My name is Brad Mendenhall.
I am a podcaster, comedian, musician, author, and actor.
That’s what I do for fun. Not for money. Well…not a lot of money. Every now and then I get enough to cover lunch at Five Guys.
For money, I am a Software Quality Engineer. There’s a good chance you don’t know what that is. Basically, I test computer software and make sure it does what it is supposed to do. It’s more complicated, but you get the idea.
I’ve done this work for over 15 years. I’m good at it. I like it. It pays the bills.
On Wednesday, May 21, I had my weekly meeting with my manager. It was delayed an hour. I didn’t think much of that. Stuff gets delayed. I hopped onto the Teams call. I’ve worked from home for the last five years. All my meetings are Teams calls or Zoom calls. They used to be Skype calls, but no one uses that anymore.
My manager was there. So was a woman I didn’t recognize. No big deal. Maybe there was a new project I was going to work on and she was the lead on it.
Nope. She was from HR. I was being let go.
I wasn’t alone. On my team, I was one of four to be laid off. That was half of our testers. We were the four team members with the least time at the company.
Sucks, but fair. All of us are awesome. Seniority was the way to do it.
And…that’s all I’ll say about the Old Company. This isn’t about them. I don’t have an axe to grind. I’m telling my story.
It’s been almost a month since that happened. I’ve applied for hundreds of jobs. I’ve had a couple interviews. Nothing has panned out yet. I’ve talked to others in the same boat. Met new people. Cool people. New cool people that should have jobs.
Ive found out a few things about the market. A few things about myself.
So…I started writing about it. Posting every day on LinkedIn. And Facebook. Sorry if I sound like a d-bag on the Bachelor, but I shared my journey.
Someone suggested I create videos. Well…I’m not good looking enough for that. But I am good looking enough for a podcast. So that’s what I’m doing.
My idea is to do this daily. The episodes will be short. No guests. Just me.
Until, of course, I decide to have guests on and make hour long two-parters. And I release weekly. Because I can do what I want, right?
I hope you enjoy the show. Maybe it’s not something to enjoy, but I hope you find it interesting.
I’m Brad Mendenhall. This is my Layoff Adventure.
The Layoff Adventure is a Geppetto Studios Production.
Email us at CosmicGeppetto@comcast.net.
Find Brad on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/brad-g-mendenhall/.
Follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/CosmicGeppetto
