294 days

yesterday i was anxious.  later i was relieved.  tomorrow i will be nervous and hopeful.  today i am grateful-so, so grateful. 

being unemployed feels like being accused of a crime.  for the last nine-and-one-half months i have been standing trial for the crime of being incompetent, unstable, (emotionally and professionally,) lazy, discontented, stupid, unlucky and an infidel.  i'll admit it up front and i'll proclaim it loudly for all the world to hear. i don't think there's any shame in it.  i'm sensitive. 

i'm sensitive because i grew up without my mother and never knowing my father.  at my age it feels like an excuse to even bring facts such as these up but there is a reason i am sensitive and that reason dates back to the '70s and beyond.

what happened to me, how i became unemployed is a long story.  the short version is i up and resigned from a job in direct defiance of a long term plan i had in place.  sans an undergraduate degree and employed in the same place for 12 years i meant to stay put and continue to rise through the ranks.  i aggressively changed that plan when i felt like i had been at the place too long, when i felt like i had enough confidence that i could succeed elsewhere without a degree to declare my competency, when my wife was working in the same place as me and at the same level, and when a new boss seemed to see me as just another of so many quarreling children on the team, i resigned to take a job at a start-up company.  what?  me worry?

it was pollyannish of me.  i assumed everything would work out somehow.  i was perfectly aware the company could fail but i soldiered on hoping i could make a difference and we would conquer the world of english language learning.  two months after i left elliot spitzer wrote a dark op-ed in the new york times foreshadowing a financial meltdown of epic proportions.  eight months later the world economy was in the tank.  12 months after that i was laid off, (affected in the third round of such layoffs.) 

seven months later i went to work for an ignorant, boorish man.  i knew it was not the right place for me, considering my personal philosophy.  still, for about my first year in his employ that small business owner showered me with great angel tickets, gift cards and glowing introductions all in addition to my salary.  he bought my truck and thereby relieved me of the burden of automobile insurance, gas expenses, and mechanical outlays.  i was favored.  around the one year mark the relationship strained.  he expected me to manage the entire business while spending 4-8 hours every day listening to him pontificate on best business practices as he saw them and other sundry items and complimenting him his brilliance and insight.  i faked it in the first year but slowly, (and surely,) i lost that ability.  i should have left his employ much sooner than i did but finding and securing jobs is not of my strengths. 

i interviewed for a job last september that was especially attractive to me.  however, i did not land it.  i was looking but i was not finding and in early december push came  to shove and i was laid off, (or resigned depending on how you interpret the events of december 5th.)  the first morning i woke up without a job i was worried but still felt like a champ.  i did not have to go to a job any longer wherein people were treated like material commodities to be used up and left by the wayside whenever they crossed management.  i did not have to go and espouse and enforce policies and philosophies that are and were at odds with how i believe business should be run in order to thrive.  i did try to promote discussions of these things and to shed light on my perspective, though it was difficult because people who talk constantly never listen.

throughout the entire time i was unemployed i never faltered in knowing i did the right thing by refusing  to work for that person any longer.  it is not that he is an evil or bad person.  it is merely that we are at odds in just about every way imaginable other than the fact that we both craved success.  my lot was untenable because i had to go about pursuing that success by a manner i found obtuse, unproductive and often times demeaning. 

i filed for unemployment and had no problem securing the maximum benefit of $900 every two weeks.  i am grateful to the american taxpayers for providing this safety net.  it was not enough to live on.  i have two children in private school and thankfully i was able to keep them in their school uninterrupted but it was not easy.  (i'll return to all the people i owe thanks to momentarily.)

i don't know who if anyone looked at me as incompetent.  i am sure it happened.  people judge other people in snaps. 

this person is unemployed?  what a loser.  let me now talk to him and see if there is some way i can take advantage of him since he must be a dullard.  (i have to explain this is not particularly indicative of my world view but i know these people exist and i am sure i came in contact with them.) 

there was a mom of one of the kid's classmates whom i spoke to shortly after terminating employment who reacted to what i was telling her as if i was an irresponsible jerk.  she did  not come right out and say anything so direct but she feigned an exasperated gasp of questioning as to how i could conceivably let that relationship get to the point of the employment terminating so suddenly.  she had not walked in my shoes and she certainly did not know the extraordinary circumstances that working in that environment represented.  she did not see the line of good people leave that place prior to me, some in fits of rage, others as coolly as a harvard business book, still others with a quiet reserved dignity.

