Getting fired from a job is pretty much the worst thing ever, short of those close to you dying. Not only is it an outright rejection of your skills, performance, and demeanor, its also an economic kick to the groin: not only do you suck at your (old) job, you are now not that much different than the homeless guy digging through the garbage bin behind Safeway. I consider myself somewhat blessed in the fact that I have a very small stake in this "ownership" society, no mortgage, no credit card debt, and a car that's paid for. Plus, we live in a rat-trap 480/sq.ft. apartment that we pay less than $500 per month for, utilities included. Still, only a week on and I'm watching us burn through our checking account like kindling.
So after the initial crushing blow of rejection and termination that starts the path down unemployment, you are greeted with a particularly virulent strain of apathy: its as if your body forces itself into coping mode and suddenly sloth is an acceptable character trait. I got canned on New Year's Eve, and I still have not yet looked at a single job posting. And I know precisely why: there's no job on Career Builder, Craigslist, et al that will seem good or attainable enough. Moreover, the true bane of unemployment is a variant of chronic fatigue syndrome: you spend most of the day looking forward to something that will never come...a winning lotto ticket, your boss calling to say it was a mistake and come back on monday, a financial windfall of undetermined origin. Magical thinking isn't just a coping process for the bereft. In a way, unemployment insurance is the methadone for the jobless, something meant as a temporary functional equivalent but becomes an inferior substitute. I dread this process, but it is certainly the next step.
This grogginess of being untethered by the prospect of a paycheck is dangerous. I find myself awakening at the well-trodden pre-work routine hour of 7am, but soon after I'm lusting after a nap. I indulged yesterday, only tossing and turning, thinking about the things I should be doing. I don't think its too much of a logical leap to think that this warm-bed deception is perhaps the quickest route to depression a person could find. The old saying that finding a job is a 40-hour/week "job" is true, if not particularly hard to achieve. Once I make the first transfer from our savings account to pay for food this advice will probably come more crisply into focus. As much as people say they hate their jobs, most of us are pretty glued into the daily grind. Remove labor from your life, and most of your days will get pretty boring unless your muse has been clobbered by your dayjob. I do find the days a little lacking without the central focus of capitalistic hoop-jumping, but it gives me ample time to commit to things I always talk about: a book of short stories, an unfinished and staling novel, and a screenplay.
I recieved a call today from a former co-worker alerting me to the fact that our former employer official closed Tuesday, entirely out of business now. The two people I spent nearly a year with will be following me to the back of the job-search queue. While I knew my performance on the sales sheet looked particularly pathetic, it wasn't something I was doing exclusively. The print industry is a dinosaur with a terminal malady, and trying to get people to buy ads in a medocre sub-100,000 copy print rag in a faltering economy is no cake-walk. I feel particularly sorry for the graphic designer of the magazine...who happens to have 7 kids. He always pulled off some sort of mystic math each month to feed, shelter, and care for his brood on $14/hr, but I can't imagine how rough it must feel to be in his shoes.
Office culture has always fascinated me, and with the popularity of NBC's often cringeworthy The Office I'm not alone in my interest. I have funny anectodes I relay quite frequently about past employers, and I always solicit ideas and experiences from others about jobs they loved, hated, or found bizarre enough to relay. I came to this blog with hopes of documenting my perilous journey into the frightening world of unemployment and eventually the dawning of another gig, but I also am using it as an opportunity to seed an idea I have about the cosmic irony of the workplace. Stay tuned for hilarious and enlightening rants about different things I've done for cash throughout my life: golf-course attendant, garden-and-gift-pusher, film location manager, Fraternal Order of Police Solicitor, Crap-coffee "barista", That Record Store Guy, Book Merchant, and finally, Advertising Coordinator. Learn more about quirky management styles, stoner co-workers, and what it really means to be a part of a business. Also upcoming: hilarious life-missteps and tirades like when I threatened to quit my record-store job if I had to hear another second of Matisyahu. Also included: how funny it is to be 27-years old watching your friends take "great" jobs and pop kids out while you keep hoping for a job that does not involve the phrase "do you need a bag for that?"
So as much as I'm enjoying my temporary stay in job-limbo as a House Husband, the job search starts officially tomorrow. Unemployment insurance is today's mission, though I'm sure I'll find plenty of other things to keep me occupied, including but not limited to grocery shopping, baking 5 kinds of bread, cleaning, and well, napping. And the gym. Because if I'm going to be competing with the strangely Cro-Magnon-looking bum for recycleables, I better be well-equipped.
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