A Year Unemployed

Two slats in the blinds that cover my bedroom window have broken in half and now hang

down limply, leaving an unsightly gash in the otherwise orderly stampede of white plastic rulers.

I should replace it, along with the blinds in the bathroom that are now old and dusty. But I can’t. The $37 I forked over for two living room lamps busted my home improvement budget, which was set at $0.00.

So I put those blinds on a depressingly long list of home goods that need to be replaced, like new sheets and a comforter, but cannot be purchased. (Note to self: Stay out of Bed, Bath & Beyond.)

I would love to move, find a sleek, modern condo. I peruse home ads, but the prices are too high — even if I were employed.

I obsessively watch HGTV, even if it seems to be an endless loop of White People Problems: “I must have hardwood floors!” “The closets are too small!” (Note to those silly homebuyers, if a house is merely $5,000 out of your $500,000 budget, you’re doing okay.)

So I continue to live my “Rear Window” existence, peeping into a life I can only vicariously live at the moment.

Right now, the savings I would have used for a down payment are siphoned to pay for a rent I may not be able to afford much longer.

A year unemployed: My future is on hold. Do I even have a future?

I see the carefully modulated social media posturing of friends and family. Even accounting for some embellishment, those people have pretty good lives. Better than mine, that’s for sure. They have jobs, families, homes; they get to take expensive trips to sunny climes. Where did they get the money?

I know it’s folly to compare oneself to others. All it does is rouse feelings of inferiority. But it’s hard not to — hard not to measure yourself against others you’ve worked with, grew up with, to see where you both now stand.

I don’t begrudge them their success, I honestly don’t. And I’m not jealous. Some of these people were once my friends and co-workers. I wish nothing but the best for them. How horrible would it be if some terrible tragedy befell them or their family? I would never want to see anything bad happen to them. I'm a bad person, but I'm not that horrible.

Yet, I believe I always knew even from a very young age that the life they have with spouses, children, nice homes and good jobs, would never be mine. While they did their May Day dance under sunny, ribbony skies and on dewy grass, I stood apart, on arid land, alone and in black and white, mocked if I ever tried to venture onto their exalted and exclusive territory.

So, yes, I knew I was never going to have that life. But that doesn’t mean I’m envious. Quite the opposite, I want them to be happy.

I know others have it worse than me. But my situation is getting direr every minute.

Now, for those who hurt me and wounded me deeply, well, the worse angels of my nature sometimes triumph. Oh, wouldn’t it be devilishly simple and satisfying to trash them anonymously on the Internet?

But I don’t, for several reasons. First, anybody with better digital skills than me (i.e., anybody over the age of eight) could probably trace the nasty comment back to me and that would start a battle I’d lose.

Do they even remember me? Or care that they hurt me? Probably not. I was nothing to them. Their nasty (and in most cases, unprovoked) behavior toward me proved that much.

Lastly, it wouldn’t change anything. It would not erase the pain they inflicted on me.

Nevertheless, I wish them well. What else can I do? (Though if they were to say, break a limb, I guess I wouldn’t feel too bad.)

A year unemployed: How did I get to this point?

The streaks of gray hair around my forehead peer back at me when I look in the mirror. My hair is too long; it dangles loosely well past my shoulders in a dry tangle of waves.

A friend told me if I want to get a job, I must look younger, and therefore, I must get a shorter haircut and cover the gray. When I tried to explain that right now I don’t have the money to spare for a salon, she said to go a cheaper place, perhaps a chain salon. She was really rather insistent about it.

I know that she meant well, and she’s right: My follicles badly need an updated ‘do. But on that very same day, I received a $200 doctor bill. What is more important? Paying that bill, or a salon visit? I cannot pay for both.

Even if I did get a new hairstyle, would it land me a job? Heck, even if I looked like J.Lo on the red carpet, I still wouldn’t get hired at my age.

I almost snapped at her, but I didn’t. She’s a tenured teacher. It would take a Supreme Court case to get her removed from her job. She’s safe. She doesn’t understand what I’m going through. She has a husband, a beautiful home, and steady, guaranteed employment.

Her comment was a kick in the teeth. It was almost like she was saying, “You look old and ugly.” Now, I know that wasn’t what she meant (at least I hope so), but when you’ve been beaten down by two layoffs in four years, constant job rejection and unending financial worry, you are easily wounded even by so-called well-meaning advice. How much can one person take?

