ost touch with ground control. When a friend of mine asked a colleague in his marketing department about job possibilities for me, the response was, “The market’s terrible for “creative types”. If I didn’t have this job, I’d probably be pumping gas.” The It was all just too much fun. Really. I moved to Portland, Oregon last year after living and working in Europe for 23 years. I was on a self-induced sabbatical and I thought I’d get an office job to earn a modest living while there. I just assumed that this would be easy to do, like mowing lawns in the summertime for pocket money was back in high school.

Wrong.

A steady succession of unanswered emails and letters, false leads, depressing conversations with directors of personnel, multi-page application forms with questions like, “If you were to be hired for this position (which is already filled anyway, but let’s pretend), how many parentless children from Burkina Faso would you be willing to adopt?” left me, after several months of earnest searching and at 48 years old, feeling like those last dinosaurs on earth before the Great Cataclysm turned them into theme park material.

Changing my career in mid-life! Prospective employers saw red flags all over me and logically assumed that I’d lost touch with ground control. When a friend of mine asked a colleague in his marketing department about job possibilities for me, the response was, “The market’s terrible for “creative types”. If I didn’t have this job, I’d probably be pumping gas.” The m

is would be easy to do, like mowing lawns in the summertime for pocket money was back in high school.

Wrong.

A steady succession of unanswered emails and letters, false leads, depressing conversations with directors of personnel, multi-page application forms with questions like, “If you were to be hired for this position (which is already filled anyway, but let’s pretend), how many parentless children from Burkina Faso would you be willing to adopt?” left me, after several months of earnest searching and at 48 years old, feeling like those last dinosaurs on earth before the Great Cataclysm turned them into theme park material.

Changing my career in mid-life! Prospective employers saw red flags all over me and logically assumed that I’d lost touch with ground control. When a friend of mine asked a colleague in his marketing department about job possibilities for me, the response was, “The market’s terrible for “creative types”. If I didn’t have this job, I’d probably be pumping gas.” The

plication forms with questions like, “If you were to be hired for this position (which is already filled anyway, but let’s pretend), how many parentless children from Burkina Faso would you be willing to adopt?” left me, after several months of earnest searching and at 48 years old, feeling like those last dinosaurs on earth before the Great Cataclysm turned them into theme park material.

Changing my career in mid-life! Prospective employers saw red flags all over me and logically assumed that I’d lost touch with ground control. When a friend of mine asked a colleague in his marketing department about job possibilities for me, the response was, “The market’s terrible for “creative types”. If I didn’t have this job, I’d probably be pumping gas.” The

arching and at 48 years old, feeling like those last dinosaurs on earth before the Great Cataclysm turned them into theme park material.

Changing my career in mid-life! Prospective employers saw red flags all over me and logically assumed that I’d lost touch with ground control. When a friend of mine asked a colleague in his marketing department about job possibilities for me, the response was, “The market’s terrible for “creative types”. If I didn’t have this job, I’d probably be pumping gas.” The

ost touch with ground control. When a friend of mine asked a colleague in his marketing department about job possibilities for me, the response was, “The market’s terrible for “creative types”. If I didn’t have this job, I’d probably be pumping gas.” The message: no openings, and I’m hanging on to my job with all ten fingers and toes.

But the serious fun came from reading all those helpful bits of advice delivered by “Job Market Experts”. Websites and newspapers were full of them, those savvy career coaches who dispense tips from heavily fortified office buildings that keep the Unemployed Living Dead from breaking in and stealing THEIR jobs. They were offering advice in everything from what not to wear to an interview (large, fuzzy dice earrings are a no-no) to how to create a 30 second sales pitch about yourself and handle objections (“Now, I know you’re thinking ‘This guy’s too old’, but wait – I can get younger. I promise, with a little work, I can shed 20 years.”).

For mid-life career changers such as me though, there was really precious little useful advice out there. So, since nothing I read from the experts was any good, I stayed unemployed and then went back to my job in Europe. Here then are a few useful nuggets of wisdom for other des