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.

Drenched To The Bone

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

— Bob Dylan, The Times They Are A-Changin'

With enough distance it all makes sense.

You serve your meager purpose, and subject yourself and those close to you to your routine. You have your insecurities, and if you're secure enough about yourself to show them you ask questions. Or if you're insecure enough to need approval, you do the same.

It is a thankless world. For those that need recognition, morale boosting, friendship and camaraderie, work isn't the place for it. Not anymore. Not by any standard that could be considered realistic. Not by the needs of anyone who needs anything.

I will admit it. I'm a needy person. I put up walls. I played misdirection with the best of them. If a chink in my armor was to be made apparent, what better thing to do than bring up a weakness that someone else had. They don't know this. They can't do that. None of it mattered.

I spent the majority of a career glad-handing to be in a position and the rest of it struggling, fighting, to stay in my spot. Did I earn where I was? Sure. I am talented, or a lot of people with no personal stake in how I feel wouldn't tell me so. Was I well liked? That's not really something I can accurately say given my predilection for deprecation. I am told occasionally that I am missed at my former place of employment. That it "just isn't the same" without my presence.

I suppose the same could be said of the communal stapler. Right?

In hindsight it is all a strategic game. Legitimacy is something you strive for. To be seen as a legitimate authentic relic of a time gone by when people had balls and could do what they said they would do. I would argue points I thought were valid. I would chastise those that were ignorant when I felt it was warranted. I would commiserate with my colleagues about those that were daft, and out of touch, and maybe useless, and probably getting paid more than the rest of us were for no apparent reason.

I was one of the grunts, the cast-offs, the worker-bee's. The Peons.

I would occasionally let my ill-advised (now) attempts at climbing the ladder up to the glass ceiling happen. When in the company of the higher-ups I would let slip carefully crafted half-truths to see what would happen. To see where it would take me. I remember fondly e-mailing a catchphrase spewing, corporate book devouring "company savior" that was formerly President of a major Cable TV network an e-mail vaguely pointing out how excited I was about "new procedures" that we had in place and how pumped I was about "our opportunities to discover new ways to strategize, synergize our teams" and "come to new ways to maximize ROI (return on investment) and to capitalize on what we already had in place. "

He e-mailed me a very positive reply a few days later saying that he would be very interested in sitting and talking with me as I had the right outlook that the company needed and that our company needed "more positive thinkers like me."

I was so very frustrated. I had e-mailed him the equivalent of verbal corporate catchprhase diarrhea and he'd eaten every drop up and probably licked his fingers clean before asking for seconds. I'd said nothing. Seriously. I could look back on it now and have no clue what I even was attempting to say, but I do remember laughing as I sent it, telling my wife "I'm either going to get a raise for this bullshit or I'm going to get fired."

Click. Send. Praise.

Shake your head and carry on. This is what you're dealing with now.

The last two years were a blur. All the inroads I had made in my years at my workplace were being squandered by the monkey business of the new regime in charge. I didn't know the new bosses and living many states away would rarely get the chance to meet them without the local higher-up rats sniveling about looking for a way to stay on the ship.

I made a decision shortly after I had a realization.

The quick ride to the top was over, and there is nothing to do but stay my ground.

Stay my ground and stare at the fork in the road. Weasel's way out or Legitimacy. For whatever Legitimacy is worth, anymore.

I saw and see what the weasel's of the world do. They might make more money, but they have more people wanting to meet them in a dark alley with the business end of a tire iron, too.

I can't live that way. I won't live that way. I couldn't live that way.

"Yes Men" get the raise and the pat on the back. Honest Men get told they are a budget cut that had to be taken.

I regret nothing. I am not ashamed of what I did while I was there. Part of my life under the roof of that job was self-preservation. The other, realer later half was, in hindsight, an act of retribution. Asking the hard questions, and standing for what I believed and not putting up with lies, and pettiness, and ignorance, and refusing to say "Yes" without actually meaning it.

