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.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
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"
Friday, August 7, 2009
How The Schedule Is Going To Work At U.F.
Chuckle if you must, but I will be taking the weekends off here at U.F. On the occasion that I receive a story from someone that isn't myself, if I think it's U.F. material I'll post it here on the weekends, but for now, you can just check out what's happened in the previous week, and I will be back with more on Monday!
Thanks for reading the site, and for (hopefully) letting your friends know about it!
Have a great weekend. Make sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook!
-A Person
Thanks for reading the site, and for (hopefully) letting your friends know about it!
Have a great weekend. Make sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook!
-A Person
Thursday, August 6, 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
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
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
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:
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."
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.
"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:
- Learn who your friends are.
- Learn who loves you.
- Learn to cut negative people that don't support you out of your life.
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."
- They can overlap.
- Maybe, in extreme circumstances, they can all be happening at the same time.
- 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.
You Ain't Allowed To Do Them Things
Day One and I was down in it. The first night was bad. Interrupted by several bouts of sleeplessness, anxiety ridden jolting and tossing and turning. I wasn't sure if I was mad, or hurt, or angry or what. What I did know was that my phone was ringing constantly, with a lot of people telling me not to worry about it, and that my bosses were jerks, and that things would be better. While I appreciated their sentiment and the fact that they called me on my worst day instead of just, you know, a normal day, it just didn't help.
I had made plans with my friend who had also been let go to meet him at the Unemployment Office so that we could make as quick a strike as possible in making sure our funds kept coming, whatever the size of the hit would be dropping from a real salary to an approximation given to you by the State.
The Unemployment office is all the way across town. I had been given word it opened at 8 a.m., so I made my way down at 7 a.m. There was already a line by the time I found the place and parked my car. Fifteen people or so deep. They'd obviously been here before and gone through it. Some were sitting on the floor leaning against the wall of the building catching a quick snooze and other were reading a True Crime novel that was dog-eared and beaten down from multiple perusings. After several minutes there, many more people had arrived. Some had greeted others as if this was a regular occurrence. I called my friend, who had not showed yet, and told him he might want to make it down there with the quickness so he'd have a shot of being there with me while it went down. Frankly, I was glad he was in this with me, because I, at the heart of it all, was just scared. I wanted someone I knew, and was comfortable with, just to be there. To talk to and to make jokes with, and to try to get my brain off of what was suddenly suddenly the all-encompassingly deep end of the pool which was currently my life.
He finally showed right as the doors were opening. There was a fork in the line of "People who had been here and signed up" to the left to stand in one line, and "People who had never been here before and hadn't signed up" to the right, where we were ushered into a room full of strange seemingly late 1990's desktop computer with CRT screens and bulky laser mouses to sign up on. A fully functioning disinterested team of state drones were our multi-headed Charon, leading us down the River Styx that is the Path of Unemployment. Answering questions about why we were currently unemployed (My answer at the time, if answering honestly, would have been "I don't know.") and how long we'd been unemployed ("One day") and the other staples of signing up for anything, from a newsletter to your temporary monetary lifeline were all on this computer screen.
Once all that was filled out, I saw on the screen what they estimated that I would be making. I was disheartened because it wasn't much, or at least as much as I was used to, but I was happy that it was more than I thought I was going to make.
I pulled out my iPhone, hit the "Camera" button and took a picture of the computer screen just to keep a shot of what I would be making as a reminder for later, in case there were any discrepancies. I then clicked "Next" and moved on in my sign-up form.
Not five seconds later I felt an over-manicured bony hand grip my shoulder and I looked up to find a bright aqua/turquoise/purple/hot pink monstrosity of a flowery print dress attached to a woman with a fucking flat top who was staring a hole through me.
HER: "You ain't allowed to do THEM THINGS."
ME: "Excuse me?"
HER: "You ain't allowed to be takin' no cam-er-uh pickshas with your tela-phone-uh."
ME: "Oh, uh...well, I didn't know that, I was just trying to--"
HER: "You were just tryin' to what?"
ME: "I was just trying to keep what I was making for my records, just so I'd know-- "
HER: "They give it to you on A SHEET."
ME: "Well, I'm sorry...I didn't kno--"
HER: "You didn't know?"
ME: "No, ma'am."