at times i thought any number of persons might have just thought i was in some way unstable.  after all i had left a job i had been at for 12 years.  in fact i am not the most stable person.  the values represented by our society as it lives and breathes everyday are certainly not aligned with my values.  that said i think that is true of the majority of us.  so when i say i am unstable, i do not mean in an especially abnormal way.  it's a crazy world and i am an insane man.

i am not lazy but when i was an adolescent my parents did label me as the lazy kid in the family.  years later i realized i had to fight that stigma by telling myself i was not lazy.  i do have a certain yearning for efficiency.  sometimes i will combine projects, which can look like laziness.  still, in most of my work places i have been praised for my work ethic.  i can remember the first times i heard that and not believing it.  that is how insidious the idea of laziness was inside of me.  moreover i think this is the thing many people fear about the unemployed.  they go to work every day and they work hard and they see the money in numbers on their paycheck that they never get because it is paid in taxes for so many things including the social safety net that is unemployment insurance.  personally i have paid into that fund for 30 years so i know i need not feel guilty for taking advantage of it. 

i had a friend admit to me recently that she was milking unemployment as she worked on her 2nd novel.  she hoped to be published and find her way into a career of letters. however, a short time later she got a job offer and snapped it up.  from what i can tell she is happier than she has been in some time, writing news stories for a small local paper.  and that is the myth about the unemployed.  by and large they are not taking advantage of the program.  they may suffer any number of maladies.  they may be short on self confidence or initiative.  they may be plagued by alcoholism and addiction.  they may be slow, obtuse or socially inept.  they may even nervously tell you at a reunion of sorts that they are taking advantage of the system, which is merely yet another veiled form of guilt.  ultimately the unemployed have one thing in common with one another, their self esteem suffers as a consequence of being unemployed and not having an income.  i fought that everyday over the last 294 days.

was i or am i discontented?  sure, in some regards.  ours is a utilitarian society.  like most human beings i would rather earn my living doing something that nourishes me in deep, meaningful ways.  in my career i have sought ways to build creativity into my roles in order to increase my happiness.  as a trainer i savored the seasons of creating training, drawing flip charts and assembling powerpoints.  in the classroom i enjoyed diverging from the subject matter on occasion to keep everyone refreshed and engaged.  these things can help sustain me through tasks like listening to customer service calls and scoring them in order to subsequently coach someone on their performance, or taking a call myself from an angry customer.

regarding the indictment of being stupid i am fairly secure that my friends and family do not see me in this way.  strangers are another story.  a few months ago i joined a club in order to improve myself and in large part because i have had spare time being unemployed.  in a small group i was asked what i do for a living and i confessed to being unemployed.  a short time later, with only golden intentions, i was informed of a job fair for entry level csr's that would be happening in the coming days.  the person reminded me that i should dress up and bring a resume.  (did i have a resume?)  this stranger was not in any way being rude.  she did not know me from adam and perhaps she imbued me as an unemployed person with certain qualities she either found familiar or that she associated with people my age who find themselves unemployed.  in any case i am not stupid but it is yet another possibility which i was inclined to defend myself from even if i did not follow through and defend myself.

was it forrest gump who said lucky is as lucky does?  (perhaps that one should have been used in the previous graph?)  well, we make our own luck, right?  luck is the residue of skill.  so if i am unlucky at having become unemployed it is natural for me to take that on as yet another fault i need to clear from my own internal hard wiring.  maybe i was unlucky at having found my last employer but at the time it felt like great fortune after having been unemployed for a brief season previously. 

as an avowed agnostic and someone who is prone to just call myself an atheist, (because i like those people,) i do have certain people in my life who profess to know things about me mystically.  there were those who claimed i needed jesus to help me find a job.  others merely stated that this was all part of god's plan for me.  i guess i was meant to suffer my way back to a perfect state of fear and subjectivity.  so i confess, i am an infidel in as much as i am not a believer.  my unemployment, however, may have been a result of any number of things none of which are my disbelief.

so it is that this dreary season has come to an end.  i am employed and i have a start date two weeks from today.  this morning i received a call from the recruiter letting me know my background check was completed and that she will be in touch with me next week with the particulars I'll need for my first day of work. hooray!