I saw a good friend of mine who was highly praised for his dedication and skill at his profession derided for complaining and essentially treated like shit and pushed from his post for wanting to be treated like a human.

I saw another friend of mine, one of the more talented scribes I've ever had the chance to know personally told that his award winning work "just wasn't enough."

I took pride at a job that I wasn't particularly interested in, and gained skills in a part of my profession that I'd never wanted to be a part of, and made a stand for quality in the face of a "just get it over with, no one cares" attitude only to realize that the people in charge:

1. Don't know what quality is, and wouldn't if it hit them in the face.
2. Don't care about your attention to detail, because they don't have any attention to detail.
3. Couldn't care less what they're doing, as long as they make money. Period.
4. If you are talented at your work and actually make money, you will someday be pushed aside for a younger, less talented version of you -- but it doesn't matter to them because they can rest on their laurels (aka The Work You Did Long Ago) and save money.
   

Don't get me wrong, I like money. Partially.

But sometimes I sit back and wonder, why exactly no one seems to take real tangible pride in their work anymore. Why they don't spend the time, researching the past, seeing what worked and what didn't, no matter what their profession, and try their best to blend old and new, making something special, that hopefully someone in the future will see and go "This...this is the good stuff." I am addicted to the craft of essentially anything. I like to know why things work the way they do.

I don't expect to be famous. I'm not the best at anything. Not even close.

I'd just like one person, somewhere, to stumble across something I did, many years from now, and wonder who I was, what I was like, and how I ever came up with the things that I worked on.

They won't know that after amassing a library of work that was praised by colleagues I respect and people I'll never meet that I was just a social security number that was taken off of a ledger by some anonymous accountant because my supervisor wouldn't take the time to think twice about what he was doing.

When I hear bad news about them, it pleases me. But it doesn't matter at the end of the day.

I'm where I am. They're where they are. Who's right? Who feels justified? Who knows.

Pride is a stupid thing, but sometimes it can be a very important thing.

I am proud of who I am and what I do. I am proud of the work I do. I am proud of my wife, and I am humbled that she gives me the time of day, much less loves me. I am proud I have made it as far as I have in this life. I am proud that the news from the day of my firing was that most of the people I'd worked with the last seven years were shocked and scared, because if "I was let go...anyone could be let go."

I hope they're not. I wouldn't wish the uncertainty I live in daily on anyone.

I am proud, however, that I am handling it like I am. I am fighting and I am trying and I will try to balance the scales of craft vs. work.

I will keep swimming until I sink like a stone.

New Rules and Old Cliches

Most days, once you get deeper into multiple weeks of being without work, you fail to realize what day it is, at least in my case. I go in and out of this state of thought. Sometimes I am still aware of what is going on. Somethings I neglect the calendar almost willfully. For those of you who do know what day it is, and I am one of you, sometimes, I have found that there are better days and worse days to be an Unemployed person.

Mondays are the worst. I used to like Mondays, because I'm weird like that. I was the same way in school. I got bored or wanted to talk to people I liked at work or at school and was always looking forward to seeing the people, not necessarily the work, every Monday. (That feeling usually subsided every Monday about an hour after I got there.)

But for all of you, here is Monday: Everyone gets up, and gets stuck in traffic, and has a "case of the Mondays" and then gets on Facebook, or Twitter, or Myspace or whatever and complains about "THE WEEKEND WAS TOO SHORT AND IT'S MONDAY AGAIN!!!"

Meanwhile, I'm waking up at the crack of noon, checking my e-mail and answering machine to find that no one has been back in touch with me regarding the 50+ applications I've sent out in the last week only to stumble across you bitching that you have a job and *gasp!* -- have to be there with your co-workers.

Forgive me if I don't openly weep for your fortune. You leave me a bit on the icy side when I hear you counting down the days to the weekend, or complaining that there's a full week of work in your future.

Take it from the man who has a weekend day, everyday. It's not what it's cracked up to be.

I'd like to propose a new rule: No complaining about your job, or complaining about having to be at your job until this recession is over and people can actually get work again.