A year unemployed: Should I go to Super Cuts? Any recommendations?

I have to cut my spending. I’m going to stop delivery of my local newspaper.

I began my career as a part-time reporter at that same paper, covering local meetings at night. Many of the full-time reporters were Ivy League graduates. They treated me with either showy indifference or barely concealed disdain (even though I was doing the job they should have been doing).

One woman was particularly contemptuous of me. Why, I’ll never know. I barely spoke 15 sentences to her and I was no threat to her job. We were rarely in the office at the same time. Yet she treated me like I smelled bad.

I was told I was never going to be prompted to full-time reporter. I was burnt out, and the nastiness of that particular “co-worker” finally got to me and I left. I was quickly replaced by a woman who is still there. She writes an article every six months. No lie. On average, I wrote four stories a week.

A year unemployed: Why should I subsidize the lattes of those Ivy League toffs?

The darkness hits me like a wave. It grabs me like the hands from a specter in a bad dream and spins me in its undertow. I can’t escape. I'm running in water. I just fall further.

I’ll never find a job. No one will even hire me again.

How much longer will my savings last? Will I end up homeless? Where will I go?

I’m fat. I eat too many carbs. (When did carbs become the villain anyway?)

I’m old and ugly. I have no talent. Everyone is better than me. I’m a failure. Life is passing me by.

I don’t talk about these feelings to anyone. They don’t care, and far be it from me to bring them down with my “negativity.” I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: People don’t care about your problems. They only care about themselves.

Doesn’t anybody understand what it’s like to be a long-term unemployed worker? To be tossed aside by society? More than a job we need sympathy.

Hey, why don’t you get a job? Um, what do you think I’ve been doing lo these many months? You think it’s that easy, try it yourself.

Why don’t you take a little job (whatever that means)? Maybe you should take a cut in pay? Would you?

Something must be wrong with her to be laid off twice in four years. What a loser! Yeah, right.

Sometimes I long for my old life and a steady job. I picture myself holding a Starbucks coffee, striding confidently to the office...and then, what? 

A year unemployed: Do I even want to go back to that life? A life so easily taken away?

The interview went well. You had all the qualifications for the job. How often does that happen?

So even though you know hope is a dangerous thing, you hope anyway. You picture yourself at a good (or any) paying job, moving to a new loft apartment, driving a new car, paying off your debts. YOU GET TO BUY THINGS AGAIN!

Then you get the email, a wrecking ball to your hopes: “We have decided to go with another candidate.” Why did you let yourself get your hopes up? Stupid.

Most of the time you simply delete the digital missive. No need to have that negativity lurking in your inbox. Other times, the rejection stings, and disappointment, hurt and yes, anger flair through your veins like a brush fire scorching dry timber. Should I send an email asking why I was rejected?

But you don’t. You’ve sent too many emails in haste and anger in the past that exploded like an IED in your face. You know better now. Besides, you will never get the honest answer.

Still, after countless dismissals, you wonder: “There wasn’t one of those jobs I was qualified for?”

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different outcome.

A year unemployed: “Should I give up?”

How many times have I listened to a friend complain about his or her job. “The boss is a jerk and my co-workers are annoying.” Is there any other kind? “Aren’t you glad to be away from the rat race?”

Yes, I thoroughly enjoy having no steady income, living off my savings (which won’t last much longer), and being barraged with near daily rejection. It’s what I dreamed of when I was a little girl — future homelessness!

Look, I understand how difficult the workplace can be. I’ve been there. Yet whenever I hear someone complain about their job, I always want to ask: “Please show me the gun that was put to head to make you take that job.”

Presumably when you applied, were interviewed and subsequently hired, you knew what the job would entail and had an inkling of the workplace culture. If the job wasn’t to your liking, you needn’t have taken it. You have free will. Use it.

If you can’t leave for financial reasons, why not frame your job in more positive terms. Are there aspects of the job you like to do better than other duties? Concentrate on those tasks you enjoy and competently master those you don’t.

Or perhaps the job is giving you the opportunity and financial wherewithal to pursue other interests that could lead to another, more satisfying career.

You have a job when many don’t. You are able to support yourself and your family, provide a roof over their heads. You have money to travel, dine out, and BUY THINGS!