it has been bleak.  as i was prone to tell friends and family throughout this process i believed my resume did a great job.  i had many interviews over the last 294 days.  i feel sure my interview skills betrayed me.  one of my first interviews was with a booming shoe company on the westside.  the manager there, i was told, really liked me but did not believe my lack of e-commerce experience could serve in the role i interviewed for.  the call center was so impacted with service levels completely in contrast to anything resembling good service so she needed someone with that specific experience who could get up and running quickly.  i had been found for the position by a recruiter who worked closely with that company and let me know later that the manager said she would like to revisit bringing me in as a quality assurance and training manager a few months down the road.  that was encouraging but never materialized.  at the end of it all i wasn't sure i wanted to drive to marina del rey everyday to work, anyways.  traffic...

i had a friend early on who tried to help me get my foot in the door with a great company in downtown los angeles.  this was a preferred company to be sure.  i had already interviewed with a recruiter who took no more than three days to get back to me and let me know they were looking for someone with more e-commerce experience.  my friend sent my resume to a high level contact he had who forwarded it to the head of the customer service department, (copying my friend who in turn forwarded to me,) and suggesting i came  highly recommended and she should review the resume ahead of possibly bringing me in for an interview.  that interview never materialized.  i guess i wasn't right. 

i interviewed twice for a job with an online printing company.  the human resources manager made no bones about the fact that she just thought i was perfect for the position.  she said she would be getting back to me with an interview date with the cfo who was back east that particular week.  the next week she never contacted me.  when i finally reached her she informed me they had filled the position.  three weeks later she called me back to ask if i was still interested.  i was.  i interviewed with the cfo who told me they had hired someone who worked for one week then quit because she had gotten a job with a really good company in downtown los angeles.  (yeah, i feel certain it was that position.)  so, he said, they had returned to the process and i was the first person to come in of what he expected to be many.  i can't be sure why i wasn't right for that job but they never called me again and i knew it was going that way when i left his office.  i felt like i was perhaps too strong a personality for him.  i have distinct ideas about what constitutes good customer service, how it should be delivered and how an organization can achieve this.  perhaps he wanted someone more mold-able. 

i interviewed in el segundo with an online makeup company.  the manager explained to me in the interview that she had lost her manager to a booming shoe company just up the coast.  (yes, i believe it was that booming shoe company.)  i think the question i got tangled up in was about how i, as a man, could lead a customer service team dealing with something so distinctly feminine in nature.  i remember saying my wife had strong feelings about makeup and i remember the manager responding by saying every woman has strong feelings about makeup.  i think that was it.  i thought i did well otherwise but i think i was disqualified for that position on the basis of that one moment in the interview. 

i interviewed for a dental group in south gate.  i thought i had a good shot at that position but the manager called me the very next day and let know he appreciated me coming in but that i would not be moving forward in the process.  this is yet another thing for which the unemployed need thick skin.  rejection.  i was rejected for all of these positions.  i was not good enough.  in spite of the fact i take great care to be informed in my area, i work hard to be a professional and to ensure i will be more than competitive in the work place, in spite of the fact i am articulate, knowledgeable, personable and computer and industry savvy, i was rejected about every three to four weeks for the past 294 days.  in case you don't know let me tell you something about this one particular point.  it fucking sucks.  more, it fucking sucks the self esteem out of your heart like a parasite.

a friend contacted me about a position with a really good company in glendale.  she had me jump through about 18,000 hoops then one week later she called to let me know they did not think my experience was right for the job.  she had also called me a few weeks earlier about a temporary contract position with an aerospace company.  (yeah, who knew those jobs still existed?)  on that occasion also my experience was unacceptable. 

there's more.  several more but those are perhaps the ones that have stayed with me a bit.  the job i landed is closely aligned with my experience.  the manager who interviewed me first exemplified my values.  she said to me her job is to ensure the csr's outside her office on the floor have good reason to get up and come into work.  she asked me about my philosophy for managing csr's and i told her i thought it was an especially stressful job, that these representatives have to be accountable to someone directly on the phone for maybe 2-5 minutes at a time with working breaks of another couple of minutes between such periods.  in the course of these calls the customer expects them to be empathetic, to genuinely care, to be an expert on the business of the company, to take responsibility for whatever has occurred and to fashion a solution in mere seconds.  i explained to that manager that in this role i think it is my job to help them be better and better at being all of these things to the customer and also to support them with tools to increase their rate of success.  that interview for me became a discussion.  we talked for about an hour and i was treated with the respect perhaps due a thoughtful and motivated person in the industry with 15-plus years experience.  she made it clear to me our customer service philosophies were in harmony, (if not unison.) 

