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.

Cursing In The Dressing Room

"Clean shirt, new shoes
And I dont know where I am goin to.
Silk suit, black tie,
I dont need a reason why.
They come runnin just as fast as they can
Coz every girl crazy bout a sharp dressed man."

— ZZ Top - Sharp Dressed Man

"Fuck. FUCK. FUUUUUUUUCK."

I hear the Dressing Room Lady outside the door.

"Everything okay in there?"

I sigh.

"No... Yes."

This is the third pair of pants I have tried on, and the fourth or fifth shirt.

It's right at Six O'Clock and the place closest to here that cuts hair on Mondays (because strangely most barber shops here are closed on Mondays) closes at 8 O'Clock.

I still have to shave this beard off.

I don't have shoes that will go with whatever I end up buying that I am currently trying on in this stupid dressing room at this stupid store that doesn't make freakin' clothes that actually fit my...I'm guessing, totally freakish and awkwardly built body.

Sorry, I've gone and got a little ahead of myself. I'm in the middle of the PRE-INTERVIEW JITTERS.

I don't wear what I call "dress-up clothes." I appreciate the whole Mad Men aesthetic of tailored suits and bespoke shirts, but I can't put it any more clearly that my ideal mode of dress is a t-shirt of some sort along with blue jeans or shorts. Original, I know, but it let's me put absolutely zero thought into what I'm wearing so that I can focus on what I'm doing.

Anyway, today I care. I'm trying on dress shirts.

I am attempting to find a proper pair of fucking khakis.

After nearly giving myself an anxiety ridden panic attack trying to find clothes for what, in my head, will essentially be a quick trip to a footstool covered in thumbtacks in front of a What's Your Line panel of people who hate me upon sight, I finally settle on a pair of proper light brown pants and a white and blue checked button-up.

I can't pay for it quick enough. My wife wanted to look at some things in the ladies section of the store but my interview is first thing in the morning and I have to get my hair cut so I am freaking. My stomach is in knots.

The kid checking us out has to call his manager because I have a coupon. Of course I have a coupon. Of course it doesn't work.

The manager takes care of it. I pay. We are going towards the car. "Don't run off on me!" my wife says. I look back and she's five feet behind me. I am unaware I have ran off towards the car in a power-walking sprint (of which, in the spirit of transparency, I am accused of often. What? I'm tall.) and have a mission. HAIR CUT.

Ten minutes later we're at the barber shop. I go inside and the girl at the counter asks me for my phone number. The last four digits. I give her what I think I gave them last time (I've changed numbers a few times for various reasons) and it pulls up nothing. I give another number, and it's the wrong name.

"That's not me." I say.

"Well who are you?" She says.

"Well...I'm me."

"What's your phone number?"

"Can't you just make a new person on there with my new number?"

"No, I don't want to. What's your phone number?"

At this point I want to scream "I hate you and I just want a motherfucking haircut, bitch." but instead of that I give her my full name and she pulls up a number I didn't even think about as my phone number.

I still am not really sure why I even have to give a phone number to give a haircut, but whatever.

A few minutes later I'm in the chair.

A few minutes after that I'm out the door with a lighter wallet and am off to Wal-Mart.

I point out that "That's a lot of gray hair on the floor."

The lady who cut my hair says "Everyone says that."

It was a lot of gray.


After Wal-Mart, my wife tells me it's all going to be okay. She's said this several times tonight but I am less than half a day from the thing I hate most. Being judged on who I am, in tiny cereal box form where they just see the cover and maybe read the ingredients, but don't really know what I am, or what I can do, or if I'm even crunchy in milk.

It will be okay, she says. I want to trust her.

We get home, and groceries are put away. Everything in it's right place. Food in the fridge and the pantry. Toiletries to the bathroom and all that. New clothes off the hangers and all put in their final resting place.

On me.

I actually look okay.

My wife tells me to come out and she sees me. "You look really good. I told you you would."

She then tells me I freak out too much. Guilty as charged.