HER: "Mmm-hmm..."
And she walked off.
I was shaken.
I was pretty shocked. I was pretty pissed. I was pretty shocked and pissed. There was nothing in this building that said I couldn't take a picture of the stupid computer screen just because I wanted to have on record what the hell I was going to be making because I was now unemployed, which I might add, was not something I wanted to fucking be. Who the hell are you, and why are you being such a bitch and why is it such a big deal that I took a picture anyway. FUCK.
I took a deep breath. I was about to get crazy.
I saw "Flat-Top" walk by again, looking just above the eyeline of everyone trying to get her attention. I tried valiently to get her attention (because hey, she'd at least talked to me, unlike the other ladies who were just walking around staring down the Great Unwashed that they were forced to cohabitate with.) to ask her a question about a different part of the sign-up but she was in full ignore mode by that point as well.
This was my lot in life. At this point, I was thinking about Kafka. I was revisiting high school readings of The Trial and wondering if I would ever be told what I was on trial for. Why these people were staring at me and treating me like this.
I looked around and noticed a lot of other people with what probably was on my mind as well. It was best described as a slow moving parade of hopelessness.
I was done filling out my stuff. My friend finished his as well. We walked out of that room and handed a lady our forms. We were then ushered right back into the room we were just in before. Directed to new computers that were in reality old computers, and instructed how to do very simple things we already knew how to do on the computers. We were given usernames and passwords and were searching for jobs that were available in the State's database.
Once we were clear on how this worked, we were pointed to a waiting room. My friend and I tried to make light of the situation. Compared what our answers were to things on the sign-up list, and shared amazement at the ratio of crying babies to drunk looking people. (Nearly even.)
I pointed out a lady who was close to 6'3" with a script tattoo on her arm proclaiming her as "Big Sexy." He pointed out a little kid, probably two years old, that was sitting on the floor by his mother, as she waited in line, loudly yelling "Wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-aw-wa-wa-wa-wa-aw-wa-aw-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-aw-w-aw-aw-w-aw-aw-aw-aw-aw-wa" without her so much as raising an eyebrow. Of course, everyone else in line was noticing it.
Forty minutes went by. Then, another thirty. Twenty more. My friend and I were running out of things to talk about. We're staring off into space. I pointed out that one of the State jobs is for an assistant cook at a remote Log Cabin in a State Park followed by an opening for a Pediatrician Doctor. We both agreed we fall somewhere firmly in between, or at least we used to, as far as salaries went. None of that matters now, of course.
They called my name. I quickly got up and followed the person who yelled my name into another room without so much as a "see you in a few" to my friend. I was focused and I wanted to get out of there. I'm led into a room full of cubicles as far as the eye can see. Grey, and boring. No personality. It is freezing. So cold that it hurt. I'm led into one particular cubicle on the front row of the thousands (I possibly might be exaggerating, but in my head it seems like even more, going on, ad nauseum, forever.) The man I am inhabitating it with is a frail-looking, gaunt gentleman with thick sweater on (It's June, by the way) and coke bottle glasses, doesn't acknowledge my presence, and is thumbing through a manilla folder in his cold, freezing, boring little office.
We sit there for at least five minutes and my mind is moving back into wondering what kind of Kafka-esque situation I've entered myself into before he looks up with a faint insincere little grin on his face and mumbles "So, you're here for Unemployment insurance?" I agree that I indeed am here for just that. We then go through what they refer to as a qualification interview. I get to re-answer all of the questions that I had previously answered just an hour and a half before on the computer in the realm of "Flat-Top" and give him the same answers that I gave the computer.
He gave me a print out telling me what I would be making on unemployment. It's the same amount and the same information that I had taken a picture of in the Computer lab. "Flat-top" was off somewhere else in the building -- I'm sure -- feeling quite vindicated in her rightness.
He took me through the rules and the steps of what I'd need to do every week to report to the Unemployment office and finally hands me the manilla folder he'd previously been thumbing through while I uncomfortably had sat in his office in the beginning of our visit.
He reached across the desk, finally making eye contact and sent me on my way with a handshake and a mumbled good luck. As I walked out of the cubicle I looked back at him and he was already onto something else, possibly glad to be rid of the schmuck who had paid him his most recent visit.
