Well here I am, 50 years old and out of a job. After working for 30 years straight, the last 20 for the same company. Working my way up to a senior management position, I got retrenched after new owners came through. It seems that "Middle Management" are the first to go, to clear out the peter principle type people, and I was one of them.
Now I need to find a new job and maybe something new in my life. My wife passed away 18 months ago from cancer. I have kids too, they are off doing their own thing. So here I am on my own, unemployed and not a lot of prospects, I mean, who wants a fifty year old working for them.
I looked at myself and wondered what I was going to do. I registered with the unemployment office, a lot of help they were. I had to register with an agency, who were more interested in making sure I followed the rules that the Government set out too make it as hard as possible to get any benefits.
So I thought I would get involved in the local community, maybe put back something and help some other people less fortunate than me. I really shouldn't complain, I got a retrenchment package that would keep me going for at least 12 months, I own my home and car and have a good amount of super put away so I can be comfortable in retirement, it is just being thrown on the scrapheap at fifty that's really got to me.
What are my interests, that's the first thought that ran through my head. I always liked photography and fishing and always had an interest in art, maybe I would learn to draw or paint. I looked around my local area for an art group that would take a rank beginner like me, but then I thought why not just get some paper and pencils and fool around at home.
I spent the next few weeks going fishing, always with my camera, taking some photos of the local area and trying to catch some fish. Then I would go home and try to draw what I saw. Over the weeks I caught a heap of fish, some I ate and some I froze to eat later, took a lot of photos mainly of the local scenery and wild life and occasionally, of someone interesting I saw and I saved on my computer. I also gathered a lot of paper with lines on them, laughingly called drawings.
I was at the local community centre one day, checking out the bulletin board for an art group, when I bumped into a guy I had spoken to a few times. He asked me what I was up to and I said I was retrenched a few months ago and just taking it easy. He asked if I was interested in helping out a group who needed someone with my type of skills, I used to work in I.T. I told them sure and got the details.
A few days later they were going to meet so I went down to introduce myself. It was mainly women, with two other guys. They all seemed friendly and I offered to do what I could to help which they seemed grateful for. We talked over what they are trying to achieve and I made a few suggestions about what they can try that's different. I suggested we set up a website, they said they had one so I looked at it and said we can do lots better.
There was one woman there in particular, her name was Maria, she was a few years younger than me, really friendly and smiled a lot. I liked her from the moment I met her. There was another named Ann, looked quite serious, she wore glasses and tended to look over the top of the glasses at people.
I went a few times and we started to get their stuff together, I was building them a new website, something simple with a "CMS" they would be able to manage easily. We used to meet at various places, sometimes the community centre and sometimes people's houses.