Yay! We left Manhattan for Florida! Wait, what?

(The following blog entry was originally posted on Blogger on 02/28/19)

We did it. We got ourselves moved. My wife and I are officially Floridians.

Thirty-one years of urban life in New York City now in the rear view mirror.

We landed safely at Tampa International Airport on July 31, 2018 at 11pm, with two big suitcases and two Pomeranians in tow. We got our mess of dogs and luggage to the curb and my brother pulled up to load us all in. Holy shit. It's real. We're no longer New Yorkers. We're hot and sweaty Floridians.

The July heat and humidity outside the airport hit us like a big invisible, moist wave.

We arrived at our new home around midnight. A bottle of prosecco and a bottle of bourbon on a small table confirmed our arrival, thanks to my loving family. A big paper WELCOME HOME sign and balloons was strung over the living room windows, adoringly made by my sister-in-law and nieces. My mom had set a table for two. It was all very sweet and it made us feel truly welcome.

It would take us a couple months to mentally accept the reality of it — that we don't have an Upper West Side Manhattan lifestyle anymore. We will need to become car people. And attend monthly HOA meetings. And go to a grocery store to buy food! (Fresh Direct had become my most valued assistant in NYC). We no longer walk our dogs in Central Park twice a day. A mild case of PTSD was presenting itself.

There would home furnishings to buy (we'd sold all our furniture in NYC by the time we left). Then there's a car to buy. The last time I owned a car was 1989, and my wife had a 'bitchin Dihatsu' for a while when she lived in Santa Fe a long time ago. Aside from that, we'd both been city dwellers without a need for a car.

Once we got ourselves situated, I rented a car for a week and we began looking around for something to buy. We lucked into a 2013 Ford C-Max Hybrid SE that was for sale right across the road from our condo complex. We both said WTF is a Ford C-Max? but learned it was quite the nice little car that Ford made to compete with the Prius. Anyway, it was in great condition, we made a lowball offer to the car dealer, which he accepted, then got the ball rolling. Car insurance. Transfer of driver's licenses. Locating the local gas stations, tire stores, oil change businesses, yada yada yada.

Then we started into the rehab and repair work of my condo unit. We redid the floors with tile planks and new carpeting, and replaced old baseboard with new while moving around boxes of our stuff a dozen times. Lots of stress and fatigue from it all, but worth it.

On many levels life got easier after escaping from New York. As you could imagine, our cost of living went down dramatically in the first month. Just for comparison — our monthly rent in Manhattan was equal to our total cost of living in our new condo. Let that sink in.

So after money months of turning an empty condo into a home, we planned a return trip to NYC in November, but on the day of our schedule flight, one of our dogs, Parker, was presenting some odd behavior so I took him to the vet for an exam. Results show he'd somehow managed to compress vertabrae in his neck and spine. He probably chased a toy and smacked into a wall or door. Trip cancelled. His rehab would take a 6 weeks.

Then in January 2019, the other Pomeranian, Penny, was limping noticeably. One day on a walk she went to chase Parker and then just yelped and sat down. I knew right away something was bad. Off to the vet we go. X-rays and an exam showed she'd completely torn the ACL in her right knee. We got her into surgery that afternoon and a 12-week rehab program ensued. Good times.

February was marked by my mom having a worrisome episode in her chest area that turned out to be a false positive for a heart blockage. Scrambling to care for pets and people made for a "fun" couple days. We all celebrated my birthday with family at one of our favorite restaurants on Clearwater Beach called Palm Pavillion. Great food, great atmosphere, comfortable temperatures, and quality time with my wife, brother, sister-in-law, and my mom.

And now here it is almost March, 2019. We're still doing home upgrades. Penny is getting better little by little. Our belongings have been completely unboxed and stowed in a proper place. We turned the extra small bedroom into my home office and all my graphic design tech. And so it goes ... we adapt and fiddle and try to make life livable.

I'm finding some freelance work and looking for more. I've also applied to probably 20 open positions for Creative Directors, but I'm not holding my breath that I'll get a call back.

