Chip on my shoulder

Recently, my friend 'Brina wrote a post about the tragic shooting of the Sikh worshipers in Wisconsin. She wrote on Facebook, as she was sharing it, that she had been hoping for a post that reflected the right response to the tragedy, one that encompassed her Christian beliefs. Finally, it occurred to her that she should write one. As a non-Christian, I was ecstatic to re-post it because it reflected the values of Christianity that I have always admired: Love God, and love one another and don't get all up into anything else until you're very sure you're doing both of those things perfectly.

Simultaneous to all of the shootings, Mars Landing, Olympics and everything else we've been responding to and absorbing, it's election season. Oy. I love how elections can shape our future and help us voice our needs and hopes. But at the same time, I hate how elections bring out the very worst in how people discuss difficult topics. We tend to find ourselves embroiled in conversations that turn into screaming matches and all-out verbal wars, acting as though we all need to line up on one of two sides to duke it out.

As I've discussed, I think we all lose out when an incredibly complex issue that has 42 sides gets reduced to a 2-sides only. I also note that when things are heated and everyone thinks their right to be heard is on the line (read: election season) people get meaner. We start saying snarky judgmental things in casual conversation like, "Well, I guess if you believe that __________ then it would make sense to think ______. But, I think . . . " Or, "No offense, but I think . . . " (Here's a quick tip: starting a sentence with "No offense" does not negate the thing you are about to say that would cause offense.)

This happens over dinner, in casual work conversations, and on Facebook.

This year, because the economy has been bad for several years, one of the big hot-button issues is unemployment and welfare. I've been treated to a couple of posts that have really troubled me on Facebook in the last week.

This one seems to suggest that people who are working and paying taxes should get more say than people who are not. Right on the heels of that post, I caught this one which seems to suggest that people collecting welfare/unemployment are more likely to support Obama in order to keep not working. Nice.

In the wake of these posts, much like my friend, I went looking for an article, blog, or something that would address what unemployment is meant to do, why it benefits our economy and society, and ways to express concern about those who may take advantage of or stretch the limits of the spirit and letter of these programs without lumping anyone and everyone who may be or may have "collected" into that group.

Nada. So, like my friend, I suppose I will have to write it.

I'll start here - I did what I was supposed to do. Moreover, I did it well. I went to college, and as a successful student, I then went on, after a brief hiatus, to graduate school. I have a B.A., M.A. and M.S. I worked hard both academically, and otherwise, to get those degrees. I read a lot, I wrote a lot, I presented and defended up the whazoo. Eventually, I also taught, researched, and jumped through those hoops. Because I was responsible for 9/10ths of the amount of post-high-school education I received, I also worked my arse off to pay for all of this. I ran a cafe, worked overnights at an Elder Hostel program, cleaned houses, house-sat, baby-sat, dog-sat and plant-sat. I worked an intensive work-study job during the "school year" and typically worked 2-3 jobs at a time in the summer. I ran offices, housed students, tutored, walked dogs, instructed karate, participated in medical experiments, and generally did anything I could do to make money, short of taking off my clothes.

Initials firmly ensconced after my name, I got a job and built a career and even got some promotions and offers of more.

I have skills. I can teach, develop curriculums, write, create presentations and trainings, public speak and present with the best of 'em, know a lot about education and small businesses, I can write a business plan, a project time-line and a press-release all in the same day and know how to project manage as well. I am a killer organizer. And I make award winning soups and can project manage a trip or dinner party like nobody's business.

So, let's be clear: I feel confused by my being unemployed for the better part of a year. And let's also be clear - it was never my PLAN to be sans career-type-job for this amount of time.

One more thing to be clear on: I really, truly, deeply, expected to be gainfully employed long before I ever had to go beyond filing the initial information such that I actually (gasp!) admitted I needed state-provided support and claimed my benefits.

The day I had to call and claim my first payment was well and truly bad. I paced around the house restless and unhappy. I flopped on the couch and stared at the ceiling. I looked at my phone with loathing. I sighed a lot. For hours.

I had come close to being employed twice in those first two months after being laid off and really thought I would escape needing to ever make that phone call. It made me angry and sad and miserably sick to my stomach to get out my paperwork and make that call. I almost didn't do it. I looked at my bank balance three times that day to convince myself it was really necessary.

But I did it because 10 years of school has a continuing price tag on it, and because my job ending doesn't mean my basic expenses ended and because, I reasoned, collecting this money meant being able to continue to look for a job in my field of expertise and not having to sponge off of someone in my family, which would necessitate a move, cost more money I didn't have, make me re-start my job search, and leave my landlord suddenly without a renter.

