house in the Hutt is our rental property which we have owned for a number of years but it will be a shock to the system none the less.

I have seriously lost count of how many jobs I have applied for; sometimes your application is acknowledged, sometimes not. Sometimes you get to meet with a recruitment consultant and sometimes you get an interview with the employer. All very frustrating and how the market has changed. Probably 2 years ago it was a job hunters market, loads of jobs and too few applicants and now it is exactly the opposite. It is a lengthy process as well; one position I applied for dragged on for 8 weeks from initial application to interview to not being successful and I really, really liked the role.

After 20 odd years working at the cutting edge of technology in a variety of roles I have started to consider other options and have been looking at purchasing an exisiting business. It is possible that to secure a financial future for my family I may have to buy myself a job. Not necessarily where I want to be but I know my wife has probably had enough of me being at home. On the positive side though I have been able to spend lots of time with my 4 year old son and we are good mates. I know he doesn't want me to go back to work.




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