Most of the people probably reading your Facebook status message that you're posting (while you're at work) are probably the ones sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring saying they can come to an interview and be told they're overqualified, anyway.

Think of it this way: In return for you biting your tongue and keeping your (widely shared) displeasure of being back at work to yourself, warm your hearts at the fire of the fact that while you must keep quiet, at least you didn't have to sit for four hours at the Unemployment Office playing "That Game" where you spend your time watching the lady that keeps walking around the room in concentric circles, muttering about God-knows-what, wearing flip-flops while her nasty-ass feet look like she just got finished laying out ten miles of hot tar on the interstate with the road crew and wondering if she's just a freak show or if she's just jacked to the gills on booze or if she's gonna ride that bathtub meth high and jam that nail file in her two foot stack of pamphlets and loose-leaf notebook paper she's carrying under her arm in some unsuspecting jerk's neck, remodeling you with arterial spray.

FRIDAY is probably the best day to be Unemployed. It's the easiest day to blend in amongst people wearing their "Casual Friday" uniforms and heck, you can even act like you're getting ready for the big weekend by spouting cliched B.S. to anyone whose eyes are frantically darting around the room waiting to hear something they recognize. The world of those who currently work and those who used to work collide and for a brief smattering of hours we are all one again. There is hope and love and we're all wearing embarrassing shorts and t-shirts while racing around to do as much or as little as we can.

Sundays are disappointing. There is no more pleasure in lazing about, enjoying a morning in bed, doing whatever you want when every single day of your life is like the weekend. It's probably better to just get up and get on with your day. What's even worse is more than likely, it will be the day you have a craving for Chik-Fil-A. So, thanks for that you pious-assed-delicious-chicken-cooking-sons-a-bitches.

**ahem**

You have the information you need to know which days are good and which aren't for the Unemployed. Do with it what you will. "The More You Know!" and all that. Consider it a life lesson.

Know this: For every "TGIF!" or "Thank God It's Friday!" or "Only 2 more days til the weekend!" I see, I'm going to respond with a "Only no more minutes til I am totally nappin', sucker" or whatever it is that I know you would rather actually be doing. Then to spite you, I will actually go do it.

Also, on a more serious note: Thank Whoever That It's Any Day. You didn't wake up dead today. Congratulations. You have a steady paycheck? Even better! There are things to rejoice about and they are all around you all the time. I am breathing. I am eating. I wake up and I go to sleep. I am alive. You are, too. I laugh, and I love and I am me and I am out there, doing my thing, whether you realize it or not.

Work is just money, y'all. Don't let it ruin your week or dictate your mood.

I'm working on that rule myself, and I'll let you know how it goes.

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.

Reality Cheque

"And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful
Wife
And you may ask yourself-well...how did I get here?"

— Talking Heads / Once in a Lifetime

The Alarm went off everyday at 7:00 a.m. on the dot. Well, it did until the cat threw up on it, but before that the clock was as regular as, well, its namesake. The cat's digestive issues might have been a blessing in disguise, because quite frankly it was getting to me. I wouldn't go through the motions enough to turn it off, or change it. It was just a constant reminder that the repetition that I lived by for the last seven years was no longer part of my routine.

No longer was I getting up at 7:00 a.m. and scrambling out of bed, turning the thing off as a pre-cursor to hitting the shower, putting on clothes, taking out the dog, getting in the car, listening to my obnoxious music that no one else seems to like, sitting in traffic, pulling into my office parking spot, sitting in the car for several minutes working up the strength to drag myself inside anymore...

No, now the routine was to wake up, scramble out of bed, and turn the thing off.

Then I'd stand there, take a deep breath, and wonder why I'd set the thing at all.

Fast-forward one week.

My internal clock is still a jerk. It wakes me up around 8 a.m., letting me know it's time to go do things, and the current thing is let my beard grow and to feel sorry for myself.

