<prompt> Human: Hello PF,Im in a state of shock right now and cant really think straight. I just found out a couple hours ago that Im losing my job in September. The Federal hiring freeze staff caps are affecting term-employees from being converted to full-time employees, and the upper management of my office entirely mismanaged their staff roster. This was my first real job with a salary and benefits that I secured after grad school, one that I had to fight tooth and nail for. Ive aggressively been eliminating my debt as I thought things were going to be worked out or so my boss told me, so my savings are low. That was a mistake, in retrospect. Ive been making long-term career plans to take advantage of the tuition assistance program my soon-to-be former office offers to learn Computer Programming in the Fall. Now thats not happening anymore. I have 5 paychecks remaining. I feel lost, like my entire plan was just ripped out from under me. What do I do now?Any advice is appreciated.Assistant: Slow down and relax. Youve got way more notice than most people, and thats enough time to plan. Start looking for work. Tonight you pull out your resume and update it with your most recent information. Look over it again tomorrow night when youve calmed down some. You have 2.5 months to line up another job, and I think you can do that easily. Start getting aggressive on saving - start living and spending like you already dont have a job. Get as big a pile of cash as you can for when your job ends. You will find another job and you will make a new plan that fits your situation. I feel for you - nobody likes having their life disrupted. You will make it through this, and you may not even feel it - Ill bet you can get another job in a couple months of looking.Human: Thank you for this advice. I really appreciate it. Im going to have a mid day beer and then work on my resume.  <response>: Bst advice I ever got when in any kind of unemployment situation:Do one thing every single day to better your situation.Update resume, work oit a reference, apply for a job, manage finances, practice interview, etc etc.The unemployed frequently start off in eituer a total funk, or all gung ho. Maybe they take a week of doing nothing but depression or they send out a million resumes. Both can be bad as both can lead to the unemployed getting lost for days or sometimes weeks at a time doing nothing to improve their situation. The gungho ones burn out and lose hope. The depressed ones hardly get anything done because of legitamate depression. Be steady. Make yourself a daily schedule. Do at least one thing every single day to better your situation, no matter how small. Sure, do more on days when you can, but dont say to yourself hey, I did like 5 things on Monday, so I can take the rest of the week off. You cant. Youll fall into a bad pattern and subsequent funk. Also, use the time to learn programming on your own. FreeCodeCamp and Udacity are great online free resources. Work it into your schedule. 4 hours of study a day, the other 4 legitamately job hunting - in short, keep working 8 hoirs a day and get up at the same time every morning, just as you would for work. 