[Ayoob]

Hopefully I'll get a job at the Camp. My particular skillset would be worth the paper it's printed on... if there IS a camp to get a job at.

Then you need a side business that's all cash. I've been messing around with a small scale business, I think it could work out.

My capital investment is low, the product is in high demand, simple to maintain a profit margin, and I can ramp up production if the situation presents itself.

Live low on the hog, help others get what they want, wet my beak. That's the plan.

[Maria_t]

I live in a small village in England and I have a job at the local school. It's a two minute walk from my house so I think my job is at least partly immune. Of course, I have and will be affected in some ways but a lot of things are done locally where I live, so I'm not expecting the end of life as I know it. I don't drive, I eat local produce and much of our electricity comes from our renewable sources. I just hope it stays that way!

[Pops]

Good stuff!

Hi Maria, thanks for joining in!

Doing/making/selling something on your own sure feels like a good backup, the problem is lots of us have avocations that are just as outdated as our vocations! I play around at cabinetry/furniture but its a slim market between boxed cabinets and big custom cabinet shops - and there's not a big demand in this recession.

It's kind of the same problem as trying to build a wind farm when nat gas prices are low.

[pup55]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'm')y wife's job is relatively secure

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pup55', 'T')hought question: In 1960's TV would you have been better off dating Lisa Douglas, glamorous and sophisticated wife of Oliver Douglas from Green Acres, or Elly May Clampett, daughter of Jed Clampett of the Beverly Hillbillies?

[Ludi]

pup, I don't see extended family in your set of rings. I would have put friends and extended family in the third ring, not business associates. Maybe you meant "friends and extended family" when you said "close allies"? All of my business associates live in other states, so they're not especially available to give actual physical help. They can and do often provide paying work, of course.

[smiley]

Taleb once wrote an anecdote about sitting in front of his human resource manager for his anual evaluation, and slowly and carefully tearing the evaluation form into little snippets, knowing that no repercussions would follow, despite the managers utterly distressed look. He reckoned he could get away with it and by his own account he did.

Whether you execute something like that or not, (and I would certainly not recommend it)I think it is a good mind game. The question is what you need to get to do to get fired. When the only thing you can think of is running through the boardroom wearing your underpants on your head, you're probably pretty safe.

As for myself. I think I can get away with a lot. During the booms of the nineties and the beginning of this century I saw most of my potential collegues jumping on the dotcom and banking bandwagon, in search of the big cash. That left me in the pretty comfortable position of being a skilled professional in a nearly deserted field. Most of the people I know with a similar education and skils are of retirement age.

I cannot credit myself for that as it was plain luck and not by design.

Anyway it does mean that my change of getting fired is relatively low and even if my company decides to outsource itself to Tasmania I would be able to get a new job within a week or so.

[The_Toecutter]

I got my pink slip more than 6 months ago.

I hard a hard enough time finding work in my field after completing my degree. It took almost a year. While I was working, I mainly put my money into my project car(an alternative fueled vehicle that could be fueled by wind/solar if necessary) and paying off my student loan debt. I lived extremely frugally; I lived in the ghetto and spent as little as possible, using a bicycle as my main source of transportation, and managed to save up savings well into the 5 figures in only 1 years time. I know what it is like having spotty electricity, water that sometimes is cut off for days at a time, living near people that would kill someone over a few hundred dollars, and the measures needed to mitigate these things. With regard to that, I know I'm more prepared than the average suburbanite, for certain.

Then my hours got cut back, first to ~15-20 hours a week(enough to pay the bills), then to 5-10 hours a week, and student loan payments ate away much of my savings over that time. Funny thing is that scholarships still payed almost 3/4 of my tuition. I held onto that job as long as possible, while continuing to search for a replaceemnt; had I quit, I'd have disqualified myself from student loan deferments and unemployment(might as well get some of the tax money taken out of my check back; if it were up to me, this wouldn't exist and the money instead wouldn't have been collected as taxes and instead been used to increase my earnings, but that's another rant). Some of my former coworkers are in extremely dire straights; some have also found replacement jobs.

I'm once again living in my parents' basement. I have 2 years of experience as an electrical engineer, with nothing but good reviews from previous bosses, and I still cannot find work. I've been searching for almost 18 months(started searching vigorously after my hours got cut back), and I've only had 2 phone interviews that entire time, both of them within this month.

I would garden where I currently live, except that the trees blocking the sunlight would have to be rid of to support anything resembling enough food to make more than a few meals a year, and the owner of the home where I currently live does not want to do that.

Most of my preps so far revolve around getting myself some rapid transportation that is independent from oil that will potentially last decades should TSHTF(turbodiesel Mercedes 300 SDL, and an in progress EV 5 years in the making as money and circumstance permitted, that is looking like it will be finished this year, or early next year, with the remainder of my savings), along with some preps that will not be mentioned on a public forum. I also lived in an area where I quickly learned to hide what I had extremely well; I was burglarized twice and no one ever found anything of any real value, as I only lost a PS2 and some DVDs. I'd like to do more to prepare, but I'm in a position where most of what those here would consider preparations are not a viable option for me.

I know how to build wind machines, EVs, and various electronic devices from scratch, as a potential skillset.

Thanks to H1B visas, there can be an outright shortage of engineers in the U.S., trillions of dollars of stimulus paid for with taxes taken out of my check, and there are plenty of engineers here, qualified, willing to work, with experience, and yet they don't get hired unless it's for a management position and they have 8+ years management experience. I still can't find a fucking job in my field, despite having sent resumes and applied to hundreds of different positions for which I am qualified. I also conversed with someone who I graduated with, who decided to pursue a Masters degree upon the realization that he wouldn't find work soon; he got the degree, and still can't find work.