My wife, in an effort to make me feel better, let's me know that the dog sure is happy that I'm home more. I look over at the dog and her face tells me that she is happy. Or perhaps, hot and thirsty. I like to be an optimist but I go and fill her water dish just to be on the safe side.

Boom. Internal clock. 8:22 a.m.

Boom. Internal clock. 8:31 a.m.

Boom. Internal clock. 8:16 a.m.

"Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the moneys gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground."

— Talking Heads / Once in a Lifetime

Boom. Internal clock. 7:45 a.m.

Boom. Internal clock. 8:07 a.m.

Boom. Internal clock. 7:51 a.m.

The one thing going in my head every day that nothing is happening except me talking to others that do have jobs about how I feel that my having been let go is unfair, unjust, and just flat out bull shit is nothing.

I read about Ponzi schemes online and wonder where Bernie Madoff screwed up, and wonder how he did as much damage as he did without getting caught earlier. I forget what I was thinking about minutes later. I mentally make the perfect peanut butter, jelly and banana sandwich. I realistically find that I am short two of the four ingredients. I stare at the wall. I wonder who's idea it was to make a print of the wallpaper that is in my bathroom, which came with the house, and who okayed that, much less bought it.

I envision grandiose building projects in my house and remember shortly thereafter that I have none of the requisite skills or tools to even begin a fraction of what I'm imagining. (This is a continuing theme.)

I trade in a present that would have been great for whenever I went "on the road" for business for something that will be great for when I am sitting at home, looking for something to do besides read want ads that I am "Overqualified" for.

Several hours are spent with the object of my trading, exploring The Capital Wasteland of Fallout 3 trying to find my "father", and bottlecaps (the currency of the day), and violently painting the walls of buildings I have been inside in Washington D.C. in real life with the pixelated blood, and brains, and viscera of the large, green, not entirely domesticated "Super-Mutants" of my current virtual reality.

The dog will show up occasionally, and let me know she would like to go outdoors, and I defer, mostly because I love her, and partly because I understand muscular atrophy and would like to avoid it.

It is usually out in the elements that I come to tiny epiphanies that will take hold or will be as easily forgotten as they came to me. I'll be watching the dog, prancing around, making #1 with haste, but then...then comes the interesting part. She will go in circles. She will smell every tree, branch, flower, tire on a parked car, you name it. She must find the perfect place for her...deposit. Not just anywhere will do. Oh, no, sir. This is an art.

Eventually, a suitable location is found. A stake is claimed. Now, she owns it.

Again, getting the happy look on her face that could either be happiness or possible dehydration, she prances towards and then past me, and onto the steps of our home. I will let her inside and she will be very happy that she did exactly what she went out to do and that she didn't compromise on what she did or where and how she did it.

*Ding!* Epiphany.

Of sorts.

I will be the first to admit that occasionally, one of the many people who are giving me advice, be it solicited or unsolicited, will bring up a potential job solution that I scrunch my nose at and think "No way! I'm too good for that." I will admit that I feel like a complete asshole for even thinking that. I am humble creature. Lately, more often than not. But I also understand what I can bring to the table, and what I can do on any sort of project that I work on. With that being said, with my skill set, and how long I've been doing it, I still react badly to the suggestion that I do something entry-level.

I look back on my previous occupation and I can see it with some objectivity now in the rearview mirror. I liked most of the people I worked with. I liked the perks that came with it occasionally. I had fun many, many times. But was I happy?

In a word: No.

I liked the paycheck. Period.

Now that that's gone, I look at what I was doing and think to myself... there is no way I would do any of that now. It doesn't make me happy. I look at the dog, and her reaction to befouling my backyard and she is more than content. She is mere inches from blissful. She did exactly what she wanted.

Myself, on the other hand. I'm not anywhere closer to figuring out the job situation for the future, but I am much closer to figuring out what makes me happy now.

I'm away from people that stressed me out through terrible communication. I'm long gone from situations that made my hair turn grey before I was 30. I don't have to sit in useless meetings with people not fit to run useless meetings. I'm nowhere close to a "Yes Man." My wife will say "No" just to let me remember that.

