Ringing In Your Ears

One thing the Unemployment experience teaches you is to be humble.

After a harrowing, near-death experience (from nerves, not actual real danger) buying clothes and getting, *ahem*, groomed for The Big Interview last week, I entered the period known as "Waiting For The Call" where all of your senses are heightened and any sound, from a bird chirping to a cat throwing up to the mailman pulling up to the mailbox all the way at the end of the driveway -- sound like your phone ringing.

But it's never really ringing until you go to take the dog outside.

During this stage of your Unemployment, you will occasionally think it's ringing when it's not (which is key to the whole experience) you will, if you are in any way high-strung, have what we call anxiety. Some of us who are little more high-strung than others have what can only be referred to as panic attacks. For those of you that aren't as perceptive of everything going wrong in your world, or just lucky enough not to be ridden with anxiety, I can best describe this with a quote from Chris Hardwick, who broke it down to it's brutal explanatory truth.

"A panic attack is like getting fucked in the HEART. "

You can beat these attacks.

The key to getting around this is to tell yourself you don't want a job.

It's not the end of the world if they don't call. (Yes, it is.)

To breathe (which will happen anyway, I assure you) and to focus on your breathing. (Oh God, I'm breathing...)

To keep your heart rate down and to avoid caffeine, if you can. I can't. (I won't.)

Or you can just be a real functioning human who doesn't think that not getting a call from someone who might give you a job will make your head explode like you're an extra in Scanners. Do whatever you think works best.

So I'm in "Waiting For The Call" mode and what do I get? My old friend Insomnia! You might remember Insomnia from earlier in the Unemployed Files, where he visited for several weeks. I quickly went from DayWalker to Bill from True Blood, burrowing into the ground at Sun Up and only peaking out once that damned fire orb goes back behind the trees and wherever it goes when I am amongst the living.

Of course, insomnia is no good when you're "Waiting For The Call." Mostly, because those that could potentially be making the call are awake, and outside, and wearing pants and are at an office and ostensibly, on the phone...

..and they're calling you while you're sleeping.

Of course, sleeping really doesn't happen either, since you're in "Waiting For The Call" hypersensitive senses mode where your reflexes are augmented by 315% and your needs for sustenance and rest are negated by the needs or wants of, well, what you think you need or want.

So every noise wakes you up. REM sleep is a thing of the past. Dreams are gone. Nightmares prevail. They adapt quickly, like a virus, learning to strike quickly in the short times you make an appearance in the Land of Nod. Tense muscles give way to body aches, and the sleeping positions that work for you also make you snore, and therefore, don't work for the wife, so you're forced into an uncomfortable position that makes you snore less and Oh, Why Not: Stop Breathing.

All this fun multipled by a few days of it plus the general uneasiness of being Unemployed in general leave you with a Unshaven, Grumpy, Surly, Un-rested, Jumpy, Skiddish, Ill-Mannered, Over-Tense, Heart-Fucked, Soulless, Panic-Ridden, Anxiety monkey waiting for a call from a potential employer.

I got one. I had the phone in my hand when it happened.

Remember the interview from my last dispatch that I killed at?

It was those guys.

Remember how I thought I killed at that interview?

I did.

They love me.

They think I'm incredible.

They're so impressed by my abilities and how I came across and were so happy to meet me.

And, that they offered someone else the job.

Well, there you go.

I was told they liked me a lot, and want to work with me in the future, and that they'll keep me in mind.

I said thanks for the opportunity and hung up the phone, and looked out the window. I saw a bird on a tree and the mail truck pulling up to the mailbox.

Suddenly they just didn't sound like the phone anymore.

Nothing does. Because the phone's not ringing.

It's hard not to take it personally, because every call that doesn't happen, and every call that does but includes a "I'm sorry to inform you..." is just another in a long line of the thing that most humans are allergic to called rejection.

It's become a theme this year, and the worst part is that I'm getting used to it.

I'm an Invisible Man walking through a society that's drudging on around me, pushing my way up and down the aisles of stores in slow motion while the manic hysteria of the working world goes on around me. I hear about The Unemployed on the news and in the papers and on the internet, but I never see any of them because I suspect they're all on odd-time schedules and have become recluses like I have.

It's hard not to feel like the only one living this reality.