In all honesty, I'd probably have been better off had I dropped out of college and sold crack for a living, but I'm certainly not about to try it now that I'm back in mommy and daddy's basement. Couple this, with family members who think the economy has 'recovered', some who think I should join the military or work for defense(selling crack would do less harm to society), and others who think I'm 'lazy' and that I should go 'flip burgers' while making sure I spend all of my earned money making 'student loan payments', I can't help but be at least a little bit pissed off at my situation.

Perhaps I'm a future MZB in the making... I hope not.

[Fredrik]

During the great oil price spike, I quit my comfortable but low-paying office job (in a business among the first to be killed by a depression) and took another job in food logistics. It's less comfy, more physical, and low-paying, but I think it will be among the last to vanish because of peak oil. (When I get the pink slip I think BAU will be long gone and some sort of state-run rationing / enforced work programme has taken over.) I've got an academic degree (in humanities, a bad career choice in light of PO). Most of my family and friends probably think I'm too depressed to keep looking for a "real" job or that I've just given up. I've tried to explain to some, but even if they accept the theoretical reality of oil depletion, they have a hard time accepting that someone could make drastic career choices because of it.

Our income is very modest but we have no debt, thank God. One of my biggest challenges is to raise the kids to expect a much lower living standard in the future. Personally, I'm fine as long as I have just enough daily calories, clothes, a heated place to sleep, possibility to walk in the woods and my books and Internet article printouts.

[alokin]

If you are an electronic engineer and you are young, why do you stay put? The German industry is booming and there are other countries too. Why don't you apply?
If you are a hardcore doomer then learn how to butcher or how to repair bicycles, if not try your luck!

[Olaf]

I currently work in county government in an information systems field and my wife is a school teacher. Where we live, these are pretty good jobs to have and we are hopeful we get to keep them. We have been able to build a new home on 50 acres of mixed fields and woodland. We garden and preserve some things and hope to expand on that. Currently we are trying to get some of our debt paid down. I think our jobs are both relatively safe, but not as safe as I would have thought a couple of years ago.

The country is on a trend of union busting and lower wages for wokers, which will lead to a lower standard of living for most of us and a decline in economy as the US is so largely based on consumer spending.

Future plans include harvesting our own wood for our woodstove, continuing to pay down debt without depleting rainy day funds, and perhaps some livestock down the road (we're thinking chickens). It becomes more difficult to incorporate things into our lifestyle while still working regular jobs, yet it is the regular jobs that give us the ability to adjust.

If one of us were laid off we would do ok for perhaps a year or so, after that we would likely start a slow crumble. I'm creeping up on 40 and the body is letting me know. Sometimes it makes me think I might be dreaming with some of this stuff I plan; but what else am I going to do?

[MarkJ]

When I worked for the man when I was younger, I never worried about getting laid off since I had numerous high demand skills, multiple side businesses and income streams from real estate investments, plus substantial savings and very little debt. I looked forward to getting laid off so I could go hunting, fishing, skiing, boating, snowmobiling, camping, cruising etc. Unfortunately, I rarely got to do many of these things since I was so busy. I had 10 year old toys with less than 100 hours of service since I didn't have time to use them.


When I was laid off from a job at a plumbing and heating company, I ended up taking a few hundred of their customers in the first few months alone, in addition to already being swamped with side jobs, buying/renovating apartment structures, flipping houses, building spec homes, developing land and working part-time for family businesses.

Since I had multiple skills and businesses, I'd often perform several different services for a single residential, or commercial customer.

Since I owned most of my properties, equipment, vehicles and tools free and clear, I could also give my customers better prices for better quality products and services, which helped me to win the majority of competitive bid work. I my line of work, the value of salvaged fuel, materials, equipment, metals, parts and hardware is excellent as well.

My customer base has always had a demand for apartments, acreage, farmland, building lots, heating fuels, timber, topsoil, sand, firewood, residential/commercial construction/renovation/expansion, plumbing, heating, electrical, cooling and refrigeration, automotive/marine/equipment service, crane service, snow removal, used vehicles, used equipment, salvaged materials, salvaged metals, salvaged fuel etc. When demand is slow in one area, it's hot in several others.

It's funny, but much of my work I've done for profit like automotive service, automotive A/C, marine service, snowmobile service, automotive sales, marine sales, motorized toy sales, computer service, physical training, fishing charters, guide services etc started as hobbies, but I ended up with hundreds of customers from word of mouth alone.

Since many of our family members are medical professionals, they also have more job opportunities than they can handle.

[dsula]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MarkJ', 'I')t's funny, but much of my work I've done for profit like automotive service, automotive A/C, marine service, snowmobile service, automotive sales, marine sales, motorized toy sales, computer service, physical training, fishing charters, guide services etc started as hobbies, but I ended up with hundreds of customers from word of mouth alone.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Olaf', '
')If one of us were laid off we would do ok for perhaps a year or so, after that we would likely start a slow crumble. I'm creeping up on 40 and the body is letting me know. Sometimes it makes me think I might be dreaming with some of this stuff I plan; but what else am I going to do?

[FairMaiden]

What have we done?

1) I switched to an essential gov't service job from a non-profit. (a little decrease in salary but the benefits and security more than make up for it)

2) Hubby is in food distribution (switched from hotel conferences) now and is on the process of potentially switching to corrections. Both jobs are pretty secure (folks are going to continue to eat) but the corrections job pays double and there is potential to move to a smaller community in that field.

We have also chose to buy a townhome instead of a house so we can pay off our mortgage (almost 65% and we just moved 2 years ago). We have no debt and one car. I walk most places.

We DID decide to have children after I came on this site...but that was a "if things don't fall apart I'll regret it" decisions. I love my children and I'm glad I braved it