I realize it is not wise to work for other people. Other people will do nothing to make you happy. It's not their job. Their job is "really important" but when life is over, and the gravestones are etched it's not going to say "DID THE MOST PAPERWORK." or "FILLED OUT HIS TIMESHEET PROMPTLY."

So, I am no longer working for people. People, who have screwed me over more times than not. People, who aren't concerned about the big picture, only petty details that will be long forgotten years from now.

I don't work for people. I work for money.

I am waking up every day around 8:00 a.m. It is later than I used to rise, and I like that.

The musician Warren Zevon, in the weeks leading up to his death from cancer, was asked for any advice he had for those of us staying on this good Earth, and he said "Enjoy every sandwich."

I'm enjoying every sandwich, and the pets that make me laugh and most importantly, the love of my Wife. She just gets me.

I will find my spot soon enough.

"Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...same as it ever was...
Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...same as it ever was...
Same as it ever was...same as it ever was..."

— Talking Heads / Once in a Lifetime

Overqualified

In The Land Of The Unemployed, "Overqualified" Is A Four-Lettered Word.

"You just know too much."

Well, you know too little.

"You're just overqualified, and I'm afraid you'd get bored."

I'd get bored regardless, eventually. Try me.

"We just need someone more 'entry-level.'"

Well, I just need a paycheck.

A common refrain from many employers is that if you're not straight out of college is that you are "overqualified" for whatever job that they currently have available. This isn't so much an issue when you're selecting your own doctor, or someone to tutor your kids in long division, but when rigidly inserted into the world of owning and running your own business, it's tantamount to blasphemy to go and take the time and commitment to hire someone that is fully aware of what it is he or she is doing.

If you get through the HR muck enough to be told by someone high enough in the hiring hierarchy that you're "overqualified" then you have done an admirable job of making yourself about as close as you can be to a position without having actually received it. The opposite end of the hiring spectrum is that you apply for an open position along with 300 other people who are just as qualified as you, more under-qualified as you, and irredeemably overqualified than you. They're the ones getting told they're too good for it this time. You don't get told anything at all, and someone down on the bottom who is still wearing velcro shoes because of...well, just because, actually gets the position because they won't need to be paid much and can learn on the job.

So there you are, sitting at home. Going over what has gone on the last few days since you've lost your position at your former employment. No doubt you will go through myriad mood swings. Soaring highs and crushing lows. You're reaching the third stage of being "One of Them." Wait a second, you seem to say...What are the first two stages? You don't know?! Well! Let me be your guide. Come along now, little trooper.

The Stages:

The first stage is Shock. You were called in, and told that budget cuts were happening, and that you are, indeed, one of the budgets they are cutting. They don't ask you for anything now, oh no, they will wait until you are getting over this, and they will strike then asking you for things you thought you'd never be doing again, but that's another story for another time. But you are in fact, sitting smack dab in the middle of a thing called Shock, and deep down you know it.

Your finger and toes are numb, almost asleep, with that tingly ethereal sensation you get before you faint, or right before you're about to throw up. They're similar for a reason. You cull through the pile of crap that was really important on your desk and suddenly realize that your Far Side calendar snippets suddenly aren't so funny, and that your basketball card holder really doesn't serve a purpose if you don't have any business cards to put in it.

Hell, you're halfway home before you realize that you actually were just let go. It's okay. It happens to all of us. Enjoy the last few minutes of Shock, which is generally with you for around a day or so, give or take.

(Take a deep breath....look around...get in comfortable chair...because it is about time to...)

FREAK THE FUCK OUT! That's right, buster! The second Stage is full-blown, shit your pants, oh-my-God-I-am-freaking-the-fuck-out-how-am-I-going-to-pay-my-mortgage-or-my-car-or-my-bills-or-my-uh-oh-crap-what-do-I-have-to-pay-forAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH PANIC.