For the past 6 months I've been involved in a local business networking group called TechRoots in the St. Petersburg area. I've gotten a chance to meet some really motivated, self-employed people who are doing interesting things. We meet bi-weekly, and usually at some cool spot in St. Pete. The downtown area is really growing rapidly, and seems like it's becoming the home to more tech startups and small businesses. I also re-joined AIGA's Tampa Bay chapter and I hope to get more involved with their activities on the Tampa side of the area.

I've reconnected with some graphic design school colleagues who still live in the area and we plan to have a mini reunion this weekend over dinner. This will be so much fun. One of the guys I haven't seen in over 30 years!

As soon as the Gulf of Mexico warms up this summer we'll start to get our dogs out to the nearby pet beach at Honeymoon Island Park on a more frequent basis. It's a great place to decompress and enjoy the sunset — not to mention let the dogs romp around and get their energy spent.

So, we're finding ways to keep life interesting and fulfilling here. It's not the city by any stretch, but we have a little garden area and a patio for sitting outside on cool evenings. I can even have a cigar and a cocktail without having to go somewhere to do it.

And I can debate with myself, or my wife, or friends, whether or not this lifestyle beats our Manhattan adult playground. It probably does, but we both miss The City terribly. It's a loud, crazy, expensive place and yet I “made it” there. I guess I can make it here, or anywhere.

End of an era in NYC.

(The following blog entry was originally posted on Blogger on 06/04/18)

If you read my last posting, you have an idea of what went down in 2017. The avalanche of unfortunate professional events that triggered our move-in with my mother-in-law seemed like a bad joke, and my wife and I were the punchline.

As of this writing, we've been holed up in my MIL's Upper West Side apartment for 6 months, trying to be caregivers, to stabilize her dilapidated old apartment, and be good stewards of her life. It hasn't worked out well. It ended up costing us all so much more than we'd planned, both financially and emotionally.

We finally decided in May to retain a Medicare/Medicaid consultancy to fast-track her into Medicaid, and get her set up with home health aides and in-home care. Nothing in the process was easy, but, she will begin receiving the benefits within the next two weeks. So at least we accomplished something.

Having said that, on June 23 we'll be leaving my MIL's place — to return to our lovely, previous apartment (the very expensive one I mentioned in my last blog posting) for the last month of our lease. We'll then begin preparations to leave NYC.

9 months and about 150 job applications later, it has become clear: very few companies hire new employees over age 50, especially creative directors like me. Experiencing this first-hand has been painful. I'd assume New York City is no different than anywhere else in the U.S. And because of that bias, we have no choice but to pack up and leave.

Despite seeing many more open CD positions here than in other markets, NYC wants younger instead of older. Age bias continues to be rampant in the corporate world. Everyone knows it, every company is guilty of it, and yet it continues. Older workers are stupid, and young people know everything. Right. Good luck with Google and Facebook and programmatic ad buying. When that fails, lay off everyone and hire newer, younger people. Rinse and repeat.

What a bummer. I've been here 31 years. My whole professional career has been spent in NYC and the tri-state area. My wife grew up here, and in fact, grew up in my MIL's apartment (the one mentioned above). She left the city to go to college out in New Mexico and Washington, then eventually came back via a job offer in the early 2000s. We both have survived here, and some years, have prospered. She was diagnosed with Lyme disease in 2005, and has suffered tremendously in the years since then. She has been on disability since 2005. And with my layoff in October 2017, it only made life more difficult. All things considered, we now feel it's time to go, and go somewhere affordable. Fortunately for us, we do have somewhere else to go.

I bought a condo in Palm Harbor, Florida in 2012. Ostensibly it was an investment designed to benefit my mom. She found the condo while apartment hunting one day, and I bought it as a short sale. It was a steal, and it timed the bottom of the real estate crisis. My mother had been living in it since then, and for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is our "crisis" here, she decided to move out this month.

So, now our sights are set on the Tampa/St. Petersburg area. We have a lot to do before the last box is packed and shipped, but it looks like we'll be relocated by the end of July.

My brother and his family also live in that area, so it'll be nice to spend more time with them. Go to the beach. Play cards. Maybe even go to the Keys and snorkel or scuba dive. Get in better shape. Enjoy sunsets. We're really hoping this will effect some positive changes in our lives. I'm not a big fan of Florida, but maybe it'll open some doors. We'll see.

