Aaron Hackett, formerly director of performance at Wavemaker Melbourne, was made redundant just before lockdowns began in March.
The now temporary warehouse assistant has written about the experience in an article for AdNews.
He loved the work -- ensuring the best results from ad spend on Google and Facebook -- and people at Wavemaker.
But he was determined to make the best of his situation. He did, finishing an 80,000 novel called The Amber Table, a science fiction/crime story he had been working on for some time.
The book is about a man who when scuba diving touches a glowing rock and it gives him a massive shock. He now has a numbness which grows into pain and, when he touches someone, this pain transfers to that person and kills them.
He then learns that the pain keeps returning and to survive he needs to transfer that to someone else -- and kill them -- to survive.
“I finished the novel and I got so bored with being at home I needed to do something else,” he told AdNews from his Melbourne home he shares with his wife and one-year-old son.
But the job market disappeared along with the economic infection from the pandemic.
“There's nothing,” he says. “It's dead out there. It’s one of those things. You just have to keep picking yourself up and chatting to people.”
Through his wife, who works at Baby Bunting, he got work in a warehouse getting ready orders that are made online.
He writes: “I’m glad to have had the opportunity to be Essential even if it was just for a fleeting moment, and not just buying ads and helping companies grow their bottom lines. This has given me a new-found appreciation for workers on the front-lines, Well done to all.”
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