It's even worse when you realize that you're not the only one.

The production world that I used to be a part of has been described many times as "A Lot of Hurry-Up-And-Wait" and I'm finding that's more true now, and appropriate for more situations than just that tiny block of the entertainment business.

Jobs come and go and opportunity comes knocking when you least expect it to. If you're wanting it too much, you might as well just kiss it goodbye.

You have to remind yourself that work doesn't define you and life is what you make it.

Sometimes you need some rejection to put that back in frame of focus for you.

Chairman of the Bored

"Countin' flowers on the wall
That don't bother me at all
Playin' solitaire till dawn with a deck of fifty-one
Smokin' cigarettes and watchin' Captain Kangaroo
Now don't tell me I've nothin' to do

— The Statler Brothers, "Flowers on the Wall"

After a few weeks, the novelty of being home all the time wears off. You break your old habits, and start forgetting things that don't matter anymore. You start asking yourself questions like "What the hell is a timesheet?" and wonder why anyone would waste time out of their productive day to do something as asinine as to tell someone else what they'd been working on all day. To me, that would seem counter-productive. You forget about that. It just doesn't make sense, so it's wiped from your memory banks.

The job hunt is going slow. You keep seeing contradictory reports on the news saying that unemployment is going down, or that it's going back up. That things will be okay by mid-year NEXT YEAR. You send in your requisite three resumes a week to satisfy your Unemployment requirements and sit waiting by the phone that just...doesn't...ring.

The dog, (remember her?) is now just kind of used to you being home all the time. It's not a big to-do anymore that requires her to have a smiling face or enough of a thing that she gets excited. When she smiles now, you know it's because she wants some water, or to go outside. The cats ignore you, but that's okay, because that's what cats do.


In this economic downturn, (both recession-wise and unemployment-wise) I've become a customer of our local dollar stores. Luckily, the part of town I live in has two. One has good deals on some things I need, and the other has bargains on other items I want. So I split my time between the two when I go out shopping and am friendly with the cashiers at both.

Who knows what they think of me coming in so often, and during the day no less. I'm sure they've noticed the deterioration. I've lost a few pounds since I lost my job. Probably due to not eating out at lunch every day. I've grown out my hair and my beard, just because I can and because it doesn't really make sense to go get a haircut when I'm not making money and I don't really see anyone except for my wife, and the two cashiers at the two local dollar stores.

Perhaps they think of me as a wealthy eccentric who roams the aisles of cheap establishments, constantly on the prowl for tchotchkes and trinkets and the recently faded trends of the last year.

I'll take "Low-rent Howard Hughes" all day long, for the record.

More than likely, I don't even get noticed. Or maybe they think I'm just another asshole that comes into their stupid little store and buys things and floats out into the customer ether or wherever all those people that pass by the register mosey off to.

I think about all of this (and everything else) too much, because I have entered the stage following "FREEDOM" called "BOREDOM."

Freedom is the best stage to be in because your optimism is at an all-time high. You are positive that what has happened is a good thing and that you have nothing to lose and nowhere to go but straight up to the top! It's all going to be okay and nothing can stop you! You get to sleep late, and stay up late, and do anything you want to do anytime you want to!

The dog used to "smile" at me because she was excited I'm home.

I'm fairly sure I saw her just roll her eyes at me today. Nothing like a sarcastic canine.

Things change. Deal with it and move on. This, too, shall pass.

Your freedom becomes a burden. You run out of ideas of things you can go do. Or you run out of things that are feasible for you to do, because, well, you're out of work and can't just go on vacation or fly somewhere.

Another downside of your "freedom" is that the work that conveniently got in the way of the things you didn't want to do around the house is no longer there as an excuse. Or, you can look at it as an chance to finally do all the things you have been needing to do forever. It's all in how you look at it, I suppose.

John Lennon once said that "Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans."

Sometimes life is what's happening while you don't have any plans.

And that's okay.

"I've been traveling on a boat and a plane
In a car on a bike with a bus and a train
Traveling there, traveling here
Everywhere. in every gear

But, oh Lord, we pay the price
With the spin of the wheel, with the roll of the dice
Ah yeah, you pay your fare

And if you don't know where you're going
Any road will take you there"

— George Harrison "Any Road"