Phase 32: The Scarlet Letter?..No...The Invisible Letter 'U'

Day 25 of being unemployed. I could say this is a unique experience, but I know that it is not. What I can say is that it is an experience I tire of. I've mentioned a variety of emotions, feelings and impressions in other posts about this experience before, so I won't restate them -- because like bad memories -- they are still too fresh and painful, and depressing.

This time around, though it is different in so many ways. I am certain that the past almost two years have been so messed up that I don't even realize HOW much it has affected me, how much it has affected my relationships to family and friends, and how much it has changed my life.

First getting tossed from what had become the best job ever, because I got comfortable and wasn't watching my back. Fine, I think I did well with that -- though it took ten months and a lot of anguish and struggle (and help from people who care about me) to get through that period. I found a job, it was awful. I quit and found a better job, and for the first time in a long time my life seemed to be on somewhat of a positive track. I was contributing to the family, I was learning a new trade, I was getting used to a new existence. I had even rekindled my love of art and seemed to be making new progress with those ventures.

Then, about a year a go, I start getting symptoms of the cancer that would eventually take my colon and rob me of more time, more anguish, more misery and throw me right back into the well of self-doubt that I had been in after I lost my job.

Diagnosis, surgery, very long recovery. Eventually my body healed enough that I was able to return to work. Thankfully my employer held my position while I healed and I was once again able to feel a bit better about contributing to my family and was again, seemingly back on the path. Work was going fine, my cancer treatments weren't too taxing - again, my employer was very accommodating of my medical needs, and things seemed to be getting better. It even seemed like things were getting a bit better at home.

God! Damnit! Why, oh, why, do I EVER try to convince myself that I finally have made it through some kind of barrier of pain and suffering and misery, that I somehow have gotten to a point where things will be o.k.? I have never asked or expected everything to be perfect. I'd settle for o.k. with minimal disasters, just the regular stuff, you know; a flat tire once in a while, a flooded basement from a broken washer, a dog that eats a box of Brillo pads and needs surgery....you know...regular things. But, no, along comes Monday, October 24th, 2011 and I get laid off from my job -- nothing to do with me or job performance or anything... "It's the economy, stupid." and zingo, back to starting over, again.

Once again, I find myself faced with this weird deja-vu-istic feelings, reliving experiences as I went through just over a year ago... I see the same people, who tell me the same things, "One door closes...", "This too will pass...", "Gosh, you have free time again...", "At least you get unemployment this time..."blah, blah, fucking blah... I DON'T CARE! I AM FUCKING SICK OF IT! I am fully aware of how self-centered and selfish it sounds, but I am simply tired of living through the worthless shit-pile that my life has become. Sorry to be so brash with my comments, but a big part of this blog is being able to say and process what is going on in my head. So, as some people have told me ...."Get out your violins...." and play the "Woe Is Scott's Life" requiem...." here it comes.

Getting back to the title of this entry, "The Scarlet Letter?..No...The Invisible Letter 'U' ", and taking the focus off of me for a moment, we all saw in the news the whole "99%" vs "1%" thing that is being touted as what we all need to be paying attention as a nation is these economic times...well I say, BULLSHIT!!! What we NEED to be paying attention to -- as far as I am concerned is the nearly "10%" - the ten percent -that is nearly 30 MILLION PEOPLE....who are out of work...do you realize how big a number that is??? No, probably not...because that number means NOTHING until YOU are ONE of those 30 MILLION. If you can grasp the gravity of this then you can partially understand what a I am trying to get to with this blog.

Back in the day of 'Scarlet Letter' the worse thing a woman could be accused of was Adultery, and she was forced to go through life with the infamousletter 'A' sewn to her dress. Forever the scourge of her community. Fast forward four centuries and, oddly enough adultery is not even a crime, and in some circles (politics? big business? the rich and famous?) it is almost expected. I maintain that the new scourge, the new stigma, the new sin is being unemployed....

I really don't see much difference from the treatment that those with the 'A' sewn to their clothing got back then, than those of us who (ususally) through no 'sin' of their own are forced, in effect, to brandish a glowing 'U' for UNEMPLOYED, UNACCEPTABLE, UNEDUCATED, hell, even UNCLEAN on their person. For me this is EXACTLY how I feel. I have to collect (this is still hard for me to say) UNEMPLOYMENT...my hard working father would be turning over in his grave...

