Unemployment sucks

I got fired 2 weeks ago. I believe my manager had been working toward this for quite some time, but I'm not sure why. Over a year ago, I started receiving less than stellar periodic performance reviews. I didn't necessarily agree with the content of those reviews, but after discussing some of the points he brought up, it seemed he was not interested in changing his mind; to avoid seeming like a whiner, I thought it would be more professional to simply agree with him and attempt to "improve" my work. Nothing I did however, appeared to help. The only feedback I ever received from him was negative and if I did something well, it went unnoticed. He was required to review 2 of my calls per month and for a while, those always seemed to be negative as well. I noticed that he was playing 5-7 of my calls before settling on the ones to review. When I called him on this and noted that it appeared as if he were LOOKING for calls he could review negatively, that seemed to stop, but if he reviewed a call where I did everything correct, he either commented on how I could have done something better, or there were simply no comments at all. It took him over a year, but apparently, he finally collected enough reason to justify letting me go. Right before Christmas. Asshole.

I've learned some important lessons:

1. If you don't agree or dispute something in your performance review and have the ability to dispute or comment on it, DO SO! Don't worry about looking like a whiner or like you're making excuses.
2. If you feel like you're not getting a fair shake from your boss and discussing it professionally with him doesn't correct the issue, go to his boss and state your case.
3. Keep an updated, backup copy of your resume someplace other than your work computer. I've had to recreate my resume basically from scratch. I'm hoping to get my My Documents folder exported, but it's been a huge hassle and may not happen due to various levels or red tape.
4. Put only as much trust in the people you work for as is necessary. Your boss may act like your buddy, but there's a better than average chance he's just trying to get close enough to plunge the knife into your back cleanly.

I've had much support from many of my friends and many of them are doing what they can to help me find a new job. What has surprised and touched me the most is the level of support and effort received from my so-called, "imaginary" friends; people I know only via the Internet whom I have not actually met in real life. I 'met' them on an online message board. Many of us have no knowledge of each other aside from what we have posted in various (often irreverent) threads on that forum, yet a number of them have requested that I send them copies of my resume or have sent me links to job postings for their companies or companies in their areas. It has been a ray of light in a dark and depressing time.

My confidence (what there was of it) is shattered. I feel like a failure. I am no longer able to provide for my family and feel like I've let them down. It's as if this is simply one more thing in a long line of crap with which I have burdened them. I can see it taking it's toll and I'm doing my best to keep my head up and look for the silver lining to keep everything from falling apart, but it's hard. Very hard. I start to get down or depressed which then leads to thoughts that I'm just feeling sorry for myself and I should just knock it off, which just makes it worse. It then just feeds on itself and becomes a vicious circle.

Hopefully, I'll get a nibble pretty soon on one or more of the resumes I'm sending out and everything will go back to normal. In an ideal world, it will be one of the resumes I've sent off for jobs in the northeast and we can just pack up us, mom, all our junk and get the heck out of here. Fresh start, clean slate and whatnot. We shall see.