Rebuilding after Financial Crisis and Bankruptcy in a Recession (Part 3)

This is an ongoing post in the series Surviving the Lien Years – Rebuilding after Financial Crisis and Bankruptcy in a Recession.  Our Maturing Careers is part three in the series.

Yea! We had a house.  We had no money to decorate it but that was ok because we had a house. I refused to go into debt decorating the house.  Lee appreciated this sentiment.  We decided to decorate it as we had the money.

We were like 2 ships literally passing in the night for those first couple of years in our career jobs.  When we did not have to travel and were home together, we were selfish with out time.  We wanted to spend time with each other.  So many people said we were lucky to have “quality” time together.  Honestly, we wanted “quantity” time.  We learned we could get along with an enemy if we only saw them a couple of hours a week.  We wanted to live our life together not in hotels away from each other and on the phone.

Obviously, our next goals involved finding jobs that did not require so much travel.  Lee made the decision for himself on this very abruptly one day.  He was sick of some things happening at his company and turned in his notice effective immediately.  He paged me and I returned the call from a pay phone in a hotel lobby in New Orleans.  My immediate concern was whether we had the money for our mortgage.  He worked on the budget and determined we needed $500 more a month than we had to make ends meet.  He took a temporary job at Pizza Hut delivering pizzas once more while looking for a job.

Getting a job in 1995, was much different than it is today.  Every Saturday night or Sunday morning we scoured the Sunday paper looking for any job that might fit Lee’s work experience.  We typed (on MS Word and not an ancient typewriter) cover letters and resumes.  We faxed those that we could on Sunday afternoon and the rest went in the mail first thing Monday morning.

He got a job within 4 weeks.  The dot com bubble was getting some air about this time and it was much easier to get a job in 95 than in 92 and 93.  His job was actually as an Administrative Assistant (aka Secretary) for a temporary staffing company that was opening offices in Atlanta.  He did the job assigned to him and more.  He was quickly promoted out of the admin role and into various positions within this growing company.

1996 was an exciting time to be a native Atlantan and it was an exciting time for Lee and me as a couple.  Lee was no longer traveling on the weekends.  We had the opportunity to get involved in the local county Republican Party.  We went to precinct meetings and conventions at the county, district, and state level.  The trip to Augusta for our State Convention was one of the first non-work related trip Lee and I took since our honeymoon.  It was not a glamorous trip but it was fun.  We learned a lot, met many more people, and had a good time.  The following weekend, we actually went to a bed and breakfast for the weekend.  It was so good to be able to go on a vacation even if it was a weekend getaway just be by ourselves.

The Summer Olympics were coming to Atlanta that summer and it was affecting everyone in the state in some way.  There were all sorts of jobs throughout the city because of the Olympics, which really helped the temporary staffing company employing Lee.  Now that we were more established in our career jobs (as established as you can be after 3 years), we were able to afford live off of one of our incomes.  With the left over money, we did things for ourselves like a few short weekend trips and purchasing nice gifts for our family.  For example, Lee and I purchased tickets for our family members to attend one of the Olympic events.  All of our brothers and sisters and parents went with us to watch the US in an Olympic baseball game.  We were excited to share some of our moderate financial success with our family.  The rest of the money we were saving for a rainy day and/or a bigger house.  We had learned from Lee’s experience, it is important to be able to say “I quit” when things get bad at your place of employment.

After the Olympics were over, I began looking for a new job.  Remember, the dot com era was upon us.  I found and landed a job doubling my salary in 36 hours.  I scoured the Sunday paper, sent in my resume, had a phone interview on Tuesday morning, and a job offer on Tuesday afternoon.  I was floored that it happened so quickly. The job was for a consulting gig at The Home Depot working on an Informix database in the Imports IS Department.  We used Informix at Mead and that gave me a leg up over my competitors.

The consulting job was fabulous.  I did not travel anymore. The job was in the same area of Atlanta as Mead’s Home Office for the Containerboard Division so my commute did not change.  I was actually working with people who were close to my own age and since the job was at THD’s Store Support Center (known in most other businesses as Corporate HQ) there were lots of the employees.  The little IS Department of my division at Mead had 15 or so people. There were only 3 other girls females women (whatever you prefer to be called).  I was the youngest employee in my department by at least 10 years for the majority of my time there.  Now, I was working on a floor with about 100 other employees, most of whom were my age give or take 5 – 10 years.  There were so many people in similar life situations as Lee and me.  I enjoyed the environment immensely.

When the project I was on at THD went live, the contract employees were let go.  I knew that going in.  I was able to get another contract position rather quickly.  While I was at that job, I got an offer to work at THD full time and I jumped on it.  I could not wait to be back working with the people with whom I had previously worked.

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