Speaking now, for myself only, I feel invisible...Maybe this fading has been coming for a long time. Maybe even before I lost my first job. Maybe even before I got sick. But, since I have come home from being sick, maybe I have been forced to take a closer look around me and see that the fading continues. For the first few months I needed lots of help - and I got it from family and friends. I cannot stress how important my friends have been in what healing I have accomplished. Yet, as time has gone on as I got physically better, went back to work and then lost my job a few weeks ago, the invisibility increases.

Clearly there are many things I am dealing with, but one of the anchors in our lives --- at least from what I have been forcibly been faced with discovering is that EVERYTHING stems from having a JOB. Some people say that is shallow but making a living is the root of all --- it doesn't even matter WHAT I do anymore, but having SOMETHING that brings in money and makes me a contributor gives me some value.  So, I guess I struggle on. Invisibly until I can come home and announce that I have a 'job' and am  worthy, once again of SOMETHING. Until then, I will try to hide the embarrassing 'U' floating above my head and just try to deal with miserable invisibility that has has become my life.

Phase 31: Writers Block of Embarrassment

     Three-weeks, two days, six hours and a few odd minutes ago I was 'laid-off' a job I had been doing for just over a year. I was just settling in, getting comfortable with the flow of work, getting a handle on the new skills I had been taught. I had also recently switched divisions within the company - having studied hard and passed a state certification test for the position - and then, once again, with no indication there was an issue, I was given the 'sit-down', during which the whole nature of the economy was explained to me as being the reason that they had to 'let-me-go'....
     Why do they always say that like it is some kind of 'relief' or  'comfort' or 'reward'? What they SHOULD say is, "You know, you are doing a good job, but, we gotta kick you out on your ass! Here you go! Good luck! Hope you don't lose everything!"
     Or even better, "Say, you know what there are 40 people in our company, and GUESS WHAT! You WIN! You get to clean out your desk and go! We like you and every thing, but, you know out of all the people her, we thin YOU are the one that needs to go. Good luck.!"
     Or, this..."Come in, have a seat.... Can I get you a cup of coffee? Manager moves to the machine... you notice he gets a styrofoam cup from the drawer, NOT a nice ceramic one with the company logo on it. Pours you a cup --- not offering cream and sugar --- walks back BEHIND his desk, stretches in his leather chair, takes a deep breath and goes into a story about how he started the company...blah, blah, blah....and after 10 minutes of this crap you get the sense of where he is going....you will NOT be offered a raise and a promotion, he takes a pause and says, "Well, mmm, this is the  hardest part of my job. I gotta let you go." 
     So, now, like some scene out of an old west movie, another  pause he looks at you....watchng, waiting, for a reaction. Maybe he is thinking, "Will he throw the coffee at me? Does he have gun, will he draw?  Will he go all Hulk and flip over my desk? Will he get up and storm out?........Will he break down and cry like a little baby.....?"
      So, I sit there....staring into the awful cup of coffee in the styrofoam 'you're disposable' cup, pondering all but the gun thing....since I don't own one anyway, and I look him, dead in the. I take a deep breath, while trying to keep from either puking, or pissing my pants over suddenly losing my job, and I say, without a quiver in my voice, or a tear in my eye (proudly), "Thanks for the opportunity to work for you. Since this is a lay-off, how soon can I expect to be called back to work?" He looks at me like I just asked the dumbest question in the world, "Well, uh, mmm, er...I don't know, we will, uh, why don't you go see the HR guy they will help you get set up with unemployment." He stands, extends his hand, I give it a firm shake, and proceed to my desk, then to my van cleaning out all my stuff - watched the whole time and escorted by the HR guy --- people these days must really fear that ex-employees will either rip them off, or go 'postal'.
       Once outside in the parking lot, I stand next to the stack of 6 boxes, my brand new thermos full of hot coffee that was supposed to get me through the day, my neatly packed lunch box containing, a ham and swiss cheese sandwich - with dijon mustard - a bag of cheetos, butterscotch pudding, and a banana, I stand there, shocked and directionless, and all I can think of is .... 'fuck' what do I do now.
        Well, I won't go into all the details - I did that the LAST time I blogged, and these past few weeks have been pretty much the same as they were almost two years ago. No job, no savings to speak of, not idea what the hell I am going to do. A family that has no confidence any more in anything I attempt and a realization that I am faced once again - like so many other Americans - saying, "God, I'll do ANYTHING." This time around though things are a little less devastating than they were before... My resume needs only a couple of lines of updating, I have a bank of cover letters stored on the computer and I am at least eligible for unemployment compensation so I do have SOME income to count on sooner or later.
