SiliconBeat

I received this compelling tale from a reader on the subject I’m writing about for Sunday’s Mercury News - what the veterans of the dot-com bust think about what’s going on today:

I’d love to hear more about your project. I’m 29 now, so I was just a spectator of our last Silicon Valley disaster- Old enough for it to have just a peripheral impact, but young enough to hide under the cozy umbrella of “still in college”.

I remember watching the news and seeing stories about this new crop of young, unemployed SF professionals, wearing European shoes and funky glasses, holding up clever poster board signs on the Embarcadero that said things like “Will Web Design for Food.” I remember thinking, “That’s cute. How funny. I wonder if they’re regretting just getting certified as a “webmaster” instead of getting a REAL degree?” Because there was this false ideology swarming around our SJSU campus that a Bachelors Degree, in anything, was like a force field against all threats of unemployment or financial struggle, forever. I really bought into this line of thinking, so I and went ahead and pursued my degree in Theater Arts. (I mean, why not do what I love, if having a degree is all that matters?)

After deciding cattle-call auditions in Los Angeles smog wasn’t for me, I naturally fell into marketing communications. A high-tech sell-out as my struggling actor/waittress friends would say. It must be something in the South Bay air, combined with my incessant need to talk, write, share stories and tell people ALL about the things I love so they can love them too.

And now, here I am. Climbing less ladder rungs on my chosen trek than my actor/waitress friends in LA. Since late October, I’ve been an unemployed workaholic; and I’ve been going a bit crazy.

There are several stages of pink-slip insanity…(Perhaps this could be a supplement to your piece??) There’s the “F@$# this system, I’m going to travel!” stage. (I went to Japan.) Then comes the shoulder-shrugging-”I’m-talented-this-won’t-last-long” stage.

THEN comes the on-line-job-hunting-stage. I was like a crazy woman in this one. My PJ’s never came off, I had like 25 windows open on my browser at one time- monster.com, hotjobs.com, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc, etc, etc… CRAZY.

Then comes depression, anger, closet reorganizing, discouragment, fear… then another peak of nuttiness- the “brilliant new business idea” stage. That’s a fun one- “I’m going to be my own boss and help stimulate the economy with a new business!” I called up old collegues (about every other day or so) with “new discovery” excitment, asking, “Okay, okay… Do you think I could get funding for THIS…??”

It might be interesting to do a Big Brother’s/Big Sisters-esc mentor program- pairing the old batch of Silicon Valley Vet’s with this new crop of fallen tech fiends. Wish SOMEONE would have told me- Listen, you’re going to lose your mind, panic, whine, cry, get angry, then hopeless… but you’ll be okay. Just keep looking for the light at the end of the tunnel- you’ll see it eventually.

I’m excited to see how your Pink Slip Project turns out. I’d love to be in your loop. I mean, I’ve got some time on my hands… and now that my confidene in on-line job hunting has been shaken, I’m not sure what to do.

Best of Luck!
Robyn Hannah

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Love… Rob
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robblog.tumblr.com- it’s the blog I abandoned after realizing I’d never get discovered that way.