Renaissance Man

I am no longer officially unemployed. I have landed a temporary job so that I can at least get some cash flow going to avoid the white van coming to repossess my stuff. I’m working as a contract employee for a local computer company in a very interesting place.

It’s called Renaissance Village. On the surface, it seems like either the site for a medieval festival, or a old time homely neighborhood. It is by far not either one of those. It is actually a FEMA trailer park housing hurricane evacuees. There are about 650 campers here, housing about 3000 people. There are people from both Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. People from the Mississippi coast, southwest Louisiana, and mostly from New Orleans.

There are rows and rows of campers lined up side by side, all brand new and completely furnished with everything you would need to live. There are various agencies here to supply these people with everything they could possibly need. A mobile post office, a trailer that houses a library, a fully staffed catering service that serves three meals a day, and an employment van where you can go to find a job.

The employment van is accompanied by a truck which houses a computer lab. It is basically a moving truck that has the cargo box converted to house eight computer desks with flat screen monitors and a satellite internet hookup. The purpose of the lab is for people to go online and look for jobs. Of course, as I am observing, it is mostly used to allow people to aimlessly surf the internet all day long.

I don’t have a lot of faith in too many of these people actually wanting to find work. Think about it, if you lived in a brand new home (albeit a very small one) rent free, with everything you needed, three hot meals a day, free transportation, everything taken care of for you……would you be in hurry to leave? I think this is even more accentuated by the fact that a lot of these folks had it much worse before the hurricanes hit.

So, I sit in the computer lab truck all day, waiting for people to come in, have them sign in on a clipboard, and watch them to make sure they are doing something that sort of resembles something important.

Get A Job

I’ve been putting off posting this entry due to my sheer anger and rage, but it is beginning to pass. Last Monday, October 31, I began what would have been the fourth week in a row of just sitting at home wondering when my company was going to give me something to do. I had repeatedly asked my boss for some work, calling her and emailing her, attempting to find anything at all to do.

So about mid-morning, my cell phone rings and its my immediate supervisor, and her, the boss. They are calling to inform me that the company is having a layoff, and of course, I am on the list. “I know this is unfortunate timing”, says my supervisor, with not even the slightest tinge of concern in his voice. Of course the bastard is referring to the impending arrival of my first baby, any day now.

They go through the complete spiel, which I only halfway listen to, and I do not respond. Finally they ask me if I have any questions, and I say, “No.”. I then just say bye and hang up the phone. I really didn’t see the point of arguing or complaining. It would have been useless.

Now I could go off here, and tell you about how stupid this company was (is), and about how they never did anything right, and how disorganized they are, and about the inane leadership, but I won’t. I had decided long ago not to put anything about work in my blog, and I’m going to stick to that, mostly.

So, I shipped my laptop back to them, and signed the stupid separation paperwork, and in return will get a check for two weeks severance pay, my unpaid vacation, and a month more of insurance.

And that’s about it. Just like that I have no job and join the rest of the unemployed population of Baton Rouge. At least it will give me some perspective of that side of things, which I am most certain will provide lots to blog about.

If anyone out there actually reads my blog, feel free to contact me with any computer related jobs you might know about. That way I won’t be blogging about my experiences working at “Corn Dog on a Stick” next week.

Attack of the Birds

Photoblog

I have decided to incorporate some photoblog entries into my blog. Here is the first entry.

















Taken with a Panasonic F20Z