<prompt> Human: I have a wife, 2 kids, mortgage, car payment and 8 dont know what to do.Edit: I can not thank everyone who has responded enough for your pep talks, advice, words of wisdom and personal experiences. You guys have help me get my head in the right place and have helped me know what to do next. I expected people to just tell me to suck it up...lots of people go through this...and I guess that was the underlying message in many responses...but it was conveyed in a compassionate way. I very much appreciate every response and would love to hear more advice regarding resumès and interview skills and how to effectively use LinkedIn. This is a great subreddit! Thank you all again!Assistant: Maybe I should give some more detail. I have worked as an electron and light microscopist in textile industry. I actually have a degree in biology, have published in parasitolgy and done some work in nanotechnology. I ran the transmission electron microscope, scanning electron microscope, polarized light microscope and a keyence digital microscope. I recently also began tensile testing and running the differential scanning calorimeter, contact angle goniometer and a little experience on FTIR. My job dealt mostly with synthetic fibers in the flooring and automotive industry, but I have also worked with biological and even geological samples. So, I guess my job was more of a generalist, but experience has been that no one is sure what to do with a generalist. I am one step away, the test, from having a certification in applied chemical microscopist from the McCrone Research Institute which includes classes in Hair and Fiber Microscopy, microscopy of Soils, Polymer Microscopy, Micro Chemical methods. I dont mean this to sound like a resume, but people were asking.  <response>: Your skillset appears to be microscopy, with additional materials characterization background DSC, FTIR, contact angle, tensile. Im not in a hiring manager position, but if I was looking at your resume from a labskills standpoint the TEM and SEM in particular would stand out as valuable lab skills - those are harder to train for and often require some creativity - can you see anything unusual in this sample or is there any way we can get a picture of this oddly shaped, nonconductive object is a lot more difficult than push these buttons every five minutes. If you can do FIB prep and operate a dual beam you should also say that.Have you considered talking to an analytical group like EAG? Companies like mine outsource some of their specialty labwork to companies like that in pretty large quantities. These type of companies often need specialized lab skills, independent of subject matter, so that gives you an option to bank on your decades of microscopy experience rather than a specialty in fibers.Good luck with your search, and hang tough. 