next i interviewed with would be peers and as with a company down in cerritos i was worried i had perhaps been a bit too articulate and ambitious.  one of my recruiters had also suggested to me ahead of an interview with the booming shoe company that i was a strong personality and that could work against me on occasion.  still, she recommended me rolling the dice and being me.  in cerritos i felt certain it cost me but in retrospect i did not need to be at that telcom.  working with insecure people who are perhaps more interested in their personal career plight than in just working hard toward the company's objectives and thereby coloring their workplace reputation is less than ideal for me.  according the my human resources contact i was a unanimous choice in a lengthy process that included many candidates.  i could not be more pleased or optimistic about my new position.  in addition to matching up with a company that is vastly similar to the company i spent nearly 12 years with the people i have already been in contact with and who interviewed me reflect glowingly on the company.  (yes, in some part because they chose me.  you see-i am working on my self esteem?)

so it is that i am grateful.  i need to call these people and send out notes but here is a quick laundry list of those who helped me get through this mean season.

first and foremost my children helped me to persevere.  they were very much aware of the fact that daddy did not have a job but they were still just themselves everyday.  they smiled at me everyday.  recently mark said to me out of the blue as he walked up to me and hugged me, "best dad ever."  he's five.  man, i smiled for about an hour over that one. 

thanks to my friend gabe de la rosa who recommended me to that great company in downtown la.  thanks to my friend brian lamp who checked in on me every few weeks to let me know about places he had been looking for me and who always asked how i was doing and what irons i had in the fire.  thanks to a former associate who presented me to that aerospace company and to glendale's best online, diy legal eagles to no avail, and to my friend charles, who i once had the extreme bad fortune of having to terminate from my employ, who checked in at that glendale company on my behalf as he worked there for several years.  thanks to my best buddy steve who listened to my interview stories and got mad on my behalf i was not getting hired.  thanks to my mother-in-law and sisters and brother-in-law who always treated me with respect and dignity in spite of the fact my wife and i separated and i became unemployed within one month of one another.  the occasional babysitting was also appreciated.  thanks to henry and monique who always expressed disbelief when i did not get the job.  i told mo i needed an appointment with her before all of my interviews because she made me feel like a champ.  thanks to a former mentor and manager who has been helpful and instructive several times in the recently rocky course of my career; jeanie. she along with 10 other people responded positively to a plea for endorsements i made through linkedin.com and endorsed me.  along with jeanie i owe thanks to: david from my firefighting days, joe, stella and sarah who i worked with at the water company, vicky, rafael, jose and trina from the english language company, (for having spent less than two years there i met the best people,) and greg and ashley who i worked with most recently and who represent special endorsements for me because they come from that bad employer i had and they are two people who preceded me out the door both in an especially unhappy manner.  (moreover, both of these people are especially impressive people in the workplace.  it is hard to imagine how a company can succeed when it bleeds good people like these but then again, a consultant once suggested to me in a very wink-wink fashion in that very workplace that sometimes businesses succeed in spite of their owners.)  linkedin has a tool for requesting these endorsements and this was something i used only recently, as my desperation grew, so as you can imagine i was truly touched when they began coming in.  Jeanie responded practically immediately.  Joe wrote a glowing endorsement.  Ashley showed real caring and asked me to keep her up to date.  (note to self; call ashley when done writing.)  if any of these people every needed someone to testify to the pure golden quality of their individual characters, i will be first in line.

thanks also to my ex who expressed genuine happiness when she learned i had gotten the job and who was also considerate when i first became unemployed.  (we'll always have the sizzler.)  thanks to david and pete who kept me sane on a daily basis, who commiserated with me and agreed with my notions about the process and how vapid my previous employer was.  thanks to lily who adjusted my resume, cover letter and nearly my linkedin account too.  thanks to my brother and sara.  thanks to my dad and carol.  thanks to todd and chris.  thanks to the people at my kid's school who understood and gave us a discount for a season.  thanks to ashley who gave me discounted haircuts and gave terra the cutest doo ever.  thanks to dominique who accepted me last week ahead of my 2nd interview on short notice to tidy up my don draper haircut.  thanks to destiney, amy jean, tanya, alicia, joel, john, mary, wolf and perhaps most of all stephanie, all good people formerly employed in that horrific place, (of whom stephanie tells me i am the, "best boss ever," every time i contact her, well, both times i contacted her first for info and second to see if she was interested in a job i had been contacted about.)  thanks too, to linda, kathryn, bill, eddie, shane, steve, chris, mike, scott, jessica, sylvia, chad, mike, jesse, jesse, ruben, felix, rob, tami, lisa, rodney, dee2, katie and all of my friends and acquaintances who helped me feel normal and worth a damn during this time when it was easy to feel sorry for myself or less than.  i know it's not an academy award, this getting employed moment in time, but it's been hard and i love my people and think the world of them.