I walked out of the cubicle farm back into the holding tank, getting my first view of the rest of the people in the Waiting Room, who are all making the same expression I probably was once the novelty of being in that room wore off. It happens quick.
I made my way through there, and past the Computer lab and out into the humid air. I texted my friend, telling him I was outside and that I'd wait for him in my car. Ten or fifteen minutes later, he came out and we talked about how awkward and strange it was to go from what we were doing the day before to what we were doing on this day. We made a few jokes about the people who worked there and their attitudes. We made vague attempts at making plans in the face of having absolutely no plans and I told him I'd make good on that beer he wanted to go have the day we got let go.
We said our goodbyes and our keep-in-touches, and then went our seperate ways.
I haven't seen him in person since then.
I had made plans with my friend who had also been let go to meet him at the Unemployment Office so that we could make as quick a strike as possible in making sure our funds kept coming, whatever the size of the hit would be dropping from a real salary to an approximation given to you by the State.
The Unemployment office is all the way across town. I had been given word it opened at 8 a.m., so I made my way down at 7 a.m. There was already a line by the time I found the place and parked my car. Fifteen people or so deep. They'd obviously been here before and gone through it. Some were sitting on the floor leaning against the wall of the building catching a quick snooze and other were reading a True Crime novel that was dog-eared and beaten down from multiple perusings. After several minutes there, many more people had arrived. Some had greeted others as if this was a regular occurrence. I called my friend, who had not showed yet, and told him he might want to make it down there with the quickness so he'd have a shot of being there with me while it went down. Frankly, I was glad he was in this with me, because I, at the heart of it all, was just scared. I wanted someone I knew, and was comfortable with, just to be there. To talk to and to make jokes with, and to try to get my brain off of what was suddenly suddenly the all-encompassingly deep end of the pool which was currently my life.
He finally showed right as the doors were opening. There was a fork in the line of "People who had been here and signed up" to the left to stand in one line, and "People who had never been here before and hadn't signed up" to the right, where we were ushered into a room full of strange seemingly late 1990's desktop computer with CRT screens and bulky laser mouses to sign up on. A fully functioning disinterested team of state drones were our multi-headed Charon, leading us down the River Styx that is the Path of Unemployment. Answering questions about why we were currently unemployed (My answer at the time, if answering honestly, would have been "I don't know.") and how long we'd been unemployed ("One day") and the other staples of signing up for anything, from a newsletter to your temporary monetary lifeline were all on this computer screen.
Once all that was filled out, I saw on the screen what they estimated that I would be making. I was disheartened because it wasn't much, or at least as much as I was used to, but I was happy that it was more than I thought I was going to make.
I pulled out my iPhone, hit the "Camera" button and took a picture of the computer screen just to keep a shot of what I would be making as a reminder for later, in case there were any discrepancies. I then clicked "Next" and moved on in my sign-up form.
Not five seconds later I felt an over-manicured bony hand grip my shoulder and I looked up to find a bright aqua/turquoise/purple/hot pink monstrosity of a flowery print dress attached to a woman with a fucking flat top who was staring a hole through me.
HER: "You ain't allowed to do THEM THINGS."
ME: "Excuse me?"
HER: "You ain't allowed to be takin' no cam-er-uh pickshas with your tela-phone-uh."
ME: "Oh, uh...well, I didn't know that, I was just trying to--"
HER: "You were just tryin' to what?"
ME: "I was just trying to keep what I was making for my records, just so I'd know-- "
HER: "They give it to you on A SHEET."
ME: "Well, I'm sorry...I didn't kno--"
HER: "You didn't know?"
ME: "No, ma'am."
HER: "Mmm-hmm..."
And she walked off.
I was shaken.
I was pretty shocked. I was pretty pissed. I was pretty shocked and pissed. There was nothing in this building that said I couldn't take a picture of the stupid computer screen just because I wanted to have on record what the hell I was going to be making because I was now unemployed, which I might add, was not something I wanted to fucking be. Who the hell are you, and why are you being such a bitch and why is it such a big deal that I took a picture anyway. FUCK.
I took a deep breath. I was about to get crazy.
I saw "Flat-Top" walk by again, looking just above the eyeline of everyone trying to get her attention. I tried valiently to get her attention (because hey, she'd at least talked to me, unlike the other ladies who were just walking around staring down the Great Unwashed that they were forced to cohabitate with.) to ask her a question about a different part of the sign-up but she was in full ignore mode by that point as well.
