The Stuff That Happened Before the Substack Happened
Let's go on this journey together, figuring stuff out in real time.
If you’re wondering, “Does the world really need another Substack?” No. But did we need another M3GAN movie? We didn’t. And that all went perfectly great, so you should definitely have the same level of expectations for this.
Welcome to Some Stuff Happened. I named it that because, well, some. stuff. has. happennnned!
Quick intro: Unlike what feels like most of the writers on here, I’m not a subject matter expert. I’m not any sort of expert at all.
If you're here for passages prognosticating podcast bros' impact on foreign policy, a step-by-step video recreating Syd's recipe for Hamburger Helper, or 11,000-word explainers on aura farming and how to lead your team like an Indonesian boat-racing kid, congrats, your algorithm made you take a spectacular wrong turn.
I’m just a guy with a laptop, a Wi-Fi connection, a Substack login, and lots of free time.
That wasn’t always the case. I was quite busy. A mover and shaker, as they say. Agents, managers, publicists, talent — important people were reaching out to me at all hours of the day and night. I went to big Hollywood premieres. I was a big deal. Mr. Showbiz, they called me.
No one called me that.
Most of that is wildly overstated, except for the part about the premieres. I did, in fact, go to the Barbie premiere. I wore pink Air Jordan 1s that I bought specifically for the occasion and have not worn since.
In reality, for the past eight years, I had been working for a global humanitarian aid organization, and since 2022, I’ve been living in Los Angeles (for the second time) in a role I liked to think of as entertainment-adjacent. I managed a mighty team of two, responsible for building relationships with the celebrities and creators who volunteered their time and platforms to support the mission. The goal was simple: raise awareness, raise money, help people. And I was fortunate to collaborate with some of the kindest, most generous people, who happen to also be famous faces you may know and love.
I loved that job. That hasn’t always been true for me. I’ve had more than a couple jobs I did not love. And one I hated.
If you happened to stop by the ice cream counter at the Trumbull Shopping Park in Trumbull, Connecticut, the summer of 1996, during the brief three-day window I was employed there… I sincerely apologize. Because it did not go well. I was so slow that customers offered to scoop their own ice cream. Some of them may or may not have actually done it. Also, I’m lactose intolerant. The employee discount was wasted on me.
I hated that job, but only because I was so very bad at it.
Note to potential recruiters who may have found this post while Googling my name after I applied for a job with your esteemed organization: I was 15 years old. Please do not let my mall food court mishaps reflect poorly on my ability to be the best [insert job title here] your company has ever seen. My work ethic and professionalism have substantially improved since then, though my ice cream scooping still leaves a lot to be desired.
Apologies for that brief detour to first job memories. Let’s go back to the last job. The one I loved. The one where I got to work with generous and talented people giving back and trying to make this world a little bit better.
I was closing in on my eight-year anniversary with the organization, and the three-year mark of this role I cherished.
And then… SOME STUFF HAPPENED.
More specifically, 2025 happened. Abrupt and aggressive changes took a chainsaw to the entire sector. My LinkedIn feed had become an endless scroll of friends and former colleagues in the humanitarian space announcing they were suddenly #OpenToWork. And while it was hard watching so many talented people pushed out, what hit harder was knowing the critical work they were doing, real, life-changing stuff, was being paused or shut down entirely.
Meanwhile, my colleagues and I kept doing the work as best we could, even as it felt like soon some of us wouldn’t be around to do the work. I’ve had jobs before where the end was clearly marked on the calendar — my first full-time job out of college, we were acquired by a larger competitor and knew we’d soon be out; and later, working in city government, after my boss lost re-election and we all knew our days were numbered. But this didn’t feel like that. Even with seismic changes looming, no one was mailing it in. That sense of purpose, the hope and urgency baked into the work, was still very much alive.
Then, early on the Tuesday morning after President’s Day weekend, I was one of the people who got the email from HR. I also got a call beforehand. It was a small gesture, but it made a hard moment feel a little more human. I was being furloughed. I knew it was a possibility. But I wasn’t ready.
A few weeks later, I officially went from furloughed to let go. And I’ve been out of work ever since.
Hence the free time. And the Substack.
That’s just some of the stuff that happened.
If you’ve made it this far, thank you. I’ll be writing about what comes next: the job hunt, the wins, the setbacks, and the stuff that happens in between.
If you’re also figuring out what’s next — whether you’re out of work, switching careers, or just navigating life’s plot twists — hi. I see you. Let’s stick together.
Subscribe. Share. Lurk. Send me a job lead. Or a picture of your dog. Or both, if your dog is hiring. All are welcome here.
More stuff to come.
—Tim
Other Stuff Happening
Tip: If you have a Los Angeles Public Library card, you can get access to LinkedIn Learning for free. Yes, free. Go here to learn more, and thank me later.
Advice I Took: A career coach told me to turn off LinkedIn’s #OpenToWork banner. So I did. And I wrote a post about how I’m still very much open to work, just no longer flying the green banner. Turns out, she might’ve been onto something. The post led to a few genuine conversations and maybe even a little momentum.
Substacks on Substacks on Substacks: I’m new here, but I probably wouldn’t be writing this if it weren’t for a few publications I’ve recently gotten into like Friends of USAID’s Substack and Career Pivot, and I just discovered The Job Search Chronicles, which I look forward to checking out once I stop re-re-rewatching Season 19 of Taskmaster.
Oof! I feel ya. As someone who has been in the talent trenches for over a decade, I've been right smack dab in the midst of a lot of the ups and downs of the job market, and the last couple years have definitely been like walking on half-set Jell-o. And the last few months have been like walking on half-set Jell-o while dodging fireballs and hailstones in the middle of a tornado.
This feels kinda' like when the dot-com bubble burst (especially for those in tech), when the subprime mortgages caused a foreclosure crisis and when print gave way to digital but also different, in a "WTF!!! I didn't agree to be in the reality show version of Idiocracy-meets-Black Mirror kind of way!"
Yes, this job market is cray. That said, I do see people still landing interview and getting hired. And the ones I work with are getting hired by conducting their job search like they're headhunters rather than job searchers, so there is a way out of job search hell.