A belt ties it all together. My dog is giving me that smile. She must be thirsty.

I go to bed early but not before setting every alarm in the house in staggered times so that I don't sleep in like I have the last few months.

Today I had my interview, and I feel pretty confident that I killed at it.

Everyone was laughing at my jokes, and giving eye contact, and seemed genuinely interested. Out of hundreds of applicants I was one of only a few they asked to come in.

Cross yer fingers. I want to be writing Employed Files sooner than later.

And if you're in the same situation, for the love of god: Don't Freak Out.

Pre-cursor audioblog I did yesterday

I'll Tell You Anything 'Cept The Truth

WANTED: Designer. Must know Photoshop, Illustrator, inDesign, and be highly creative and capable of working without supervision.

Well, that's me to a tee! Full of optimism, hope and vigor I quickly get in touch with who I envision will be my new boss as soon as I get the chance to meet him face-to-face.

A personal website is put together quickly, fully loaded with an "About Me" page and a full-blown Resume, and even a mighty big Portfolio of a lot of the really cool things I've done in my career so far. Photos I've taken from across the country, Print layouts, Web layouts, Logos, Branding, you name it. Hand illustrated stuff, and band logos. It's a slam dunk!

Potential new boss tells me to get in touch with him soon. I shoot him an e-mail, he's kind of busy, but we need to get together. When is good for me? Well...anytime is good for me. I don't have anything to do.

Two weeks later, an interview! The night before, hell, for a week before it, I'm a ball of nervous energy. I go buy nice new clothes for the meeting. I even shave off my "post-work" beard. I go and get a haircut. The night before I can't even sleep. I'm so sure this is going to be awesome and fast and I'm going to get this job immediately and I'm going to be back on track in no time with a new job and insurance and all the things I'd taken for granted before. Plus these guys seemingly do really awesome stuff! I'm excited to say the least.

The meeting is for 9:00 a.m. the next morning. I'm up at 5 a.m., easy.

I get all gussied up and out the door about 7:30 for what is ostensibly a 15 minute drive. Now, by normal human mathematics, you'd estimate that I'd show up for my 9:00 o'clock meeting at around 7:45 or so. But in the weary unemployed travelers mindset, there could be traffic. You don't want to be late do you? You've been in traffic before on this interstate for hours that one time four years ago when that tractor trailer truck wrecked.... What if that same drive had had time to recuperate...and got his Commercial Driver's License back in that four year time period, and just happened to flip his truck again, on this...the day you don't need it to happen! Oh God, at this rate I'll never get there!

Rationality is not a strong point for a man who is in search of what he wants.

So, I pull up in the parking lot of the place I'm going at 7:50 a.m. A full hour and ten minutes before my scheduled meeting-slash-informal interview. Is it even really an interview? He said he wanted to meet with me...he never said interview. Oh, man. What have I done...am I overdressed? CRAP.

I listen to the radio in my car. It's hot, so I keep it running so the air conditioning is on. But I'm unemployed a.k.a. I don't make much money except for my unemployment check, and gas is expensive, so I need to cut the car off. But I don't want to get sweaty. But it's still an hour until I need to go into this building! Okay, maybe I can go in like ten minutes early. That's typical for like...acting auditions right? "On Time is Ten Minutes Early." Well, this isn't acting. Ughhhh....

Okay it's thirty minutes before now. I'm a jumbled mess. I haven't done a job interview in close to a decade. This is not as easy as I thought.

I have his number in my iPhone. I almost call it a few times. Finally with about twenty-five minutes left I give in.

HIM: Hello?

ME: Hey [Potential Boss], This is [Your author] and I just got here in your parking lot. Ran a little faster than I thought, just got here because I thought traffic would be worse than it was.

HIM: Ha! No problem, man. We're upstairs, and through a door and then down the hall all the way and then make a left. You can't miss it.

ME: Sounds good. I will see you in a sec--

HIM: I will warn you...our air conditioner is out, so it's about 85 degrees up here.

ME: Oh[*]... no problem! Will see you in a few.