what happened to your life?

you wake up one day upset about a disagreement you had with your wife the previous night and before making it to lunch you bring it up with her and express your dissatisfaction and she responds by telling you she thinks the two of you need to separate.  you're floored.  you wonder if you had not brought up your discontentment would she have dropped this bomb. 

you consider the relationship and you have some discussions with your wife and the two of you agree to go to counseling, if only for the children's sake.  counseling is utterly unproductive, at least in terms of reconciliation, so you make an ultimatum. 

"if you move out i will never forgive you for taking away my power to give my children what i never had," you state matter of factly. 

she goes, unfazed, and on the fateful day you leave the house so she and her people can come in and take away your new, 52" television and so many other pieces of divided assets as it were.  you return home and you feel violated.  your living room is a mess.  you see the lines on the carpet where the vacuum cleaner could not reach and a few spider webs.  you feel akin to the spiders in their lonely, desolate lives, creating their webs for sustenance, pacing back and forth, waiting, waiting for something to happen, a meal or a disruption.  you wonder how spiders cope with their solitary lives.  you admire their focus.

you knew the relationship was in trouble, however.  you had been reluctant to attack the problem areas head on opting instead to focus on the positive and let good enough be just that.  life was hard with two small children but you felt like it was a season and you could address these areas later, perhaps when the children were a bit more self contained.  you were surprised to have that option closed to you and you hate being surprised unpleasantly.  it always feels like a mean mix of betrayal and embarrassment.

you get up everyday, none the less, and you go to work.  you collect the children on tuesdays and thursdays then every other friday after school you bring them home until monday morning when you drop them back off at school.  contact with your wife is severely cut though not totally.  you forward mail to her in a secret compartment of your daughter's school backpack and you text and email when you need to communicate.  your life is tolerable. 

five weeks later your boss is rude towards you and you dislike working for him anyway so you have a confrontation.  you tell him if he can't refrain from talking to you in such a manner he should lay you off so you will be eligible for unemployment while you look for another job.  he consents to that agreement so you return his car and his phone and you start looking for other work. 

you remember 17 years ago when you got a job working for a water delivery service how you had been determined to move up within the ranks of that company because you recognized your lack of an undergraduate degree as a career impediment.  12 years later you left that company to go to a little start up company that offered you more money and a great, if risky, environment.  you thought it was a good decision because now you would not work in the same place as your wife and you did not feel as valued by your new manager as you wanted to be anyway. 

two years later as the world economy floundered in the wake of bad mortgage loans and credit default swaps, you were laid off.  in seven months of unemployment you went on plenty of interviews and you rejected one offer before finally taking the position you would hold for the next few years.  and there you were less than three years later; unemployed again. 

maybe some people enjoy being unemployed...but you don't.  you don't mind some time off but sans a real income what good is all that time, you think.  on a daily basis you think of all the things you could be doing or would like to do but you are constrained by economy. 

when you do the math on your unemployment benefit income you realize you will be literally a few hundred dollars short of what you need to maintain your rent, your share of your children's private school tuition, and your household bills.  you could move to a smaller, less expensive place but you do not want to do that because she did that and you think staying put creates a certain sense of stability for your children.  you could take them out of the private school but you refuse to do that.  you believe with all of your heart this school is one of the very best things you have been doing for your kids.  you think the language skills they are learning will give them a certain advantage in the world, not just in being able to speak mandarin but also by nurturing diversity and multiculturalism.  you would rather spend your money on that education than on virtually anything else there is to spend your money on. 