It's okay. It will all be okay. This is the stage I'd like to help people with the most. Because a few of the things --at least for me -- that I've found come with your first couple of days as your own person, is that you:

1. Learn who your friends are.
2. Learn who loves you.
3. Learn to cut negative people that don't support you out of your life.

I was freaking out. Bad. Panic attack freaking out. Couldn't sleep all night because I was afraid someone was going to take my bed and everything else that made me me in my life kind of paranoia. The Panic luckily didn't last long with me. I had people I rarely if ever talked to come out of the woodwork and help my psyche out. Friends let me complain and bitch about my situation. Family let me whine and kvetch and let all the bad air out and just say what I wanted to say.

Some of the people that talked to me on the phone had really stupid and trite cliched advice and some people had really good thoughtful sincere advice, and in those moments you can really, truly tell who is just calling out of obligation and would like to get back to whatever they're doing and who really just wanted to touch base and see how you were and what they could do to help.

Some family told me on both my wife's side and on my side that if things got terrible, we'd have a place to stay. That lifted a huge Monty Python 16-ton weight off of my head. Other folks talked me through different scenarios. One friend helped me immediately by giving me a project to work on that got my mind off of my issues and threw a few bucks in my pocket to stash away, and for that I will be forever indebted to him. He was the MVP of one of the worst weeks I've ever had. Being a heroic figure, however small you might think what you did is, especially in the worst of the really low points makes you a better person than just about anyone else. I appreciate him like no one realizes.

So, basically, Panic was short-lived. In my situation, at least. If you're going through the same scenario, get with the people who know you best, and who you trust and hopefully if you can come up with some sort of contingency, your mind will be somewhat more at ease, as well.

Now, you're coming up on the Third Stage. (Remember when we got into all of this Stage nonsense?)

Before we get too deep into this, I must make clear one of the "rules" of "The Stages."

1. They can overlap.
2. Maybe, in extreme circumstances, they can all be happening at the same time.
3. Every case is different

Stage Three is Reality. Last week you were "THIS PERSON" and now you are just "Some Person." The realistic approach to this is that you are the same person that you were last week. Sure, your business cards aren't accurate, so just throw the things in the trash. You don't have the same routine anymore, so just get out of it. Immediately. If you're like me, you're having trouble sleeping, so just stay up all night until you can't stay awake anymore and you'll find that the bad dreams don't happen because you're sleeping so hard that you don't get proper REM sleep. (This also, is slightly bad since REM sleep is truly restful sleep, but you're breaking habits. I found that earlier this year when I quit a 10+ year cigarette habit Cold Turkey that shocking the system was my best way to get out of things. )

So you're still the same person. Just believe it. Your job does not make you who you are. Sure, it might have given you some nice perks in certain situation if you had a position similar to mine, but once you're out of that work scenario, you start to learn that a lot of what you had, that you had perceived came from your position was really just you doing what you do, but with confidence. With the backing of your employ you were capable of doing great things, but really it was just you doing it because you were doing it for someone else.

Fuck that. You are capable of great things. You, yourself. Your mother and father's kid, can do just about anything you put your mind to.

Don't go thinking you can jump out of a high-rise window and fly or that suddenly barrel-rolling through traffic is a good idea, because anything you put your mind to is a bit much, but if you did it before, or were close to doing something before, you can still do it. Except now you can probably do it better because you don't have the parameters and rules and laws of your former workplace shackling you in, either creatively, figuratively, or literally.

You're your own person, and you can do what you need to do to make things work for yourself and all it takes is brushing yourself off, looking around, realizing there's a whole huge world out there full of experiences you weren't taking because you were too busy working, and go take advantage of it.

Your job doesn't define you. Your career is just something you write down under your name on a business card, which you'll find aren't even really necessary in the days and weeks to come.

So if your job doesn't define you, what does?

The actions you do. The company you keep. The friends you make, and the bonds that you forge. The love of your family, and the trust and care you give to those that love you most.

You define you. The best part about your life's hiring process is that you're never too overqualified to just be yourself.

The job hunt can wait until tomorrow. Today I'm working on me.