What Has Gone Before: On January 7th, 2009, I was laid off from what I thought was a recession-proof job. Now I spend altogether too much time whining on the intert00bs about it.
This week: The economic crisis and the personal crisis -- how no one predicted any of it. Uh-huh. That's right. Nobody had a clue.
It's not like it was so obvious that even early '80s sitcoms would have been able to see it coming.
"Reaganomics is working. It's supply side, not trickle down. We wouldn't dream of stripping social programs and giving all the money to big business." -- Herb Tarlek
Paratroops over the fold!
In 1981, on an episode of WKRP, Jennifer gave Herb a makeover. He made the preceeding quote as a mockery of how Republican he looked.
Nearly 30 years ago, it was obvious. And yet people I know, smart people, are still walking around scratching their heads and saying, "There's no way you saw it coming."
I would say, no one anticipated how far and how fast, but the signs were there. Anyone living paycheck to paycheck was able to see it coming, to see that the imbalance of wealth and the disconnect of wages to productivity was going to bring ruin. That replacing the annuity of pensions with the gamble of stocks in the 401k was a fool's game, profiting only the brokers and traders who drew commissions and the speculators who suddenly had a larger pool of other people's money to gamble with.
Privatizing social security was not needed; it was another attempt to boost the market artificially with Joe and Jane's money. It makes you wonder why, when it was obviously a bad enough idea to be shot down, the first great robbery of the 401k was allowed to happen.
In the 8 weeks since I had my job yanked out from under me, I have relaxed a bit, ranted online a bit, reconnected with my family and an old friend (who, it turns out, is a shirttail relative), sent out multiple resumes (without much hope, as I have hard-to-define skills in an industry that for the last 5 years or so has been increasingly offshored, and it's difficult to transfer those skills to other fields), had one phone interview (that turned out badly), done research and planning on a business or two, plotted out a novel (I won't talk about it until it's done, you're welcome), been to one hip-hop show (I was one of about 5 people in the whole room in the 40+ age bracket), and am currently eagerly anticipating the film of Watchmen to the point my wife is sick of hearing about it.
I feel better than I did when I was working. I was stressed beyond normal limits, and like a deepsea jellyfish, didn't even recognize the pressures I was under until one of them was removed. Now my worries are not, how will I get through this shift, but how will I, two years from now, make my balloon payment and pay my readjusted mortgage. My late nights are not spent trying to decompress and get my mind back to a mode where I am fit to speak to my family, rather I am getting to bed at a reasonable time and, for the first time in years, my blood sugar is coming under control at least half the time.
Unemployment has been good to me, at least so far.
It has not been good to many many more. I recognize that I am better positioned than a lot of people in this country, and by virtue of that, far far better positioned than most of the world. I'm not eating rat fried in stinkbug oil, I'm drinking coffee made with water that did not have to be boiled before drinking. I am incredibly lucky, and in no small part because I was born an American. I can't help but be optomistic and upbeat, even though there are no jobs comparable to the one I had in the area, at this time. I have the time to wait for things to improve. An awful lot of people don't.
I am lucky.
I always conidered my job to be recession-proof. Turns out, I was mistaken. I had considered quitting for most of the last year -- I had a task to accomplish, and that was accomplished in November. Rather than having to make the choice to leave, it was made for me. It's always easier to deal with the consequences of someone else's choice than your own. I am not angry with my ex-employer for letting me go. I am angry about the way they are treating my friends and ex-coworkers who are still there, or who left because they did not like the way the business was being run.
It has become an employer's market. The people who have been in charge up to this point, the people who arguably have maltreated their employees and damaged everyone, now have license to do whatever they want, because people are afraid to lose their jobs, afraid to leave, and for every person who pulls the plug, there are ten waiting to fill that job, once it's to be filled.
An employer's market. How, when everything comes crashing down, do the people in charge become more fully in charge? What makes them so special?
There are many many small business owners who are acting ethically, morally, and rightly in this time of trouble. Many of them post here, and to you I say thank you, for not changing.
But to those who are using this crisis to make larger profits, who are still flipping houses, who are using a temp agency to fill your seats with fake managers to convince clients you have a thriving business, I say for shame. (And yes, that is a real thing. Listen to last week's edition of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me if you doubt.)
I don't know where the rest of this year will take me. I don't know if next week I will be drinking rum in the middle of the day. But today, I am hopeful that it will all work out for the best, for everyone.
Let us all be lucky.