your life is fat with struggle.  it is stressful having more going out than coming in.  when you have your kids you wear every hat.  you are the dad and the mom.  you cook and clean, encourage and scold, challenge and build confidence.  when you are short with them or when you opt to watch playoff hockey games instead of playing chess with your daughter, you feel bad but your energy is sapped and you crave the down time.  you resolve to make up for it later by initiating an activity in which you are 100% present and involved, like a hike or a day trip to the beach. 

how did you get here?  it is hard not to beat yourself up some.  it is hard to turn off that voice in your head that tends to berate yourself for so many failures.  how did you not listen to your college mentor when she said finishing school was the most important thing you were engaged in at that time?  why did you leave that company when you had nearly twelve years of employment under your belt with a great record and many good relationships within the company and you were not poorly positioned to realize your goals there?  you can't help the questions.

why didn't you realize prior to getting married when your wife said if it didn't work out that you both would have tried your best, that there was an unequal level of commitment evident in her nonchalance?  if you love writing so much why didn't you focus on that in school and work harder to make it a career?  how did you get here?

you feel like a spider.  you wake without any sort of employment commitment so you take your time.  you feed the cat and clean up her area.  you make coffee.  you comb through the job boards and send out a resume and cover letter or two.  you write a blog post.  the evening comes and you turn sports on the tv and you check your phone to see if anyone has contacted you.  nothing.  slowly you move into the kitchen for a meal.  you return to your computer.  you watch some tv and you apartment is a web-like dungeon.  you move around it, fiddling here and there, tidying it up, stopping to read a russian novel, posting to facebook as if everything is great and your life, like everyone on facebook's, is just rolling along so smoothly.  you check your phone to see if anyone has contacted you but it's just dictionary.com sending you the word of the day, or your hockey app informing you of the upcoming playoff schedule, or an email from bhatrimony.com, (you wonder how you got signed up to receive emails for finding an indian bride.)  you shower as the world goes on not unlike a spider in it's lonely web grooming itself, eight legs flitting about utterly unconcerned with the outside world but in your case, it feels like the outside world is unconcerned with you.  you are lost without your children.  lost.

when the kids are with you your perspective improves.  you have a sense of purpose and above all you love.  you are alive.  you know this because you love.  you love these two little people fiercely and you work hard to channel that love in such a healthy way as to give them the very best of you. 

it is a dark time in your life in spite of the great love you share with your children and you mean to embrace it.  you want to learn all that you can from the failed relationship with your wife.  you know you will appreciate a utilitarian job making good customer service for some company or another for a mediocre wage far more than you have in years.  you think the job is the key to fixing you.  an income and a work routine will make all the difference.  your dark and lonely season will transform and you will grow wings and venture out into the world again where you will face new challenges, meet new and interesting people and build relationships, and bring light to your little corner of the world to share with your children. 

working, not blogging

i apologize the frequency of my blogging has dropped off of late. the heart is willing but the body is subject to time, which has been in demand by my new employer.

seven months to the day after being laid off, i was offered a job. i am not so much ecstatic as content. but content feels great. money has been tight. stress levels have been up. all was not lost as i stayed home with my son mark for several months but it was still a trying time.

my new job is nearly perfect. the commute is reasonable. i like my boss. i like the culture of the organization. it is a small company and things happen there at light speed. i have a great amount of autonomy and already my boss, (the owner of the company,) has shown so much trust in me i have been taken aback. surely it is his way and he trusts his own judgment in hiring me but i once toiled in a place where i had a unique and distinct role in the operation but still was shown far less trust. i have a great team. i have a great feeling about my peers and their objectives and motives. (this last trait is not to be undervalued. it's huge.)

i am so thankful for the social compact we americans participate in and agree to. i appreciate the unemployment insurance that paid my car payment monthly and my daughter's pre-school while my wife's income supported the family otherwise. surely of all the things our taxes go to pay, unemployment insurance is among the most virtuous.

for now i will blog less. i am working long hours and i am thoroughly invested in my new job. my little project for which i had bought a couple of domain names is on hold. one day i will revisit the idea. my wife and kids will get as much as time as ever and it will be of a greater quality but most everything else will probably suffer and after seven long months without gainful employment, my perspective is one of appreciation for what i have and knowing how difficult things can be and are for many of neighbors, family, friends and countrymen.

still off

it has been six and one-half months since i was laid-off and it is a weird time to say the least. i have decided to blog about this knowing it is a difficult subject because it is so personal and because i want to come off in just the right way. i don't want to sound whiny. i want to be positive and constructive on an everyday basis, which takes effort.

