What happens when you move 2k miles from home and are jobless months later

Decided to make a move from the East Coast to the West Coast in the 90's...

long before smartphones, navigation systems and WiFi. I was working for a what was considered a modest sized cable company in Cleveland, Ohio for a couple of years. The pay was good, benefits fair and learned a lot of different skills during my time there. I had moved into an apartment for the first time and split rent with a friend of mine so it was next to nothing at the time and my bills were reasonable with low utilities and small credit card balances (that I worked hard to pay off and pay down). I enjoyed having my own place as my roommate was hardly ever there and our work schedules were opposite each other. I was in the mid 20’s and the downtown and local party scenes were done for me at that point. Some of my friends were moving, getting married and some were having kids and some just didn’t do much after work. I am an active person and wasn’t ready to settle down so I had my cable/satellite job that kept me moving and in shape, I played in various soccer leagues during the week both indoor and outdoor and I would run, ride my bike and play basketball in my spare time. There were plenty of places to shop, eat and drink nearby and I could walk to two of my favorite local bars within two minutes so life was good.

I felt like something was missing though….I felt unfulfilled. I stopped dating several women at a time (sounds bad but most of them knew I was doing this) and narrowed down to two that I seemed to like the most which quickly turned into one. I still had no intention of getting married or settling down so I immersed myself in sports and video games. That got boring but my career started to get interesting. We had recently merged with another cable group to become a larger group and that was good because I moved from satellite tech to cable tech and got paid more. One day I walked by the job postings that they always had up that I never paid attention to before but that day I looked at it and saw job postings all over the country and I saw a bunch in California. My wheels started turning! I had never been there before, I had never flown on a plane before either. So I asked what the procedure was to apply and went through the process.

Back then there was no Zoom, Skype or Duo so I did everything by fax and phone. The final decision had to be made in person so I had to fly to Los Angeles, get a hotel room and rent a car. Those things were more challenging to accomplish in the late 90’s than they are today of course but I was excited and determined to make this happen. LAX was so cool at the time to me. Driving down the California streets and seeing all the sights and palm trees was a dream come true for me. Seeing the Forum, driving on the PCH, going to Venice Beach and the Santa Monica Pier was everything I thought it would be and more. I went through a long day of interviews and on the job assessment and the next day was offered a position. The only catch was they wanted me to start within 30 days so I didn’t have much time, in fact I had a day and a half to find a place to live! So we did that and talk about sticker shock. I wasn’t prepared for my rent to be four times higher than what I was paying in Ohio and that was just the start of the sticker shock because once I started living there I found out quickly how much things costs there. So once back in Cleveland I had to start packing to letting everyone know what I was doing because I didn’t want to tell anyone what I was doing until I knew with 100% certainty I was leaving. I also knew that most of the people had I told them either would’ve laughed at the idea, or told me not to do it because it was too risky or I was afraid some of them would not think I would make it.

The day we left was a long day, I didn’t sleep the night before and I was sore from moving everything and loading it into the moving truck. I remember trying to find a hotel room was not easy but we made it work. We stopped in Dallas, Texas to visit with my (girlfriend at the time) mom. We spent two days there and drove one more day before we made it to California. It took a day and a half to unpack and then take the moving truck back but it was worth it. It was Winter and I had on shorts and a tank top and everyone knew I was from the East Coast because I couldn’t understand why everyone had pants and jackets on because it was 60 degrees in January! I was used to single digit temperatures or at least 30 degrees so 60 was like Summer weather to me.

So I had a couple of weeks before I had to start working so we did some touristy type things like go to the beach, Hollywood, tv tapings, famous restaurants and sights and a trip to San Diego. I was in love with it all and justifying my decision to move and pay the high prices for gas, food, taxes and insurance. I had saved up some money over the course of the previous two months and my co-workers surprised me with an envelope full of money to help me out getting started. So the first month I was learning under someone and getting re-certified. The next two weeks they had me ride with someone else. Then the next month I had my own truck and followed a few of my co-workers on their routes. It was definitely different than it was in Ohio especially safety wise. They didn’t really equip us with the right safety tools and they didn’t follow some of the safety guidelines. I was placed in South Central so it was not the most glamorous part of LA to be in. I saw some disturbing things and I was threatened to be shot on more than one occasion. I also had the unfortunate luck to encounter a child trafficking situation. I saw lots of gang activity, fights, guns and more. There were some good areas and people there too. I was not enjoying my third month going into my fourth month and my attitude started to change and I stopped looking forward to going in to work. The guys I worked with even wondered why I was on the hardest working team there because I noticed the other regions were so much easier to work and less dangerous but I really didn’t have a choice, I have rent to pay, food to buy and I was running out of money that I had saved but I was miserable at work.

So I asked to be moved if possible to another area when something becomes available and the managers did’t like the fact that I asked to be moved only after 3 and a half months on the job. I was weighing my options out, I didn’t have a car we shared one so it was hard to apply for another job and I thought maybe if I see this through things will improve for me. So I gave it another go I set a time table of a month. Well two weeks into that the company was bought out and they had a major meeting about this happening. The following Monday I was called into the office and was told I was being let go. They already had a check cut for two weeks pay minus taxes and said thank you. I can’t even describe how I felt at that moment. I was in shock…stunned….confused….angry….dejected…worried…panicked to name a few. So now I have no car, no job, rent that is 4 times higher than what I had four months ago, higher overall cost of living and I didn’t know ANYONE. I do remember the next day sulking and not even getting out of the apartment, I figured I would stay there until I was kicked out and hitch hike back to Cleveland. Thankfully I snapped out of it.

So now what? What did I do? What would you do?