I missed posting my E2 birthday! I apparently joined seven years ago on the 22nd. Y'all are thrilled, I can tell!
A lot has happened since then. When I joined (as the result of zot-fot-piq approaching me after a reading at a local bookstore and saying "Hey, there's this magazine site I'm an editor for ..."), I had a pretty good job at a pretty good company, doing work I felt good about. Then the company changed; they absorbed a dotcom with considerable debt, and the higher-ups decided that the company (a nonprofit) should be run as if it was a for-profit, and they ruthlessly cut staff. I went in the first surprise wave, which in retrospect was for the best since I got a considerably better severance package than many people who were dumped months later.
A bad couple of years followed in which I struggled to find work that paid even remotely the same without me feeling like I was throwing away my attempts at starting a writing career. I often found myself the bridesmaid but not the bride on a couple of jobs I felt I'd been born to do. There's nothing like going through three rounds of interviews and then not getting the job. Finally, I got a more-or-less permanent job at the local university, which unfortunately paid only about 65% of what I'd been getting per-hour at my job at Pretty Good Company.
A lot of people ended up in that boat - if they found work in the "jobless recovery", it frequently paid several dollars less per hour than what they'd made before. So, like me, they worked part-time weekend jobs or took second jobs to make up the difference. In addition to my freelance writing, which I've apparently written enough about to make a couple of special friends (thanks, guys!), I also started doing part-time tutoring (thanks, Lometa!).
So I've been reading a few people here and there who are surprised at how bad things went when the housing bubble finally popped. But serious, how is it a surprise? If a big chunk of the middle class has been working 60- and 70-hour workweeks at low-paying jobs just to keep their heads above water, not to mention the squeeze people who were poor during even the boom times have been feeling ... well, a lot of people are in really bad shape right now.
The crime rate here in Columbus is spiking. I went on RealtyTrac, and got a map of the impending and in-progress foreclosures in the area. Little red flags all over the place. All over. I knew it was happening but to see it all mapped out like that ... damn.
I hope something good happens soon.