i think it is important to blog about this and to talk about it perhaps not only for me, as the economic downturn is affecting a lot of people these days and will likely affect more, but maybe for others too. for those who might read. i want to talk about this rationally and again, constructively.

i have been unemployed for 6.5 months and i have detailed that experience previously. in this time i have interviewed around 15 times. i have had multiple interviews with four companies. one of those four offered me the job and i tentatively accepted the position but backed out at the last minute for a few reasons. the compensation was lower than I thought it should have been and i did not sense a real commitment to customer service. that company seemed more interested in a quick, quality injection, which i had promised i could deliver. in retrospect, two-and-one-half months later, i feel like it may have been yet another mistake on my part to back out of that job. still, i have to move forward.

i have priced myself out of a couple of the jobs i interviewed for, which is tricky terrain. in this economy it seems to me wages are plummeting. i am basing this on what i see posted online. employers ask the question though. they want to know what you have made and what you want to make or expect to make and as an interviewee you have to be prepared to answer the question. (one strategy i have employed recently involved praying to buddha, god, allah, shiva and any other deities i could think of before each interview in hopes the salary question would not come up.) next, i go into these interviews with a number that i think is in the right range for the job then i make myself ready to speak to the situation if the number i chose seems to not have been received well.

in one of my most recent interviews, i was asked the salary question and i said i was hoping to be in the $50k range. The interviewer said they were hoping to pay in the $40s. I countered by saying those numbers did not seem that far apart and i wondered if there might be some middle ground we could explore. that company never called me back. i called them and was told the person i had interviewed with was on vacation. you bet it sucks to not even hear back from a company.

in another interview, everything went super well. i felt like i had established a great rapport with the interviewer and i felt like a great fit for the job. at the end though out came that question.

"what are you looking to make?"

i said I had hoped to make $60k but that i was flexible. the job sounded like it was in that range. the rest of the interview was rushed and by the time i realized the salary question had changed the dynamics of the interview completely, (four minutes later as i was leaving,) there was nothing i could do to change anything. i called that interviewer back one week later and he apologized and said he was actually sending me an email that day and that i had not been selected for the position. the email did arrive later that day.

the entire idea of interviewing seems nebulous to me. it's just such a crap shoot. for example, i interviewed back in late november with someone over the phone and i thought the interview went especially well. sure enough i was invited to come in for an interview with three people in person. that interview also went well and i felt really good about the prospects. only one question came up from one of the three interviewers that concerned me. she asked me how i would deal with a team of new peers of which, several may be newer in the role of managing teams. i assured the interviewer maintaining my interpersonal relationships was of the highest priority to me and that i would neither be threatening nor dishonest. next i interviewed with that entire team of would be peers. it did not go well. answering questions honestly and forthrightly with a group of would be peers who are of lesser skills and experience than yourself is difficult to say the least. i tried to set them at ease but knew it could have gone better just as soon as i left. a few days later the original interviewer called me to explain that while they thought i had great experience and much to offer, they did not think i was the best fit for this team. he went on to say they would keep my resume on file because truly, he assured me, if the right position were to come open the management team thought highly of me.

it feels unnatural tooting my own horn in a job interview. i mean outside of a job interview i am always suspicious of those who are comfortable talking about how great they are. a few years ago i bought a business book called, "brag!", in an effort to gain greater comfort with shining a light on my own accomplishments and strengths. the principles therein are great and i think i was able to take something away from the book but it was most helpful for on-the-job managing your boss's perception, not interviewing. there is plenty of written material on how to land the job and interviewing at a high level. heck, i have had more advice than i can even remember at this point. most everything i hear has some value, which is not to say any of it is original or new to me.

california's unemployment rate has surpassed the 10% mark. the economy nationwide is in a bad way and it could be a while before things turn around, which is distressing. there are only so many jobs out there and i have certainly lowered my expectations in terms of the job i am expecting to get as well as the salary i expect to command. even then, there are no guarantees. i have two children ages two and four, so i have a heightened sense of panic about getting off the dole and getting back to the plans i have had to shelf for this season. my daughter attends a costly pre-school and if worse comes to worse, i could be forced to pull her from it, (though it would certainly be a last resort.)