HIM: Alright then

**CLICK**

"Fuck!"

[*]Okay, a little transparency and disclosure here. When it is hot I get sweaty. I know this is a trait indicative of the human race in general, but in the state I live in it is humid. And hot. I have many times equated the outside atmosphere as an invisible wet blanket rendering any showering you have done, even moments before, completely null and void should you step into it.

So, I've been sitting in my car for about thirty minutes, stressing out. Getting a little bit of a sweat going.

Now I'm exiting the car and walking, in the summer, through an asphalt parking lot, up two levels of outdoor stairs, and into a closed building without a lot of windows that has no air conditioning. I walk into my potential new workplace, and I see the guy I'm supposed to be talking to in our inter-meeting-view. He's on the phone, engrossed in a conversation. (Didn't I just talk to him moments before?) He waves and holds up the 'Hold on a second' finger and I just kind of stand there awkwardly, getting hotter and hotter, and I'm looking around the office.

A few minutes later he comes out and says hi, and I say hi, and he suggests that we go into a communal meeting kind of room with a nice big couch and some stuff they've worked on on the wall and it's pretty cool. Except for it being really hot. I feel sweat going down my neck and back. The shirt on me feels like it's been hit by a water sprinkler...

HIM: So tell me a little about yourself...

ME: Um, well, ...sorry, it's been a while since I've done one of these. I've been working for the same place the last seven years until a week or two ago.

HIM: No worries, we're just talking. I'll tell you some of the stuff that we do... (and he goes through a list of cool projects and things that they do, which is mostly website based, and with a little bit of apparel stuff, but it all seems like stuff I can design for.)

ME: That all sounds awesome! I've done lots of stuff like that for print, and for the web. I've done a bunch of television stuff too if you guys were ever wanting to go that way.

HIM: That's all pretty exciting. Well I liked the samples I saw in your portfolio and my partner is on vacation this week, but we might be able to get you to do some samples, kind of a try-out, for us if you don't mind doing that. We'd pay you for any work you do, of course.

My heart sank. The partner isn't here, so there won't be any getting hired today at least. But that's fine. There's still hope....right?

HIM: So how are you with code?

ME: Code? Like HTML?

HIM: Well, some HTML, mostly CSS and some things like that.

ME: Oh...well, I will just be honest here and say that any of this stuff I've worked on before we usually had a guy who did code, or several guys, and I just strictly designed. But I've worked on huge design stuff and it all really looks great!

HIM: Hmm....well, the position is really needing a coder. Someone who is really good, and I mean really strong at code. Coding is a huge part of what's going on here. Is that something you could learn?

ME: Well, uh...yeah...I guess. I just don't have a lot of experience in that. I did HTML websites back, man...I guess back about ten years ago. But I don't know the CSS stuff. I mean, I could try to learn, but I--

HIM: (standing up) It was really good to meet you today, so here's my card...(hands me a card) Do you have a card?

ME: No, no I don't. (Mental note: DAMN IT.)

HIM: Start learning that code, we'll be in touch.

We shake hands, and I leave. I catch a reflection of myself on the way out and I look like someone who just got dropped into one of those pools after someone threw a softball at a target. I'm drenched in sweat. It is miserable. I walk outside of this place, dejected, a completely unqualified jerk into 90 degree heat and it is somehow cooler than the climate I just came out of, which mentally is resembling a circle of hell at the moment, outlookwise.

I get in the car and make the somehow longer-feeling drive home. I'm second guessing myself, going through the...whatever the hell that was, in my head over and over. Wondering why I was stuttering and stammering. Not pushing my strengths well. Why wasn't this dude impressed? I was a big deal and had tons of people singing my praises at my old gig. People in the industry respect my skills! Dear God, what have I done. I've blown it.

I go home and relay the unmitigated disaster to my wife. She says it can't possibly be as bad as I am telling her it was. Somewhere in the fallout from this abortion of a meeting/interview/whatever it was I'm fairly sure that I admitted responsibility for the Holocaust. I might have choked the guy. It's just getting worse and worse in my head.