Be grateful! Look around you: How many empty cubicles do you see? How many co-workers were marched to the door, told the company could no longer support their paychecks...while you and your direct deposit were kept on staff?  I'm still flummoxed by the two former co-workers who de-friended me on Facebook. What did I do to offend them? I lost my job to save theirs! GAH! 

If the job is that horrid and detrimental to your sensibilities, leave. Find another job. It’s easier to find a job when you have a job (versus a two-time laid-off loser). You are not doing yourself, your employer or your co-workers any favors by staying at a job that makes you miserable.

Sorry, I cannot sympathize with people who complain about their jobs. And isn't there just a tinge of narcissism in those whines? What you are really saying is, "I'm too good for this job."

A year unemployed: Do people with jobs know how lucky they are?

The bills mount. How can I pay them?

Unemployment payments ended in August. Since then, dwindling savings and puny-paying freelance jobs support my "lavish" lifestyle. The subsidy for my Obamacare health plan (which has a deductible only reachable by getting hit by a bus) remains as the only government help received. Without it, I'd have no medical care.

If I overestimated my income for last year, I'll pay back those subsidies. That's the way the law works.

I did not chose to become unemployed. I don't want government help. I want a job!

A year unemployed: Should I declare bankruptcy?

Bare tree branches pierce gray, rainy skies. When I went to jog this morning, I couldn’t because black ice made it too slippery and dangerous to even walk.

My morning jog is sometimes the only time I get out of the house these days. Don’t travel much. I can’t. It’s even too much of a financial strain to buy a $30 tank of gas.

Even when I did have a steady income, I can’t say I was a big traveler. My sensitive stomach makes traveling difficult.

Yet I took some trips, and I would love to go to Italy. Take a month to visit the north, stroll Lake Como, Florence and Milan. Then, I’d like to go south, perhaps visit the town where my maternal grandparents were born, and Sicily. That’s not going to happen. Not now. Not ever.

Honestly, I don’t want to go out much. I don’t want to see people going about their daily routines — jobs, making purchases. It’s just a reminder of all I can no longer do; of a life that was stolen from me during some gruesome board meeting.

I don’t want to talk to people. I’m too embarrassed and ashamed to tell them I’m still looking for a job. Better not to say anything.

Seeing the change of seasons only reminds me of how long I have been out of work.

A year unemployed: How much longer?

Is Work Only for the Young?

It’s Labor Day! Time for my annual screed against the mistreatment of American workers by their corporate overlords.

What has my blood pressure up (literally) this year? Just a little item I read about CNN

prepping for the imminent dumping of hundreds of workers. Before the media giant undertakes this reprehensible act, it has asked some employees to consider a buyout. Which group of CNN workers would that be? Only those over age 55 and who have been with the company for 10 years or more.

When I read that, I was dumbfounded. If that doesn’t smack of ageism, well, then I don’t know what does. It’s like the company is saying, we don’t want older workers and we don’t workers who have been with us “too long.” Apparently, CNN is one of many companies that seeks to trim its bottom line by cutting older, higher paid workers and only employing young, cheap labor.

Can’t say I’m surprised, though. At my both former workplaces, I saw this in action. At my former former office, people who had been with the company 10 years or more were routinely targeted for layoffs. At my last job (and it’s looking more and more like it will be my “last” job), four out of the five of us who were laid off on the same day were age 50 or older. What does that tell you? It tells you CNN is not alone in this reprehensible practice.

What happens if not enough of these veteran employees don’t take the buyout offer? Will CNN simply terminate them en masse? That is such blatant age discrimination that even our pathetically neurasthenic government agencies would perk up and take notice.

Having been through this situation twice now, my gut feeling is that CNN management is probably going to employ more subtle, manipulative means to get rid of its oldsters. How you may ask? By guilt-tripping them: “Well, if you don’t take the buyout, we’re going to have lay off younger workers. You wouldn’t want to see Bob get laid off, would you? He has a young family.” Or “If you don’t take the buyout, we’re going to have to close down the entire company. You wouldn’t want to see that happen, would you?”

Well, yeah, I would. If you’re too stupid to keep the company profitable, then let the whole damn thing go under. I’d rather see that instead of laying off a lot of good workers while upper management escapes any and all consequences.

The saddest aspect of this is that 55 is not old anymore. Those employees have at least 10-15 years or more of good working years ahead of them. They are in their prime. They have families to support, children in college or getting ready for college, and are probably helping care for their elderly parents. Yet they are being cast out simply because of their age and salary status.

