Trueblood put in applications, got training and networked during time off

Back in February, George Trueblood’s story appeared in the Post. He had lost his job with the closing of Color-Tex. Among the unemployed for the first time in 25 years, he was taking a computer class.

“I haven’t looked for a job in so long, I didn’t realize things had changed so much,” he told a Post reporter.

Trueblood has a new chapter to add to the story now.

On March 12 — the same day he turned 46 —he went to work for GDH Automotive, formerly Draftex, which makes rubber seals for cars and trucks. He’s training in the extrusion department on second shift.

“It’s good to have a job,” Trueblood says. “I’m glad to be back in the workforce.”

It’s a transition that thousands of workers have been going through in recent months. A plant closes or lays off workers, and suddenly hundreds of people are back out in the job market, looking for a paycheck.

Trueblood says he was fortunate in some ways. His wife had a job at PPG in Lexington and their three oldest children were already out of the house. The youngest was 19.

Every worker longs for a little time off, but Trueblood said the novelty quickly wore off.

“I started feeling like it was going to go on forever,” he says. “It seemed like every place in the county was cutting jobs.”

Trueblood went to work looking for a job, visiting and/or putting in applications at companies in Rowan, Davidson, Cabarrus and Iredell counties.

“I wish I could say it was a good experience,” he says, but it got to be frustrating. “I met a lot of good people.”

He was disappointed that he didn’t get more calls from the companies he contacted. And he was surprised to learn that many employers would only take applications if they had an opening. They weren’t willing to hold on to his application in case something opened up.

He was also surprised that nearly every application asked the same question:“Do you have experience on computers?”

Trueblood said he had not been doing a lot of research on the employment picture, since he thought his job was secure at Color-Tex. The computer question was an eye-opener.

So, as the Post reported in February, Trueblood put his spare time to use learning more about computers.

His wife saw a notice on the cable television swap-and-shop channel that announced a free computer class at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College. Trueblood was already taking a class at the college in job-seeking skills —something required of people who go on unemployment.

He inquired and signed up for a Human Resources Development class that started the next day at Goodwill Industries. There he started learning basic computer applications like Microsoft Word and Excel.

The price was right, says Trueblood. The class was free.

Now he can’t say enough good things about Rowan- Cabarrus Community College and the people in the Human Resource Development program like Larry Yon and the teachers.

“They’re really down-to-earth and they’ll help you all they can.”

Even after he landed a second-shift job at GDH, he continued in his Human Resources Development class and says he wants to sign up for more computer training when this session is over.

“I want to make sure I do that,” he says. “You never can tell. This door opened. Something else might, also.”

At home he uses a new Hewlett Packard computer that has Internet capability and a lot of gadgets he doesn’t know how to use yet.

“The more you learn in class, the more you can do on your own.”

In the meantime, he’s grateful for his job at GDH and glad to be learning about the rubber seals.

He heard about the job through networking —talking with other people.

“A friend of mine told me they were taking applications,” Trueblood said. He applied through the Employment Security Commission.

The computer skills he’d been working on did not come into play.

“They gave us a series of tests dealing with hypothetical situations, trying to solve mechanical problems,” Trueblood says.

He was happy to give it a try. He’d been out of work six months.

“At that point, I was looking for a job to get out of the house,” he says.

As a trainee, he’s not making as much money as he did as a dye supervisor at Color-Tex. But the potential is there, he says.

He doesn’t dwell on that.

“That’s gone,” Trueblood says. “This is now.”