Resume Entry #1 - by Marilyn - 9/2003
www.marilynfenn.com

Prior to March of 2001, I had been very gainfully employed as a visual designer at a Fortune 50 company -- in fact, I was one of approximately 2 artists at our facility of about 7000 people, and always had plenty of work. I was so confident about my position that in February, my boyfriend and I purchased a house in the center of town. However, in early March I was told to find another position within the company, which I did, and was even more thrilled about my new job.

Unfortunately, in mid-April, my company decided to have a wholesale layoff, and being the last person to join my department, I was selected to be first one out.

I immediately began the search for work, and so far, nothing really concrete has come up, except for some small free-lance web design and graphic design jobs, none of which have made much of a dent in my increasingly decreasing savings. I nearly got rehired at my previous company last February (as a contractor), but they shipped the project overseas! I've had a total of one interview in a year and a half -- for a part-time, free-lance, work-at-home position, and the interview seemed to go very well, but no work has come from that yet.

That's the bad news.

The good news is that I decided getting laid off was the universe's way of telling me to get on with my fine art career. And so I have begun to show and sell my paintings and prints, though the income from this is not enough to live on (yet). But as soon as I decided to head more in the direction of fine art again, many seemingly miraculous things happened to continue to encourage me. And although I'm about out of money, I will hang in there for as long as I can.

However, having experienced this year and a half of freedom from corporate bureaucracy and the freedom of creative expression and being my own boss, I'm not sure I can ever go back into that kind of oppressive life as a 'serf on the manor' again. I wonder how many other people who have been tossed aside by the mega-corporations have come to feel the same way? I suspect it's no small number.

I personally believe that the economy will continue to be terrible for as long as the current party is in power, and that for years to come, we will all be paying very heavy prices for the current administration's policies, financially, socially, with our health, the health of the planet, the health of the country as whole, and with our international relationships. I also suspect that the unintended consequences of the extremely self-serving, socially irresponsible policies of the corporatocracy will be a backlash in this country and around the world so vehement that it will take those corporations and their government lackeys by surprise, and that many good laws and much more political awareness will eventually be the result. What I don't know is if this will happen during my lifetime (I'm at the mid-century mark). - Marilyn
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