Yes, you read that correctly. Flip Fors is out of work for the Second time in my entire life since I was 14 years old. This time it was actually against my own will. I was laid off, not fired, from The Dairy Alliance at the end of 2018. The dairy industry has been in a financial free-fall for nearly five years after a banner year in 2014, and about 25% of all farmers across that U.S. have sold out and gone out of business in that time frame. It's truly sad, and my old employer's bottom line was entirely dependent on the volume and price of milk that farmers were paid. Not a good combination when I had been promoted to 'middle management' at the organization during the summer of 2017. I loved working there and for the hard-working dairy farmers of the Southeast. I probably should have seen it coming, but I was too busy working for our farmers and trying to figure out ways to get their message out to consumers so they'd buy more dairy products.
I'm not going to cry over spilled milk, because there's nothing I can do about it now... I have to look and move forward. I started looking for work nearly immediately, but truly going all out after the holidays and once my severance package ended in January of 2019. I was looking for roles in the Communications and Media Relations fields. I applied for unemployment insurance since I was eligible, and searched diligently for a new gig, at least 3 or 4 jobs a week. I was looking in the private sector, public universities or government agencies, the occasional non-profit, across the entire spectrum of possible companies and organizations. Nothing, Nada, Bupkes. I earned several phone screens, second-level interviews, and about a half dozen face-to-face final round interviews. In each case, I felt like I did really well or nailed the interviews. But in each case, I was beaten out by someone who had more experience in a very specific area for the position that I was competing for. In some cases, it wasn't even an area that was in the job description or originally mentioned during the interview process. That was extremely disappointing and eternally frustrating.
Without completely giving up, what could I do to find work that's in demand, that I would really enjoy, and has the potential to make good, or at least solid money?
So, you're probably asking yourself, "Flip/Eric, How in the heck did you end up there?" It's a short story, but it's been playing itself out over several years. While I was with The Dairy Alliance, I had the opportunity to do a lot of driving around the Southeast. I visited our wonderful farmers as far west as Louisiana and as far north as Kentucky or northeast as Virginia. Sometimes I would fly to my destination, but most of my travel was driving. While I was in the car, spending sometimes in excess of 6 to 7 hours at a time just to arrive at my destination, I noticed how many trucks were out on the road. I mean, I'd spend all that time in the car, not getting anything done, just to spend a couple hours giving a presentation, or visiting a farmer or two at their farm for a project. But the 'good' stuff was only a couple hours at best. The drive became 'dead heading' for me, because I couldn't really work. Maybe a phone call or something, but aside from that, it was wasted hours.
I'd often look at the truckers that I was zooming past and realize, these men and women are IN their offices. They're doing their job out on that road we're traveling on. You know what I also realized? How much what they do truly impacts our lives every single day. I loved my job(s) and understand that they were valuable for the services they provided, but they were mostly nebulous, intellectually-based, 'information' and messages that either did or didn't simply evaporate into the ether. It was hard to truly measure the value of what I or my organization or station was producing and providing. I know that dairy farmers were definitely producing something of value. It was tangible and I understood its absolute value and all of the hard work that went into producing it. Again, I know that I worked extremely hard and so did my colleagues, but it was hard to quantify exactly what we did and 'see' how our work impacted the greater good.
I was also very interested to find out that there is a growing demand for drivers, which could be a crisis in the next 5-10 years. Right now, estimates are that the nation is at least 125,000 drivers short of what is needed. That number is expected to grow a lot in the near future. It's estimated that because the average age of a driver is pretty much my age (almost 49) or older, about one-third of current drivers will be aging out and retiring from driving by the year 2025. That's not good- or actually it's good for me. Part of the problem is that the majority of our children, or at least the younger generation, have been taught to believe that a job is only worth something if you sit in front of a computer or have a smart phone in your hand. That somehow, valuable blue collar service jobs can't get you ahead or be fulfilling. I'm here to tell you that that's not true. That's a major factor in why I have decided to reinvent myself, at 49 years old, by literally "Switching Gears" to create Flip 3.0!
I will continue to post updates on this blog with details on the classes I'm taking and any job possibilities and offers. Stay tuned! (Honk, Honk!)
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