This was my lot in life. At this point, I was thinking about Kafka. I was revisiting high school readings of The Trial and wondering if I would ever be told what I was on trial for. Why these people were staring at me and treating me like this.
I looked around and noticed a lot of other people with what probably was on my mind as well. It was best described as a slow moving parade of hopelessness.
I was done filling out my stuff. My friend finished his as well. We walked out of that room and handed a lady our forms. We were then ushered right back into the room we were just in before. Directed to new computers that were in reality old computers, and instructed how to do very simple things we already knew how to do on the computers. We were given usernames and passwords and were searching for jobs that were available in the State's database.
Once we were clear on how this worked, we were pointed to a waiting room. My friend and I tried to make light of the situation. Compared what our answers were to things on the sign-up list, and shared amazement at the ratio of crying babies to drunk looking people. (Nearly even.)
I pointed out a lady who was close to 6'3" with a script tattoo on her arm proclaiming her as "Big Sexy." He pointed out a little kid, probably two years old, that was sitting on the floor by his mother, as she waited in line, loudly yelling "Wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-aw-wa-wa-wa-wa-aw-wa-aw-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-aw-w-aw-aw-w-aw-aw-aw-aw-aw-wa" without her so much as raising an eyebrow. Of course, everyone else in line was noticing it.
Forty minutes went by. Then, another thirty. Twenty more. My friend and I were running out of things to talk about. We're staring off into space. I pointed out that one of the State jobs is for an assistant cook at a remote Log Cabin in a State Park followed by an opening for a Pediatrician Doctor. We both agreed we fall somewhere firmly in between, or at least we used to, as far as salaries went. None of that matters now, of course.
They called my name. I quickly got up and followed the person who yelled my name into another room without so much as a "see you in a few" to my friend. I was focused and I wanted to get out of there. I'm led into a room full of cubicles as far as the eye can see. Grey, and boring. No personality. It is freezing. So cold that it hurt. I'm led into one particular cubicle on the front row of the thousands (I possibly might be exaggerating, but in my head it seems like even more, going on, ad nauseum, forever.) The man I am inhabitating it with is a frail-looking, gaunt gentleman with thick sweater on (It's June, by the way) and coke bottle glasses, doesn't acknowledge my presence, and is thumbing through a manilla folder in his cold, freezing, boring little office.
We sit there for at least five minutes and my mind is moving back into wondering what kind of Kafka-esque situation I've entered myself into before he looks up with a faint insincere little grin on his face and mumbles "So, you're here for Unemployment insurance?" I agree that I indeed am here for just that. We then go through what they refer to as a qualification interview. I get to re-answer all of the questions that I had previously answered just an hour and a half before on the computer in the realm of "Flat-Top" and give him the same answers that I gave the computer.
He gave me a print out telling me what I would be making on unemployment. It's the same amount and the same information that I had taken a picture of in the Computer lab. "Flat-top" was off somewhere else in the building -- I'm sure -- feeling quite vindicated in her rightness.
He took me through the rules and the steps of what I'd need to do every week to report to the Unemployment office and finally hands me the manilla folder he'd previously been thumbing through while I uncomfortably had sat in his office in the beginning of our visit.
He reached across the desk, finally making eye contact and sent me on my way with a handshake and a mumbled good luck. As I walked out of the cubicle I looked back at him and he was already onto something else, possibly glad to be rid of the schmuck who had paid him his most recent visit.
I walked out of the cubicle farm back into the holding tank, getting my first view of the rest of the people in the Waiting Room, who are all making the same expression I probably was once the novelty of being in that room wore off. It happens quick.
I made my way through there, and past the Computer lab and out into the humid air. I texted my friend, telling him I was outside and that I'd wait for him in my car. Ten or fifteen minutes later, he came out and we talked about how awkward and strange it was to go from what we were doing the day before to what we were doing on this day. We made a few jokes about the people who worked there and their attitudes. We made vague attempts at making plans in the face of having absolutely no plans and I told him I'd make good on that beer he wanted to go have the day we got let go.
We said our goodbyes and our keep-in-touches, and then went our seperate ways.
I haven't seen him in person since then.
