I spent the better part of the morning punching up my resume. Now that I am gainfully unemployed and must compete with a good many of my fellow Americans who have also been laid off by their employers, I figured that I needed to tune up my resume. It’s the first time since getting out of the Air Force in 1994 that I have had a definite ending date for my most recent employer. Up until now, it’s always simply said “Present” for an ending date. Now it shows “September 2009″.

It’s the first time since 1994 that I have had to look for a job when I didn’t already have a job.

I noticed while updating my resume that for every company I’ve ever worked for except one, the name of the company changed while I worked for them. My former employers were all acquired by other companies and without exception, took on the name of the company that acquired them. The one company that didn’t change names while I was there, Gretag Imaging, instead simply went out of business shortly after I left. Walmart Photo became Fujicolor. Moore Business Communication Services became RR Donnelly. My last employer started out with one name and then later became something else.

I wonder if this is just the way it will always be. Will corporations trade companies back and forth like bad pennies? Looking at my own job history, I have no reason to believe that the company that eventually hires me will remain that company for very long. If history is any indicator, it will become something else.