MATT SAMPSELL IN THE HUFFINGTON POST!

IF YOU EVER THOUGHT YOU HAD IT BAD, THINK AGAIN!

This is a post written by former FOX 26 News anchor Matt Sampsell. It appeared in the Huffington Post. It's a reminder of just how tough things can really get:

Huffington Post: I lost my job in March of 2008. I worked as a television sports anchor/reporter at the Fox O&O (KRIV-TV) in Houston, Texas. I remember being told that I wasn't being let go due to poor work performance; as a matter of fact they told me I had been a model employee. I was being let go because of budget cuts and my position in the sports department was being eliminated.

I was given a 6 month severance package and promptly escorted out of the building I had worked at for nearly ten years. It was as if I was an intruder.

I immediately began looking for a new job in the only business I knew. I had a 23 year broadcasting career put on hold by a bunch of bean counters.

At this time the entire TV news industry was laying people off left and right. The challenge for me was to stay in a field that was changing for the worst. I stayed in Houston and was able to find some freelance work, but the jobs were few and far between. About six months later a friend who worked at a Houston radio station offered me a job as a weekend sports talk show co-host. I took the job. It paid me ten bucks an hour, four hours a day on Saturday and Sunday. I took home 80 bucks a week. After a year of living off my severance and later unemployment, I was soon unable to keep up with my rent. The radio job kept me on the air in Houston, but I needed a full-time gig with benefits and a lot more money. I contacted a sports station in my hometown of Seattle and was told that my work would be needed on a freelance basis.

I loaded up my stuff and headed to Seattle with the impression a TV job in sports was waiting for me. A college friend and fraternity brother of mine generously offered his basement as a place I could stay until I could afford my own place. It was a basement, but it was rent free. He was a married man with two kids. I often found myself staring at the ceiling in bed and wondering how I got into this situation. I signed a freelance contract with the Seattle sports station and waited for a call to work. That call never came.

Soon after coming to Seattle my unemployment, which I counted on to keep me from digging into my checking and savings accounts, was canceled. The state of Texas told me it was because I "quit" my radio job in Houston. Keep in mind, this was a part-time job that I worked on a freelance basis and paid me 80 bucks a week! I never officially "quit" that job. Several more months passed and I was soon down to just the money I had in the bank with no supplemental income whatsoever. I was getting desperate, so I took my money out of my IRA just to survive. I was having no luck in Seattle. The area had been hit hard by the crash and tent cities were everywhere. They actually had an area in the suburb of Ballard where people were living in campers parked on the streets and empty parking lots at night. This was shocking to me.

I returned to Houston in the late summer of 2009. I stayed with another friend of mine, but this time it wasn't rent free. After a month back I did get one freelance job with Comcast Sports covering the NFL game between Houston and Oakland. That was it for the entire year of '09. I had always been pretty strong through most of this trial, but soon I began to suffer panic attacks, succumbed to tremendous bouts of depression and even had thoughts of suicide. I feared I would soon be roaming the streets begging for change. I kept thinking about how crushed my mom and family would have been if I took my own life. I had always been a favorite son in the family. They took pride in my successful career in television. Now, I was letting them down.

I was down to my last few thousand dollars. I knew I was going to be in deep debt, especially when taxes came around. During this whole two and a half year odyssey, I was looking for broadcasting jobs and regular jobs with no luck at all. I knew I had the talent to get back in the profession I loved, but it was depressing to struggle with the reality that no one wanted me.

In December of 2009, a phone call came out of the blue from someone I had done feature stories on before. He was starting a sports talk radio station in his home country of the Bahamas and needed someone to be the sports director. We came to an agreement and in March of 2010 I was on my way to Nassau, Bahamas to start a new journey. I thought it odd that I had to leave my country to work in my lifelong profession. A part of me hated to leave America now that it finally had its first black President.

The radio job in the Bahamas had its problems from the start. From management to staff to lack of proper equipment and cultural challenges, it was not an easy transition. Money was also a problem from the start. The people running the show and providing my salary would often come up short on cash. Checks began to bounce and they fell behind by three weeks. They kept promising to catch up, but never did. They ran out of money and the station never got on the air. I had dedicated six months to the project and ended up coming home thousands of dollars short of what they owed me.

I was counting on that money to provide some wiggle room while I returned to Houston to search for work. I was glad to be back in America. The experience in the Bahamas soured me a great deal. I came back even more depressed and now developed a lack of trust in people. I was now staying at an old girlfriend's house in Pearland, Texas. She was a single mother of a beautiful daughter and shared the trailer home with her mother and her step father. They were very gracious in letting me stay and even giving me some spending money here and there. I was in Houston for about three weeks and again feeling very lost, out of control and desperate. The suicidal thoughts returned stronger than ever. During my whole ordeal, I often thought of the movie, It's a Wonderful Life. I thought about that scene when George Bailey's friends and family came to his rescue with the money he needed to pay his bills. I was down to my last 100 dollars in my bank account!

The very next day I got a phone call from a former colleague of mine. He told me that a local Houston TV station was looking for a freelance news reporter. Although I had been a sports guy for most of my career, I had started out as a news reporter. I made the call, met with the acting news director and was given the job. My first week on the job, I interviewed Arianna Huffington, a person I've admired and respected for a long time. It was a pleasure to meet her and I was flattered that she asked me to contribute to her website.

I have been quite lucky this entire time. Three years without a steady job, no medical benefits (I have high blood pressure and must have blood work done every two years due to a currently benign form of cancer called Multiple Myeloma) and no place to call my own. My back account is still under 200 dollars, but at least I know a steady salary will be coming in. But I'm not out of the woods yet. The station I work at will be changing news formats in December. They're going to try a newscast without anchors or reporters.

I am thankful for the chance to save my career. I know that changes are ahead and I may be out of a job again, but for now, I feel good, the depression is gone and I believe in my future. I survived because of my fear of failure. I attended Washington State University, the same college Edward R. Murrow attended. The founding father of broadcast journalism would not have given up either.

I was also inspired by President Obama's message of hope and perseverance, and I had support from my great friends and a wonderful family.