       During this venture into the land of unemployment I have tried to institute some kind of 'plan' in the hopes that this will yeild a job quicker than the 10 months it took me last time. So during the first week of this employment quest, I sat down at the computer and plotted out a daily plan....Get up, get dressed, see the kid and wife off to school, walk the dogs, eat some breakfast, sit at the computer and fill out on-line job aps, have some lunch, work in the studio, fill out some more job applications, pick the kid up, make dinner, spend time with family....wash, rinse, repeat.... Great idea. Great plan....it lasted about 3days. For reasons including a horrible chemo thereapy treatament (see my other blog, www.secondbattle.blogspot.com) the plan has not worked well. The following week I was exhausted. I think a combination of chemo, and mental drain from the anguish, embarrassment and uncertainty surrounding having no job, I could literally get almost nothing done.
        Nothing seemed worth it. I'd get up, do the morning thing of seeing everone off, talk about my plan for the day, then sit in the chair. The dog would crawl up into my lap and the next thing I know it was 11:30 a.m. the morning wasted. So, what. I'd let the dogs out, get some lunch and coffee, crawl back into the chair where either the dog would return to his sleeping spot, or the stupid cat would take over. I'd watch an episode of house or a movie, then fall back asleep, and then would wake up in time to get the kid from school, come home and tend to dinner.....wash rinse repeat. In essence I think I feel like I have given up. I continue to apply for jobs on the internet, hoping that SOMEONE will call me for an interview, but I hold out little hope for that, in this economy.
        What really gets me this time around is when I spend time analyzing myself as a potential 'employee', and the list of valuable assets given where we live and try to work is pretty damn, short. WARNING THIS NEXT SESSION IS RIDDLED WITH SELF-PITTY AND REGRET: I do not have a 'profession'. I never really have. When I entered the world of work as a college graduate I was in a field that was on the downswing even then - photojournalism. Sure, I worked in that field for a while, but eventually the business has changed so much that even all the experience I had amassed - nearly 15 years is fairly worthless - especially since the only real newspaper in town offering full time jobs is a UNION paper and without 5 years experience at a union paper, you don't even get an interview - trust me I know. Technology has also sapped my chances to return to photography as a career. Almost all new cameras make it fairly easy for anyone to capture the news and events of the day, and with the shrinking of physical newspapers, and explosion of digital media - the pay is worse than minimum wage and no one hires full time staffers any more anyhow.
       So that leads to my second career - teaching. My main stumbling block here is the fact that I have no 'state-teaching-license' for public schools. In my areas of training at the time, Phys-Ed and Computer Technology, none were required. I had been on a track to get a Masters in Education, but that got side tracked by a host of life issues at the time I was trying to finish my degree; deaths in the family, births in the family, home purchase, job changes. SO, I found myself plodding along on past experience and a thin layer of qualifications in Technology Education that allowed me to work in that field for another 10 years or so.
      As I should have guessed along the way, my shortcomings would catch up with me in this day of paper-trails and certifications. Everyone wants employees with lots of experience and lots of training and papertrails of proof that one can do what it says on ones resume. So, I find myself now with a three page resume covering almost 30 years, in 3 or 4 fields of employment, yet at 49, find it almost impossible to even get a job interview. Currently I seem to be either too old, too qualified or too young and not qualified enough for upper management/corporate positions that 'men-of-my-age' should be moving into.
      There is almost some humor that comes out of this. I seem to now be returning to a near fantasy world where I have almost convinced myself that I am a good enough artist and clever enough marketeer and that my artwork is valued enough on the market that I can some how make a LIVING as a working artist. SO I live this schizophrenic existence where one part of my mind is trying to convince the other that it is possible to make living as an artist...and that if I keep saying it over and over like some kind of mantra that it will happen. And the other part of me is laughing it's realistic ass off just knowing that I had better find a 'regular' job - and soon - or I will find myself out on my ass, divorced and standing in line with the guys down at the Cherry Street mission, waiting for free breakfast and lunch with all the other losers who cannot find work. Well, that is where my head is at today. Maybe tomorrow will be different, maybe tomorrow I will bet back on the ball and push a bit harder to get a job, so I can be a valuable money earning provider for the income of my household. At least at that point there will be less for people to be upset about around here.