Wish us luck.

The worst of all possible outcomes.

(The following blog entry was originally posted on Blogger on 03/11/18)

I just took a few minutes to reread my last post, which was from 2016. What has happened after that is something out of a business horror novel.

Basically, my professional career and personal life became a slow-motion, multi-car pileup on the interstate.

In December of 2016 the key stakeholders put pressure on me and my business partner to invest in the new agency venture in order to secure our 3% ownership (each) in the new company. We caved and invested a large chunk of profits from our company, O2 Agency.

By the end of January 2017 the owners announced they were going to close the new agency. A couple of nonprofit accounts cancelled their contracts due to production and data mistakes. This is bad news and trying to recover from it quickly is nearly impossible.

But, we soldiered on and searched for a larger agency to acquire us. The owners took our money in December, and decided to do an asset sale of the printing company plus the newly formed agency. Our % ownership quickly became 0% and our investment capital was gone.

We pleaded with the VC firm to return our investment. They did not. Legal fees would have cost us so much it wouldn't have been worth it to pursue.

In early February of 2017 we were notified that identity theft rocked the parent company and all the employee W-2s had been stolen. Cool, right?

In late February 2017, Unified Agency's BKV group in Atlanta agreed to take on six of us, which saved our jobs and stabilized our client roster. By March of 2017 we were all employed and we worked our asses off to maintain the viability of our group and our clients.

In July, we had to move to a new office space and we sold off everything in our office. It was a space occupied by Hiccup NY, also a Unified Agency company. Three of us occupied desks there but we were never fully integrated into the group. They didn't really know what we did each day, they had their own accounts (separate from ours), and we barely overlapped skill sets or activities. It was awkward and my gut told me it was temporary. Sometimes I hate my gut.

By late July 2017, Animal Legal Defense Fund, our largest nonprofit account, cancelled their contract with BKV. In the end, legacy data issues and disruption precipitated the exit. The account director got laid off in August.

Then one day in a conference call with my boss, my creative director/writer partner and I got notice that we'd be laid off as well. We'd be gone by the end of October. The loss of ALDF was too big to recover from. A make-or-break new business pitch at Consumer Reports in July wasn't a win. Things were starting to unravel.

A consolation prize was a small retainer to continue to work with my soon-to-be former agency, for one account. As they say, it was better than nothing.

I'll say this. In general, losing your job is awful, no matter what your age is. Losing your job in your mid-50s is devastating. Plain and simple. Why? Because there's a lot more at stake. The collateral damage and sudden loss of income forced my wife and I (and our two dogs) to move out of our rather expensive but comfortable apartment in Manhattan. We had to find sublet renters to fill in the months before our lease ends in July.

After much anquish and many family meetings in Novemer and December, over New Year's weekend we moved in with my mother-in-law (also in Manhattan), who lived just a couple blocks from us. She has an inoperable back issue, and my wife suffers from chronic Lyme disease. So the situation was looking rather poor.

My mother-in-law's apartment was a neglected rent-stable 2BR on W 84th Street. Nothing in the apartment worked properly. Things were put together in a slap-dash manner that gave the place a feeling of a low-rent ghetto. And yet, it sat on the top floor of a building and had a terrace that wrapped around three sides of the unit. Not the worst, not the best.

So, living suddenly became very, very stressful, and a little bleak. My wife did what she could to help out at her mother's place, but most of the day-to-day chores and care-giving for two women would fall to me.

My wife and I basically spent all of January cleaning things, purging things, fixing things, replacing things, returning things, and selling things. The logistics of it all was just mind-boggling and strained my marriage enormously. But, we somehow managed to endure, and get the apartment looking and smelling clean.

On the job front, since October 2017 I've applied to well over 50 creative director jobs, and have gotten only one in-person interview. Tough crowd. Really tough. Agencies, which I will never work for again, seem to be putting all their eggs in the video and social media baskets. Fine. Good luck with that. It's a tech trend, and tech will pivot away from itself. It always does.

So ... I've been through many, many shit-storms in my career, and this one may have been the biggest. I guess I'll survive this one too.

If you're reading this and you're a talent acquisition person, contact me at awhetzel@icloud.com.

I can probably handle anything you throw at me.