I’ve many held many titles in my life, but “Spammer” is a new one.

My titles include Bellhop (my first job), Door-to-Door Salesman (my first unreal job) Camp Counselor, Union Construction Laborer, Speed-Bump Painter, Typist, Shuttle-Bus Driver, Customer Service Representative (phone jockey), Quality Process Analyst, Team Leader, SAS Programmer, Marketing Analyst, Financial Analyst, Segmentation Leader, Innovation Director, and Consultant. But never was I a Spammer!

Until recently.

As my thoughtful and caring readers already know, I was recently diplaced from my role at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida. “Displaced” is another word for downsized, reorganized, right-sized, re-engineered, moving in a different direction, and “It’s not you; it’s me.”

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not bitter. Really. I’m not. I’m just giving background.

So, when you’re displaced, you have to find a new job. You do this in order to have a happy wife. And, as the old saying goes, “Happy Wife = Happy Life.” And, I’m all for having a happy life.

Time to get to work. My career counselors at Right Management are quite good, and they say that the jobs in the job market fall into two segments. You have the “reactive” segment of jobs which are those posted on job boards like Monster and Career Builder. Right estimates the reactive segment to be about 25% of the jobs. The “proactive” segment is made up of jobs that are unadvertised, or they haven’t been created yet. Much harder to find, especially in the current economy, but proactive jobs represent 75% of the market. Knowing this, I came up with a 3-Step Plan.

Step 1 – I, being really good at math, decide I will spend most of my time looking in the proactive market.

Step 2 - Write a funny letter to my friends.

Step 3 – Get a job.

It turns out there’s a lot that goes into Step 2. The first parts are easy (2a – write the letter, 2-b send the letter), but the part right before Step 3 begins (2c) is complicated, so I’ll leave that to the end of the blog.

Part 2a was fun. I copied the idea from another letter I wrote to raise money for Multiple Sclerosis. I know the last thing people want to hear from newly-displaced people is “Woe is me.” Even if I felt like, “Woe is me,” I’m not letting on. The letter had to have an upbeat tone, give people something to laugh at , and it had to give them a way to help if they wanted to. Here’s a link to the letter I sent. I sent it out in waves of 50 at a time through my GMail account, so I could keep track of the responses. I didn’t want to get too many Out of Office and Bounce responses at one time because it would be hard to make all the changes to my address book.

The 11th time I sent out the e-mail to 50 people, I became a Spammer! How awful. That’s right up there with the Biblical version of the tax collector.

Apparently, if you send out more than 500 e-mails in one day, Google blocks your e-mail account for 24 hours because it thinks you’re a Spammer! This action is taken regardless of the nobleness of your cause.

Long story short, I got the rest of the e-mails sent out the next day, and it has been a rousing success. My favorite recruiter told me she liked it so much she read it to her family and friends at Thanksgiving. I highly encourage anyone finding themselves in this situation to do the same.

Step 3 is still not accomplished, and that is where the complexity Part 2c comes in. This is the part where after I send the letter, I have to corral all the suggestions, make a thousand phone calls, send hundreds more e-mails and practice being patient.

So, please keep thinking about me. Let me know if you know of someone I should meet or if you have a suggestion for me. I really appreciate it.

Happy Holidays!

Carey