additionally i have had to face some common challenges. i have had to battle against a sense of depression that has at times engulfed me in a mish-mash of self pity and worthlessness. i have had to deal with my wife, faith, bringing home the bacon while i rely on public assistance for the complementary portion of income we have. i have had to swallow a measure of pride to reach out to friends and family to ask for help in my job search. these have not been comfortable things to work through but i recognize the importance of pragmatism and of not letting my current circumstances define me. a few weeks ago i heard an athlete being interviewed on tv and he talked about the importance of rising to meet adversity and how much more those times say about a person's character than when everything is just fine. i want to work more than anything-i could hardly be less comfortable than i am and have been. so as much as this has been a down time for me, it has also been a seminal time in terms of learning who i am and what i am really all about.

this entire experience has been a learning one for me. i now know what it is like to be laid off. i know what it is like to have real worry. i have become substantially more frugal than i have ever been in my life and what's more, i think there is still room to spend and consume even less. i have been home with my son mark all of these last 6-7 months and we have bonded but good. when he wakes in the morning or even during the night he can be heard crying, "da-dah," through sobs from his crib. that is remarkable as he was formerly, just as terra was in these same years, so oriented towards mama. i have improved my cooking skills in this season. i have also blogged much more than i could have imagined when i had a job.

these things are all nice but they are not the natural order of things. voltaire's candide is certainly in the top three novels i have read, (along with cervantes' 'don quixote,' and chinua achebe's 'things fall apart,') and what i took away from it more than anything else was a certainty that humans are meant to work, to have a purpose and to toil at that purpose. anything else is in opposition to the natural harmony of the universe.

my sister is out of work. my brother was but started a new job today. my other brother was laid off late last year and was unemployed for about seven or eight weeks. at that time, the unemployment rate among my parent's children was 80%, (four of five.) since it is an issue with me, it comes up a lot in conversation as well and it seems as though everyone is close to someone who has lost their job. yesterday faith told me of a friend whose mom lost her job after 20 years and now plans on going to work as an entry level csr.

i hope we fix some things in this country in order to get people back to work. manufacturing things in america seems like a good place to start. but otherwise we all just have to do our best to cope with the lean times and find our way back to employment and our careers. personally, i am working on my positivity daily. moreover, i am trolling the job boards, monster.com, indeed.com, careerbuilder.com, callcenterjobs.com and craigslist. i try to stay in touch with people. i try to get out of the house with mark daily. and when the interviews happen, i am trying to do my best to be the right choice for the would be employer so as to give myself the option of accepting a position. most importantly i remain hopeful that this season of my unemployment is coming to an end any day now.

epoch

what kind of person are you? as unemployment skyrockets, banks collapse, major industrial giants falter, credit tightens, bailouts are administered without oversight, and every manner of chicken little proclamation can be heard, are you the type of person who just keeps going about daily life as usual or are you the type of person who is seriously concerned and taking personal action you consider appropriate?

i ask because i want to know if you believe things are really all that bad, worse than anything you have seen in your lifetime if you are under say, 70-years-old, anyways.

on one hand we have seen banks collapse before. we have endured higher unemployment. we have bailed out major companies previously. when our economy goes into recession, the world has always followed suit.

on the other hand, our current circumstances look like the perfect storm. it seems as though there is much evidence to suggest things will get substantially worse:

• many businesses which expect to make their profits in the christmas season while only managing to sustain the business during the rest of the year are expected to fail in early 2009 because of the thrifty nature this christmas is expected to be.


• a european newsletter has predicted the collapse of the dollar in summer of '09, which would mean a re-valuing of the dollar or replacing it altogether.


• as businesses fail, employment will continue to rise.


• as our federal government issues bailout after bailout and extends unemployment benefits with those claims rising, all while trying to make payments to china and others on our record, bush-induced, deficit, there has been some speculation we could default on our loans.


• the stock market continues its decline which is severely affecting retirement savings.

driving around town today i thought everything looked normal. traffic seemed normal. the behaviors of the people i saw seemed typical. i could not help but wonder if many people yet to feel the realities of the financial crisis are just going on with life like ostriches. as much as some would suggest that people need to "shop," or spend, thereby showing some confidence in our economy, in order to help loosen credit, restore confidence and get money moving again, that idea is completely wrong-headed. rather, now is the time to save, reduce, re-use, minimize your consumer footprint, in order to be ready for whatever the future holds.

your perspective on all of this could be crucial to you and your family.