Days pass. Soon, it's a week.

The beard is back. Oh boy, is it back. By this point I have completed the barter that invited Fallout 3 into my life. I'm obsessed with this game, which is not really like me at all. I'm not really a gamer. But it is working for me. My focus is there, whether it's the wrong thing to be focused on or not. Otherwise I am going to be depressed about the rejection that is sure to come.

The bouts of insomnia have begun. Gone are the days of the internal 8 a.m. wake-up call. That habit is broken. I wake up around mid-day to 2 p.m. and stay up until around 3, or 4, or let's just tell the truth, about 6 a.m. the next day.

I am the night. I go and sit on the steps of my house and look at stars and wonder about things up there that I can't possibly understand. I realize I don't know code and remember that there are about a billion things down here I don't get either. What I don't know could fill the Grand Fuckin' Canyon at this point.

Then it happens.

*Ding*

YOU HAVE ONE E-MAIL.

I check my mail.

"Man - This week is really getting away from me. And I'm out of town next week.

Let me be honest - I'm concerned about your skillset with css/html development.
Is this something you have been picking up here lately? This really is an essential
part of what we do."

I reply:

"I've learned some. I'm not an expert by any means, but I am learning. If that's a huge pitfall, I understand, I've just never had to deal with the coding side of things before."

I never heard anything back. About two weeks later I saw a twitter post proclaiming they were close to finding a candidate. A few days later they were welcoming the newest employee to their team.

It wasn't me.

I wasn't going to lie to the guy. At this point in my life there are some things that I just won't do that I used to do without blinking an eye. Being dishonest is one of them. If I know something, you'll hear about it. If I don't know something, I'll be the first to admit it. I wasn't going to lie to get this job. I'm not sure I even wanted a "coding" job because I like to design things. That's what I think I'm good at.

Having said all this, I can't help but feel like I was baited in by the idea of getting a job for one thing, and then being told I wasn't qualified for a whole different thing. I realize a business-owner can do things on a whim for whatever reason he or she wants to. Hell, there doesn't even have to be a reason to do things. You can just do it, because it's yours. Maybe I just didn't understand what they wanted, or thought I could adapt to anything.

I'm a casualty of this bait-and-switch system. Not a martyr, just one of the generic bodies coming in, not being able to (under)stand the heat, and feeling relief out on the porch where it's still way too hot to live.

I got worked up for nothing. I went in qualified for one thing, and ended up not ready for something I wouldn't have wanted in the first place. My confidence at this point was down in the hole anyway. Plus I looked like I'd slid down the hallway to his office on a completely soaked Slip N' Slide.

In the immediate following days I send on average, at least two or three resumes and cover letters out a day. I don't ever get a response.

No one said it wasn't going to be confusing out here in the real world. So I look to the virtual world sitting in my videogame console once all the resumes have been sent out for the day and the hours tick away.

I'm starting to notice similarities out here and in this videogame Fallout 3 that I'm playing intermittently when the mood strikes. You aimlessly wander the landscapes...running into people, and little stress filled adventures and missions. You do tiny tasks and get paid small amounts by the inhabitants you do them for. You gain skills and have to learn other things, and ultimately at the climax of all of it you are at your strongest and most skilled. You're a machine doing all the things that you knew you always could. Striving, surviving and fighting the good fight. Providing for yourself and the people you surround yourself with.

You ulimately end up going down a hallway filled with radiation. It's atomic output dwindling your life expectancy down to nothing as you finish the last few steps of your mission and you die right after you've ultimately done the right thing for humankind.

But sometimes you've gotta wonder if a little bit of "Yeah, man...I am really good at code." could have put you on the path to where you want to be quicker.

I don't know that I even want to find out. It would probably eat away at me knowing that the easy path would have been to lie about it and then cram coding information like crazy once I have to prove it.

I am more at ease with myself for just saying "I don't know" rather than going the wrong path.

I hope I feel that way about that decision in a few months.