And how old is too old to work? Is it 55, 65, 72? Will it get to the point where age 45 is considered too old to be employable?

For those CNN employees who do take the buyout, what do you think will happen to them? Doubtful that many are in a financial position to take early retirement. Some may want to continue working, but what company will hire them? How will they support themselves? Start their own businesses? For some that may be the way to go. For others, I’m not so sure. They will probably end up working part-time in retail (like I will soon). Retirement crisis in Aisle 6! It’s been documented that older workers face longer periods of unemployment (no kidding!). Now, they don’t even have the safety net of extended unemployment benefits—deemed too costly by a Congress that does nothing to earn its pay.

Please don’t misunderstand me. Companies must trim staffing levels when economic conditions dictate. Singling out a particular group of workers for those staffing cuts, however, is discrimination. Why no one in our government sees this is beyond my comprehension.

Of course, companies can always counter they must carry out layoffs in order to remain a viable enterprise, and government cannot interfere with the private sector. (Like anyone in government is stopping them from doing what they want. There is little regulation and what there is of it is loosely enforced, if at all. Private firms operate in a no-accountability zone.)

When it comes to hiring older workers, companies can argue (with some validity) the older person doesn’t have the skills we need, has “too much” experience (like that’s a bad thing?) for the job, or commands too high a salary. It’s all subjective, so who is going to challenge them?

Before I go further, I’d like to make one thing clear. Though I have been beaten out numerous times by younger applicants, I don’t harbor any ill will toward them. I actually think it’s despicable that companies are paying them such low salaries. How low? Not too long ago I noticed an ad for an assistant editor job at the same salary I was making as an assistant editor…30 years ago!

How are these young people supposed to start a new life, rent an apartment, buy a home, start a family, when they are being paid such a low wage? Note, too, how many college graduates come out of school weighed down by enormous student debt. It’s not as if their out-of-work parents can help them. It’s a very sad situation for young and old.

Back to my original question: Is work only for the young? Apparently, yes. With companies routinely canning veteran employees past a certain age and favoring only the young, our workplaces will soon be populated only by those 35 and under. Oh, there be a 45-year-old sprinkled in, to give the appearance of fair hiring practices. This is where we are going, make no mistake.

I’m not sure what can be done. Nobody in government or even the press seems to be paying much attention to what is happening to older workers, or even cares.

It’s ironic. I’m sure CNN has done numerous stories on the plight of older workers. Yet it is now treating its veteran workers just as badly. Perhaps CNN can do a story on how disgracefully it’s treating its own workers. I’d like to see that. 

Hopes & Dreams

One of my favorite movies is “The Shawshank Redemption.” It’s a bit corny, old-fashioned, sentimental and formulaic, but, boy, I dare you not to fall for its emotional wallop in the end. One scene in particular hovers in my mind, especially now.

It’s a conversion between Andy, the Tim Robbins character, and Red, the Morgan Freeman character, both inmates at prison in Maine in the 1950s. To summarize, Andy says that a person must have hope. Red is having none of that, essentially saying that hope is a dangerous thing.

I’m with Red on this one. I’ve pretty much given up any hope of getting a full-time job ever again. You see, I’ve passed that damning signpost of being out of work for six months. Once again, I’ve become of a member of the “LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYED” club. (Cue the horror-movie scream here.)

That means, to HR drones and potential employers, I have regressed to an infantile state in which I have lost all ability to function, reason, play well with others, or master new tasks. I have lost any capacity to learn new technology (okay, they may have me on that one). Despite more than 25 years in my profession, I’m viewed as a drooling moron because I’m now a LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYED WORKER. (Cue the horror-movie scream here.) Add to this scenario my advanced age and I’ve got two massive debits against me in my futile quest to find gainful employment.

I’ve been here before. In fact, since 2009, I’ve been out of a job for nearly two years. It’s amazing I have any savings left at all.

Oh, and did I mention my unemployment benefits have run out? (Cue the horror-movie scream here.)

So perhaps you can understand why I feel hopeless. I really don’t know what to do. It’s obvious that in the minds of potential employers, I’m well past employable age and it’s obvious they believe that because I’m A LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYED WORKER I’ve lost any intellectual competence.

