Yup. And it's refreshing to see this thread, as so much of HN seems to be entrepreneurs. I was laid off over two years ago. There were so many other tech layoffs at around the same time that finding a job has been very difficult. I ran into a colleague who was laid off a few months after me, and he's now working in retail. I'm still unemployed, as I cannot cope with the idea of dealing with the public.

I've gone back to education, having found a free course in computer hardware. (I really know only software and web, and have till now kept away from hardware.) However, taking the course for some reason interferes with my unemployment benefits, so I'm going to have to juggle some stuff. Apparently one option is to take the one-year course part time over two years. The other option, of course, is to find a job that pays enough to get by on without taking up too much time.