I was laid off exactly three weeks ago today. Since I was granted 2 weeks pay instead of notice, next week will be my official Wait Week in the unemployment system -- I did not qualify as I was still drawing a salary.
I thought I was having mood swings Monday and Tuesday, but it turns out I was just sick. Virus? Mild food poisoning? Who knows.
-- continued after the poll --
Today? Today I found myself standing in the doorway of the local grocery store shouting at an old man. He had ordered me to put my cigarette out (I was walking to the ashtray to do just that before entering the store). I said, "That's what I'm doing, sir." Thought I'd show a little respect, he was clearly 2X my age, and was having trouble walking.
Then he said, "I don't allow anyone to smoke around me." Now, I had not blown smoke in his direction, had not been impolite, anything. But he just stepped on my third nerve. I had spent the last half hour walking around a mall looking for the Workforce Center. The signs indicated it was in the attached office building, on the 4th floor. There is no way to get to the 4th floor! No elevator, no stairs, nothing. So I was irritated. Then I saw the sign in the door of the teleservices company on the second floor -- "XYZ is not hiring for any poisitions at this time".
I worked in telemarketing for the last 5 years, as a fundraiser (for OUR side, always and only), as a supervisor, as an automated dialer operator. If I take an entry-level job in the field I would make significantly less than my unemployment benefits (if they ever start paying) and would lose said benefits due to working over 32 hours/week. The purpose of unemplyment is to help buy me the time to get a job that pays somewhere close to what I was making, 85% it the cutoff -- refusing to take a job that pays 85% of previous wages=loss of benefits. The last couple years I was far more involved in the internal computer end of the job than the phoning end, but when needed I could still call with the best of them.
So, the guy at the store. It wasn't being peremptorily ordered to extinguish my cigarette that bugged me. I assumed he was either a former smoker (is there any greater zealot than the reformed sinner?) or had lost someone(s) to lung cancer. Fair enough.
It was the smug, arrogant delight in his voice when he informed me he did not allow anyone to smoke in his vicinity.
I took a deep breath, thought for a second, and proceeded to unload the days frustrations on him. "You going to give me a job?"
"What?"
"I said, are you going to give me a job? Will you employ me?"
He seemed to think about it for a second. "What do you do?"
Rather than explain, I said "Computers."
"Ah I got no time for those things."
This seems pretty mild, but keep in mind my end of the dialog was redfaced, flecks of spittle getting caught in my moustache, fists clenched impotently in the pockets of my coat. I gathered up all my frustration and venom and ire of the day and threw it at this hapless old man whose only crime was to act superior to me.
I'm worried. I posted a comment a couple days ago about dumping milk and burning oranges, then yesterday morning, torturing myself by listening to Marketplace, I hear about a plan to slaughter dairy cows to keep milk prices up. Screaming at the radio, "Did you learn nothing from the depression?"
This morning, agian on the radio, they said it would be a good idea for people to relocate, go where the jobs are, rather than wait for a decnt job to come to their area.
I am trying not to lose my house. My family's home. I didn't buy it as an investment, I bought it as a place to raise my child, who had for 10 years wanted nothing more than to dig holes in the dirt and couldn't, because we lived in apartments. I wanted to live somewhere where my neighbors were further away from me than the other side of a thin sheetrock wall. To be somewhere where if some idiot decided to torch his ex-girlfriend's place, it wouldn't be in the same building.
The house next door is for sale. Fortunately not a foreclosure (that's across the alley one house over). But it's 4X as nice as my place (a 90 year old former rental property), and is currently priced lower than what I paid, what I still owe. For me to go somewhere where the jobs are better, I would have to walk away, let the bank take it.
I am not there yet. I am not so desperate that I pile my family into a jalopy with Gramma up top and head out to where the fruit grows free for the picking, where there's always work, where the bluebird sings to the lemonade springs and the jails are made of tin.
I don't understand how the companies currently laying off workers by the thousands expect to survive. I don't see how our country can survive. All I can think about is how the former Soviet Union never recovered from the economic collapse that took place after they invaded Afganistan, how the thugs took over there. All I think of are the stories of people who got laid off in the 70's and never recovered, because by the time it was over they were in their mid-40s and essentially unemplyable.
I'm a 40-year old high school dropout who, for the second time in my life, got a career instead of just a job, worked my way up from the ranks, and got kicked in the teeth. Last time I didn't have a child, relocating wasn't as big a deal -- but I did lose a house in the deal. It wasn't much of a house, and someone did buy it, eventually, but I cannot do that again or I will spend the rest of my life in a cardboard box under an overpass, because now you can't even rent a lousy apartment without passing a credit check.
I fear that I am unemployable.
I'll feel better once the unemployment checks start to arrive, they will buy some breathing room to try to find something decent. Right now I am squirrely and upset because something in the back of my mind says they won't ever come, that this is it, that I may as well have punched the CFO in the nose and kicked that sumbitch who I won't mention by name in his nonexistent nuts, you know who you ARe, and been fired for all the good my employer's decision not to contest unemployment is doing me.
The first two weeks of unemplyment were a vacation. I got destressed, felt pretty good. Tomorrow I may be in good spirits again. Today, today I just want to stand in front of the world with my middle fingers extended and scream, "Are you happy? Are you satisfied? You are not going to break me, you Shall Not Pass!!"
I will not be broken. I shall bend like the reed. Tonight I shout into the aether, tomorrow I go to the Workforce Center (which moved to another location) and see if I can get some certifications for Excel and Word, since I have the skills but no way to prove them to a prospective employer.
I am going to be OK. Thanks for the ear, I really needed to vent.
Next Diary: Trying to have a social life when you are kind of a loner anyway and have worked nights for 5 years.