I feel your pain Paul. I have been bouncing around for the last two years trying to find a home to finish out my career and retire, but my situation was by my own choice. Was a maintenance tech at a large printing company for right at twenty years, but always stuck on second shift. Sent resumes out for the last four years there and after the loss of my younger brother and Mom, finally gave up and was going to try and stick out the last seven years or so that I needed at that time.
Then a resume that was floating around the internet landed at a plastic injection molding company. It didn't work out in the long run, but at least got me out of the printing company and second shift. I have been pretty picky at what I applied for, looking only at first shift, but it seems like all I get is second shift offerings. Good money, but long, odd hours and I'm too damned old for that crap anymore. I've done that song and dance.
I quit the plastic place cold turkey in November of 2016, and concentrated on the job search. I knew it was a crap shoot at my age (62). I accepted a job with a custom embroidery company that is a licensed Harley Davidson producer of hats and patches, working on CNC sewing machines and building maintenance. They started to slide my hours to a mid day and evening shift, last summer, so I tendered notice there and went to a metal tube forming place. It was nasty, oily and dirty work, but technically easy. They thought they were pretty high tech but had never seen an 8 unit, double web, high speed printing press run before! As colder weather moved it, I discovered that the place was going to be like a refrigerator. Lots of holes in windows, walls and doors, and doors on loading docks always open! I was thinking that place would kill me before spring!
About that time, I was contacted by the embroidery company asking me what it would take for me to come back. I just had to remind them of why I left, the odd hours, and asked for a slight raise, and they asked if I could start right away! So I'm back there, where it's warmer, cleaner, quieter and pays a buck an hour more that the metal forming job!
When my brothers and sister and I were all kids, I remember my Dad advising that if you learned how to make your living with your head and your hands at the same time, you would never starve, and he was right. Even through the big recession and down turn in the printing business, I managed to keep working.
The best advice I could give you is to keep an open mind and not limit yourself. You are a smart dude! Don't over look maybe turning a wrench combining with your IT experience. Everything in manufacturing these days is controlled by computers. Cross train in PC controls and such. Even light manufacturing is crying for maintenance people and lots of them are training on the job. You would likely start out on the odd shifts and such, but that sometimes pays more also. Your model building adds to your skill sets, and I always mention my hobbies on my resume. I looked for stuff like that when I did hiring and firing. I get all kinds of job alerts still, but I'm sticking with the sewing machines! My lower body is a wreck from 40 years of pound concrete floors in big buildings, so I owe myself and easy 4 years to finish it out. Keep the physical part of it mind also. When you have been doing what you are doing for a long time, you may not want to venture outside your comfort zone, and stick to more of the same thing you have been doing, but widening your job search criteria will open up more opportunities for you.
Good luck to you my friend. Take a deep breath, relax a bit, and then dig in.
Type at you later,
Dan McEntee
Topic: Looking for contacts in the Tampa area. Not CL related. (Read 602 times)