Shameless promotion: Well, why not?
As people who know me personally, are aware; today I suffered the swinging axe at Microsoft along with about 1,399 others. On the lighter side, this frees up much more time for this blog.
Of course, I can start by acknowledging that there is no better medium for reaching out for a job than the internet.
Today, I’m going to talk through some of what I did online throughout the day.
I have to admit, that I live on the net. Social, work, shopping, etc. It’s convenient and helps me accomplish a lot more than you’d think. As a result, I pretty much got the impression this was on the way about 3 weeks ago. Yes, it came from rumour sites which are not very dependable; but I’ve been in more than one company and it’s not difficult to see the patterns emerge. By 7:30 am this morning I had 3 pieces of email. (In order) An announcement from our CEO, an announcement about our division from our VP, and a request to meet 1 on 1 with our group’s general manager. While nothing was confirmed, I knew what it all meant. I just wasn’t really at liberty to talk about it.
So the next stage was twitter. The fastest turn around there is on the net. Twitter is one of the sites that’s been used to break news stories. By the time I was en-route to work I’d already been asked if my job was safe considering the news release. I was forced to respond honestly, but cryptically.
8:14am – Magic Eight Ball says, “Duck and Cover!”
11:00am – I love talking about job opportunities when at the moment I don’t have need of another job. As of 11:00am I am still a full-time employee 
12:00noon – I love talking about job opportunities. As of 12:00am I am available for hire. Yes I knew since 7am, No, I couldn’t talk about it.
The 11am was the hardest one to word properly. I enjoyed my job. I have nothing but positive things to say for my team and the product I worked on. I’d even reapply to the team if the head-count were available. So, while I was not directly told anything until 11:35 (I have a habit of checking the clock when specific life events occur); I was pretty sure of the day’s outcome.
The noon posting was just entertaining. The news had gone public, I was able to leave for the day; but I needed to at least stop feeling like I was deceiving friends. I’ve moved more to Facebook and Twitter over the last month; so my announcement went to twitter which auto feeds back to Facebook and then will feed back to LJ overnight at 3:35 am. (Sadly, no one has figured out why I chose that specific time for overnight twitter updates to LiveJournal.) Within an hour, facebook had generated 20 comments of support. 10 of these had come in within 10 minutes. I complimented the posting on Twitter at 1:30pm with one on LiveJournal which also continues to rack up additions of compassion and the occasional offer of support. Again about 20 within an hour.
At 2:00pm I took time to do a phone screen I’d set up with another company. (As I said, I expected this and started that machine about two weeks ago). Of course all positive energy towards the success in that venture is welcome. Once that was over I moved to LinkedIn. I actually think that LinkedIn is one of the best professional networking sites available. I for some reason have come to view Monster and other such sites as the online dating world of job searching. None the less, I look forward to trying to pick something up on those sites as well. With LinkedIn, I did have a horrendous time changing my ‘current’ job into a ‘past’ job. I was very pleased to see 2 recommendations come in from team members and welcome anyone else who’d like to do that as well.
After that… I had my standard after work day responsibilities to take care of at home. So, for now it’s more social online to catch up with friends who are wishing me well and hope and the like.
I think that this is actually the most valuable part of the process. Your social world tends to keep you grounded. And in times of job search the most important thing you can do is keep a positive attitude.
So above all else the blog will continue. I will probably make a weekly post about the job search. Of course if you’re looking for a self pronounced expert on Online Social Networking; I’m available for consultations, presentation, and of course full time software development. (Don’t think for a second that my long time Seeekrit Project ain’t getting dusted off)
And in case you’re wondering.
My name is Andrei Freeman. I have been writing Mac code as an amateur or as a professional since the Mac was released. I can be reached with inquiries and job offers at <andrei dot nospam at mac dot com>
The question that came up for me reading your Facebook statuses is why say anything? People may have been asking, sure, but you didn’t have to post anything at the 11 o’clock hour. In wording it the way you did, you gave people like myself the impression you had dodged the bullet. Then an hour later, we found out that not only did you not dodge it, but all the comments of relief and happiness were for naught. What was to gain by contorting a phrase?
In so much as that, I’d received a LOT of inquiries on the topic. More than I really want to identify. I felt that silence would receive a worse response so I opted to make the response I did.
[...] As was mentioned closer to four months ago; I was one of the allegedly five thousand victims of Microsoft’s 2009 layoffs. In general; this tends to put a bit of a damper on your day… week… year. My original perception was that this would give me more time to blog. However, in a weakened economy and with a family to feed, you pull back on the lighter needs in favour of the things that will eventually put cash in your wallet such as employment. As much as I may have dreams of being paid to speak around the world on the concepts of social-networking (and I can hear Dave Winer laughing at my impudence already) No one so far has offered me any cash for working on the topic. [...]