Been meaning to write a life update for a while. Been hoping I could make some progress before, but you know…
Shit’s happened. I had a plan. I was going to finally move forward in life after so many years of stagnation. Around August last year, I was employed in the same position I had been for almost ten years. Things weren’t great, but they were stable. I’d recently started a new med cocktail that seemed like it was finally working to keep by brain in check. I was working on what I had hoped would be my escape plan: I wrote a business plan, nothing elaborate, just contract screen printing, but theoretically it would have been something flexible enough to let me be both a dad and an artist when I wasn’t working. I had it all lined up, years of experience, interest from potential clients, meetings with a local small business development group… All I needed to do was save up a few thousand as collateral for a business loan and I could quit my job.
But then I got fired.
A national conglomerate purchased the local shop I in which I was employed a year or so earlier, and had been destroying the business ever since. A recurring issue was the owner’s unwillingness and/or inability to pay his credit card bills, and the subsequent frequent lack of purchasing power available to the shop when those cards were maxed out. This crippled the shop’s ability to order stock in a timely manner, leading to many delays and lost customers. One major issue that arose from this was the decline of our subscription payment for Adobe Creative Suite, which quits working without an active subscription. Without access to those tools, I could not perform my job, and I informed my superiors of this. In my message, I said, and I quote, “Please forward all customer complaints to the guy not paying his credit card bill.” Sarcastic, yes, but professional.
Anyway, owner didn’t appreciate it, and Ohio is an at-will employment state.
Oh well. Capitalism. A decade of exemplary work means nothing compared to the whims of rich assholes.
At the time I figured, ok, sure whatever, I was trying to leave anyway. I’ll just apply for some remote graphic design jobs that won’t call me back to qualify for unemployment until I can cash out the tiny 401K they gave me and get my shop going. But funny thing is, HR is less than helpful when you are no longer employed. Company sat on my distribution for 3 months while I used up savings. By the time I got a hold of it I had to use half of it to pay late bills. The other half, well…
In November, my car died. Well, kinda, I can still turn over the engine, but basically everything between the frame and tire needs replaced on the back end. The repair quote put the parts alone at more than the value of the car, and labor at about double on top. Planning now to sell it when things calm down, but that hasn’t happened yet.
At that point I figured it’s probably the universe telling me I shouldn’t try to run a business. Alright, fine. Used the rest of my 401k cashout to get a cheap pickup truck, and doubled down on applying for jobs. Expanded my search from the remote jobs to which I had been applying fruitlessly, to include anything related to my field in commuting distance.
In January, I got sick with a pretty rough flu that knocked me on my ass for a solid week, with leftover symptoms hanging on a while after. I don’t think it was covid, but who knows. End of the month my wife’s car starts acting up, so for days I’m outside tearing her engine apart trying to figure out the issue, and once I finally think I have it, she drives to work and blows out the engine. Another unusable car for the collection, this one we’re still paying for.
February comes around and I still don’t have a job. As an aside, graphic design has been more and more frequently outsourced overseas for years, but is now also being replaced by AI. Knowing this, I gave up on getting a design job, lowered my standards, and have been just trying to get *any* job ever since.
March comes around, almost out of unemployment funds, then, a miracle! One of the remote design jobs I applied to called back and wanted to interview! Great! Interview is on text over teams. Odd, but ok. Then they offered me the job! Awesome! They even sent a letter of offer to sign and return. Cool! Then they send a digital check from an unrelated LLC I’m supposed to deposit into my account to pay their IT contractor via cashapp for setting up equipment.
Ah.
Here’s where I should have realized it was a scam. Unfortunately, I was desperate, and I am a dumbass. The last few places I worked were small shops that did business with checks and phone apps and my last employer shuffled funds around a half a dozen different LLCs, none of them were the name of the store. I acted in good faith assuming the people I was dealing with were at worst avoiding taxes by hiring contractors off the books, so I went ahead and processed the check. Bank even held it for three days, which I assumed meant they were making sure it was a real account and were waiting on funds to clear before giving me access (I guess not though). In the end, the check bounced, as I should have expected, and I was out $4K, and locked out of my bank accounts until I paid it off.
Fortunately, only my water was shut off before my mother in law was able to gather funds to bail me out.
That brings us to now. My unemployment ran out two weeks ago. Still unemployed. Nobody wants to hire graphic designers.
Got a rejection letter from Meijer telling me they’re hiring a different candidate for the general merchandise clerk position.
Still unemployed. Nobody wants to hire former graphic designers.
So anyway, I’ve had some spare time. Put together a trailer for the project I’ve been working at off and on for years. Mostly UE5, plus post. Figured maybe I can get a few people to toss some coins in the hat. I hate begging, but It’d mean a lot to share and check out patreon.com/robertllynch if you’re interested.
Thanks for looking,
Robert
