So I just finished reading the post by Laura Clawson. You know the one. It's on the front page and I have no intention of quoting it here. It depresses me, but if you insist on seeing it feel free to do so. After reading it, I decided that I wanted to share my story. So follow me over the jump and prepare to be amazed. And when I say amazed, I mean not so much.
I graduated from college with my second degree in 1994. It was a cool time. Clinton was president. The economy was doing well and the future was like a road laid out before me. You know, the American dream. I accomplished something pretty special. Here I was, an African-American male whose only experience with jail or prison was visiting his mom at work and watching police officers bringing people in for booking at her precinct. Here I was, I'd beaten the odds. With two college degrees in hand and a little bit of debt to my name, thank you very much Michigan State University, I was ready to find a job, meet a wife, buy a house, have 2.5 children, get a dog and a have garage. One I could hide in and listen to music on a rainy Saturday afternoon. That was the dream. Sadly, that's not exactly what happened.
That was just a little bit of background. I'm going to fast forward here so I don't bore you with the mundane that was my 90's. On September 11, 2001, I was driving to work and listening to Howard Stern, on the radio, when Gary came in and said a plane had hit the World Trade Center. At the time, I worked at a post production house in Michigan that did a lot of post work for ad agencies. In essence, I worked on car commercials. Little did I know that that would be the beginning of my lost decade.
For the next four years, we would hear stories of friends who had been laid off. After all, it was Michigan. 9/11 hit the auto industry hard and that trickled down to the suppliers and the ad agencies and the post houses. There was an old rule that in a recession, ad agencies did really well because companies had to increase advertising to drive up sales. Not so, this time. In late June 2005, we heard that one agency had let go over 250 people and that wasn't the end of it. I thought I was safe, so I shrugged my shoulders called my friends and offered any assistance I could give. One week later, it was my turn.
I had been doing a lot of work with an entertainment company that wanted me to join their staff, so my worries were less then the others who had been laid off with me. When I went to the owner and told him I was available, there was suddenly no work. Of course, at the time, I didn't know that he was sleeping with my girlfriend, but that was just more pain that would be visited on me later. I went on unemployment for a year. I applied for job after job within my industry and I had some great interviews that amounted to nothing. And one day, my unemployment ran out. I was playing Tiger Woods golf with two friends and drowning my sorrows in a case of Labatt's when one of my friends told me to come see him at his job the next day. They needed dishwashers.
So, the next day I showed up and got the job. Two college degrees, a college debt that still needed to be paid off and I was washing dishes in a restaurant. I worked hard and within three days, I was promoted to dish manager. A week later, I was promoted to Kitchen manager and two weeks after that, I was making better money on the floor. My friend informed me that I was the first African-American to ever work the front of the restaurant. It spoke to my work ethic, I guess. All I know is that I was paying my bills. I spent a year there, but halfway through this job, I got very drunk at a New Year's Eve party and decided to move to California. My Michigan dream was dead, but my dream of moving to California needed paying attention. Funny how you think these things when you're drunk. I asked who wanted to come with me and my girlfriend (this was a new one) and my best friend decided Michigan wasn't in their best interests either. It was on.
So in 2007, we moved. I didn't find work in California until 2008 and that was a temp job. I had some money, so my life became paying bills, hitting the streets looking for jobs, coming home and hitting the online job sites and I found a little site that helped me through it all. A little site called Daily Kos. To say I was depressed would be an understatement of epic proportions. So, I got a job bagging groceries at Ralph's. The manager was impressed that I had two college degrees and made me a cashier after a week. Two weeks later, he wanted me enrolled in the management program with Ralph's. Then my life changed again. On my cigarette break, I got a phone call for an interview. My car had been repossessed and here I was needing a car for the interview. I had been reluctant to ask my family for help, but there they were. They sent me the money to get my car back and in November of 2009, I had a new job. Making more money then I had ever made before. Life was good. And then it wasn't.
I worked with this company, in my industry, for a year. I was told that I would need two to three years of training to be able to do this job and that I would be safe. No worries. Needless to say, I was working for the man who they modeled Gordon Gekko after and that is not an exaggeration. Look it up. During my time there, I met captains of industry, I met Rush Limbaugh, I met Frank Luntz and I was miserable. Here I was making over $50,000 a year, doing something I loved, working with people I could barely respect and many of whom I couldn't stand to be around. And then the shoe dropped. My boss had been needling me from the start and I couldn't figure out why. One year and two weeks after I was hired to a job I had been told would be a two to three year training program, I was let go. I would find out later that I needed to be let go so that my bosses' son could cash in on a lucrative contract with the company. Nice, huh?
So, there I was, on unemployment, again. I'd ridden this ship before in Michigan and here I was right back there in California. In a year, I applied for over 50 jobs a week. That's over 2500 jobs both in my field and outside of my field and I received seven interviews. Seven. Two with the same company, for the same job at two separate times. That's what 2010 was like for me. I was depressed and feeling... well, you can guess how I was feeling. I thought about going back to bagging groceries, but that literally paid about $300 a week with overtime. I made more money on unemployment and I could pay all my bills without falling behind. I'd be homeless in less then three months, if I went back to bagging groceries. I thought about moving home, but there weren't any jobs in Michigan so what was the point. Better, I thought, to be homeless in California then live with my mother in Michigan. To look in her eyes and imagine the failure I had become. I was running from a lot of things, but mostly, I was running from myself.
One week before my unemployment was to run out, I received a phone call. It was one of the seven interviews I mentioned earlier. They called me in for an interview. I spent three hours there and deep down inside, I didn't care. I thought it didn't matter. I was done. At the end of my rope. It didn't matter. I got home, changed out of my suit and turned on General Hospital. That's when my phone rang. The voice on the other end informed me that the job was mine. I had a job. I had a freaking job! One week before the shoe was going to drop and I had a job.
So where am I at the end of 2011? After being there for 14 months? I just received a promotion and a .50 an hour pay raise. Yeah!!! I'm working 12 hour days which leaves me no time to work out or cook. Two things I really love to do. I get to play with the cat for a couple of hours and spend some time with the girlfriend. Then it's off to bed because right now we're on overtime and I need to be there at seven in the morning and I get to leave at 7:30pm. We don't get overtime until we hit 12 hours a day. If you do the math with lunch, I work 11 hours and 50 minutes, so no time and a half. Everyday, I'm sending out resumes, looking for a better paying job. I can pay my bills and go out from time to time, I don't look forward to retiring because I have very little savings. I've fallen behind all of me friends even though, sadly, now their jobs are being threatened because they thought being teachers in Michigan was a safe career choice.
I now make $17,000 less than I did two years ago at this time. I'm always tired and my workload will only increase next year. The republicans tell me being unemployed was my fault, that being unemployed makes me lazy, so they want to slash the amount of time my brothers and sisters can claim an unemployment check they paid into. They want to give them drug tests and make them get a GED even though all of them have college degrees. I'm making $17,000 less than I was two years ago and I'm the lucky one. Wish I felt that way.
10:19 AM PT: WOW! The rec list. I am truly humbled by all of the encouraging words. This is truly a great community and it's because of you. You have gotten me through some tough times because I have never been alone since finding you all. Again thank you and Happy Holidays!