The last several months has been been like a strange nightmare for me. I've been swamped but the likelihood of work coming to an end is looming just a little in the future.
For the last 4 weeks and 6 days I haven’t had a day off, and for several months prior to that I only hardly had an occasional day off. But, my biggest customer, a thriving business for 40+ years has been nearly destroyed by the downturn. They went from being overwhelmed with work to almost no work over the last 3 months. I was talking with one of the people who has worked there. He's been there for over 20 years. He said he hasn’t made any $$ to speak of in the last 2 months. This person also sells his drawings at our public market on weekends, and has for the last 10 years. He says he’s never seen so few people buying.
Another customer of mine, a firm that’s been around for decades, says they have not ever seen a downturn like this. And me, I've been at my line of work for 20 busy years (I'm in IT), and I see it likely coming to an end in the next couple of months….
I think we’ll see a turn around in time. The fed is getting behind low interest mortgage loans for those who qualify, and the fed will be dumping lots of $$ into the public sector. There will be a turn around but it will likely be some time in the making.
At the moment, people around here are scared. It is a growing hysteria and many are doing dumb things. The sad irony is if people would just spend money as usual, or even mostly as usual, most problems would disappear. So in a big way this downturn is amplified by peoples fears....
I'm like Luke in that I'm just in the first steps for my photo business. It is a highly uncertain feeling to be launching this kind of enterprise at this time, but I will say that this site has been an oasis – a phenomenal aid and rich resource to help me learn more and more quickly than I’d have been able to otherwise.
