Posted on 09/16/2011 1:33:01 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
After 30 months of unemployment, 400 applications, and only three in-person interviews, I stood looking at my last unemployment benefit without a job in sight.
The temptation was to frame it, since it marks one of those transitions in life that merits being remembered. But I needed the money more than a memento, so I took my last unemployment check to the bank and deposited it -- $367 for some necessities. Food, rent, gas. My last unemployment check was $160 less than my usual weekly benefit, but still a welcome boost to my sagging finances. How I will miss those Tuesday trips to the mailbox and then the bank, one of the few regular events in my upended, irregular life!
I had always thought the unemployed were society's unfortunates, people unlike me lacking in education or training or experience or skills. Then in March of 2009, the Hearst Corporation quit publishing the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. I suddenly became a labor statistic, one of millions without work in the worst economic implosion since the Depression. I was more fortunate than many unemployed people since the Newspaper Guild negotiated a decent severance that yielded two weeks' pay for every year of employment. Since I had spent more than a quarter century underneath the P-I's landmark globe, my severance was a year's salary, although that lump sum check as I left the building forever had a tax bite from a Great White Shark.
Now my severance is exhausted, as is my unemployment, and I am scrambling every day for work. I had been a columnist, then the book critic for the P-I, enviable newspaper jobs even among my colleagues. Now I seek any writing or editing work that I discover,
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
And pays more.
As a former journalist who left to pursue another field, even in the smaller papers many are losing their jobs.
It’s smart to have another career path available if you are in the journalistic realm just in case.
Frankly, I am not overly surprised he can’t find any work in journalism. It’s bad out there.
HOWEVER, he could find work even in journalism if he really wanted...just with a major pay cut. Like many laid off reporters, he probably said no way to PR writing since it’s the ‘dark side.’
But, it is hiring and pays the bills.
In my town, of 8000, we lost our Barber to cancer. For about a year, the shop sat empty. Tough economy?? Why no barber...
Well, today I was the very first customer of the new guy. He is a 2 1/2 yr green card from South Korea, 45 yrs old. Broken english, nervous, but gave me a great haircut.
I’d say he’s on his way to being a fine American.
So, that is what it took, an immigrant, to appreciate the wonderful opportunity our town would afford our new barber.
I feel bad for the guy. I really do. But I also wonder if he was one of the many “journalists” who used every journalist’s trick in the book to help get Obama elected in 2008.
Get a lawn mower, rake and a snow shovel and comb the neighborhoods to start up your own business.
My sister cleans houses for a living and people always pity her but she makes great money - close to a $1000 cash a week which is not bad for cleaning houses.
Interesting. One of my skills is technical writing. Although I wasn’t contracted to do that, it is actually what I am doing right now. I’m still getting about a call every day from my resume on Monster. One of those calls is how I got my current job. One interview, one job.
Maybe it is the industry I’m in. I’m not concerned with finding a job. Rather, with finding one that pays what I want. The job ranges from $30 an hour to about $80. On some occasions far more and somewhat less. It may not last forever, but if it got really tight, I’d just go back into sales of some sort. The turnover there is unbelievable. They are always looking.
BTW, I bet the guy finds work soon.
Oh, and I have no education beyond HS and less than a year of trade school. And I’m roughly the author’s age.
I did not take it that day at all. I think he is saying he is still scrambling. Based on his article, I don’t get the impression he wasn’t trying earlier.
That said, he should have considered finding another field.
>> Then in March of 2009, the Hearst Corporation quit publishing the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. I suddenly became a labor statistic...
I love a happy ending.
“Visualize unemployed propagandists”
Nice of you to be so compassionate. No where does the author say all his applications were for writing work, just that he does seek out work in a field in which he feels competent. Perhaps he has applied for jobs that don’t require a pencil.
I have a friend with a technical writing business who hires lots of writers. He has several openings. But not journalists. For some reason they can not convey a thought without adding their feelings, impressions, concerns, and vapid insights. The the owner used to be a reporter and says the 5-Ws he grew up with have be replaced by journalists with the 5Ms — me, me, me, me, me!
Exactly. He states in the article:
all the weekly logs of jobs that I applied for in order to qualify for unemployment - three jobs every week during two years of federal unemployment, then four jobs every week during six months of Washington State unemployment.
Who knows what he could have accomplished if he didn't stop at the minimum?
Are you bleepin’ kidding me? That’s more than our take home. Like he couldn’t get off his rear to find a job in 2.5 long years? But it’s ok for me to take food from my kids’ mouths so he can lay around on the couch?!?!
I’m not going to throw stones at this person for the misfortune that has befallen him. Obama’s America is no place to be unemployed, so my heart goes out to him and I remain thankful that i still have a job, even though the environment around it stinks.
But, he’s has 36 months to pick up a trade to provide for himself. He may not be able to live the life as before, but at least he would be looking at nothing. I of course am assuming a job in a new profession could be found also.
Hmmm, I’m even more thankful for what I have now.
I’m not going to throw stones at this person for the misfortune that has befallen him. Obama’s America is no place to be unemployed, so my heart goes out to him and I remain thankful that i still have a job, even though the environment around it stinks.
But, he’s has 36 months to pick up a trade to provide for himself. He may not be able to live the life as before, but at least he would be looking at nothing. I of course am assuming a job in a new profession could be found also.
Hmmm, I’m even more thankful for what I have now.
Here is the problem. Sure he scrambled but he was looking for a job where he netted more than his unemployment check. There is no SS tax, no transportation costs, no clothing expense, no crappy bosses and you can still get an occasional under the table job. So, he works on a book or other project sends a few emails for a job each week to keep the unemployment office happy and relaxes for a year.
Now he rights an article about how bad it all was and gets paid for that too.
As far as compassion goes, I've been unemployed, more than once. How about you? I did not find another job by complaining - no one wants to be around, let alone hire someone like that. It's not compassion to enable folks who wallow in pessimism.
North Dakota. If he is really interested in work, that is the place to go. But then again, he might have to get dirty.
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