I’ve picked up some freelance assignments with middling success. (I fear I’m going to get fired from one pretty soon. Serves me right for taking on a job for which I really didn’t have the proper background.) In my current state of mind, I believe I’ll fail at any job I try to do.

But the payments (when they come in) are not going to support me. I’ve gone to a cheaper car insurance and switched over to Obamacare (fingers crossed it works for me) to cut my health-care premiums.

I have to pay rent and utilities. I need cable to do or find work via the Internet. I can cancel my newspaper subscriptions. I don’t shop for clothes anymore, just food and gas. I live rather modestly so I don’t think there’s much else I can cut. I’ve already accepted handouts from my cousins (they’re rich and can afford it), but still, it’s a blow to my self-esteem to be seen as a charity case. I don't want charity, I want a job!

I may not have gotten married and had kids, I may not have been amazingly successful in my career, but I could always take pride in the fact that I put myself through school and supported myself. Now even that has been taken away from me by some corporate bean counter.

I can’t begin to describe how disgusted, angry, anxious and dejected I feel at this point. But who would care? Certainly not any potential employers. It’s not that I expect to get a job out of pity (no employer does "pity" hires anyhow), but could they at least understand I haven’t lost my skills, that I can still be a good worker, and that my jobless status was not of my own making?

And it irks me to no end when I hear people say, “You know, at your age it would be hard to get a job.” I always feel like they are leaving off the next sentence. You know, something like, “Glad I’m not you, Loser. I got a job.” What does that mean exactly? Do I stop looking for work and live in poverty? Apparently that may be the only option.

Though my best friend tells me I shouldn’t blame myself for my unemployed status, that it was the economy and the companies’ fault, I can’t help thinking in some way it was my fault. I also think some people (like my own sister and all HR drones) believe that as well.

It’s hard not to think that way. I cannot ignore the fact that in the past four years, when the company I worked for had to slash its budget, I was let go, that I wasn’t good enough to keep on staff while others were.

And when you are taken into a room and told the company is having financial problems and it has to cut your position, it’s hard not to internalize (sorry to use a hackneyed psychobabble phrase) that devastating blow. To feel somehow I was to blame for the company’s shortfall. I actually feel guilty for dragging the company downward. I mean, the implication is gut-wrenchingly clear: Your ginormous salary is dragging down the company (HA!) and you are worthless to us now.

Yeah, I know. That’s silly. But that’s how I feel. Friends tell me to fight it, but with what? I have no self-confidence left. It’s been destroyed by two layoffs in four years. By once again becoming a LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYED WORKER. (Cue the horror-movie scream here.)

Except for this blog and some conversations with my best friend, I really don’t express these feelings. People only care about themselves anyway, certainly not some unemployed loser. U.S. companies certainly don’t care; they can always smugly justify their massive layoffs as just another business decision.

I really don’t go out much or socialize a lot. I’m too embarrassed and ashamed. It’s hard to go out and see people enjoying themselves, eating at a restaurant. I don’t begrudge them, but it’s just another reminder of something else I can’t afford, like pedicures and hair cuts.

Just as hard is hearing people talk about vacations or seeing beach photos posted by friends on Facebook. Can’t say I’m a world traveler, but I wonder if I’ll ever go on vacation again. Heck, I can't even afford a tank of gas to drive to the mall!

So, what now? Sure, I could apply for a retail job, but would I get hired? That’s how low my self-confidence had sunk. Training? With what money? I’ll be lucky if I don’t end up homeless in six months. There is no help for unemployed workers like me. Corporate America has cast us out, and our nation’s social safety net has no provision for us.

I wish I could stop having these unsettling dreams, dreams in which I’m lost within labyrinth-like city streets darkened by towering skyscrapers, trying frantically to find the door I have to go through. I never find that door. Or the dreams where I’m running after a bus and it keeps going and going and going, ever faster beyond me, never stopping to let me board.

Already I’ve begun to clear my apartment of unwanted papers and items, to get rid of stuff I no longer need or want. (Better to have less stuff when I move to the homeless shelter, right?) Every time I do it, though, I also feel like I’m receding from the world bit by bit, a world that apparently no longer has a place for me.

Whenever I think I could be hired for a job, I quickly stop myself. Like Red, I can’t allow myself to believe in the ethereal myth of hope. It hurts too much when I’m rejected or I fail.

I’m sorry for the downcast tone of this post. But unlike “The Shawshank Redemption,” I don’t see a happy ending.