The thing to understand is that, as I have written, and as James Taylor sings, we are bound together. My unemployment doesn't exist in a vacuum such that it effects only me. It effects my family, my landlord, the trainer who lost me as a client, the stores I no longer shop at, the charities I no longer contribute to, and the doctor's offices I no longer visit, just off the top of my head. The things I can't afford to do are things that no longer go into my local economy. I don't necessarily believe that butterflies flapping their wings in Tokyo cause the weather to shift in Colorado, but I can tell you that collectively, when lots of butterflies stop flapping their wings, this change shows in an economy, and while Colorado isn't the most struggling economy, it isn't the best either.

I won't pretend that I chose paying my bills and being able to grocery shop as an altruistic gesture towards the state of Colorado. (I made that call because . . . my wounded pride isn't a good reason to shirk my responsibilities. ) But, I will say this: who does it help if I am UNABLE to do those things  suddenly? I have literally spent four days thinking of little else and really can't come up with a scenario where someone is positively effected by my suddenly not paying my bills.

Without an answer to that, I had to ask myself this: how would someone else like me deal with this situation? I have friends and loved ones who when they found themselves unemployed, were able to live off of severance and savings for some time, or had spouse who supported them. I did the former as long as I could, and I don't have the later. Restaurants, banks, clerical office positions, and retail won't hire me (I've tried) because I am "over-qualified." It's frustrating, but I also understand it - if I took those jobs it would be to fund my life long enough to continue job hunting in my field, and that means they would hire and lose someone rather than hiring and retaining a new employee.

I am lucky that I'm not trying to support children or dependents right now, so I don't mean to act as though I'm in the WORST POSSIBLE SITUATION. I'm not. The sky isn't falling. But, I also have to say that although I hateHateHATE calling the state of Colorado every two weeks to collect that "paycheck", I don't know what I would have done without that inflow into my bank account the last few months.

Now, it's true that I'm not chained to a desk 40 hours a week searching for a job. It's also true that job hunting is a different activity than it was even a few years ago - pounding the pavement often not only doesn't work, but has negative affects. I can go hand out resumes like candy, but that isn't necessarily going to get better results than working my network and having people who know people to walk resumes into employers and hiring managers for positions I'm interested in. And that approach takes time. I do this with gusto, in addition to applying for open positions online. And, yeah, sometimes I take a hike or go grocery shopping in the middle of the day and finish up my applications at night. But here's something: a lot of people in my community who DO work do these things too, and flex their work time around real-life. If I treat unemployment and job hunting as my occupation I am still in good stead with these behaviors. In point of fact, although the person who posted the pictures on Facebook that got me all riled up does not live in this community, I happen to know that he too flexes work time around his personal and family needs. So, if you see me out grocery shopping later, and it's still daylight hours, its probably worth considering that just like the worker who goes to his son's play or doctor's appointment during work hours, this doesn't mean I don't care about getting a job. It means that lots of life happens during daylight hours.

Some research on unemployment and job-finding rates also determined that I am in good company in terms of my several months of job hunting. This spring, research showed that for the first time, the number of college-educated unemployed persons topped that of non-college-educated and unemployed.  This means that the stereotype that many of us have (I know I was previously guilty of it . . . ) of the high-school or college drop-out who spent time bumming around and smoking weed with their friends and then got a job pouring concrete or whatever and then got laid off just isn't the picture of unemployment today. I have three degrees. I also have a friend who has a degree, experience in non-profit management and development as well as mediation and conflict resolution and has been unemployed for over a year. I have another friend who, with a Ph.D from an Ivy League University, collected unemployment for several months last year. People receiving this pittance aren't doing it because they're dumb and unmotivated, is what I'm saying.

Collecting unemployment requires not only that the person collecting certify that they are looking for work, available for work, and keeping a record of their search, but also that they lost their job through no fault of their own. The employer then has to communicate the same. What this means is that the apathetic jerk you may be imagining didn't go all Office Space on a printer, they didn't steal a stapler, embezzle money, or show up high to work. These are people, like me, who did their jobs, and did them well, but for financial or other reasons, their position was eliminated. It wasn't about the quality of their work, but about the longer-range planning and budgeting the organization they worked for had to do. In short, if you know someone who is collecting it might be worth it to revise your thought of them as being lazy now, or having been lazy when thy were working. These are, by and large, people who did good work, faithfully, and simply had the misfortune of working in positions that were downsized or for organizations that were struggling more than others.

How many of us are there? Well, that's an interesting question with a not-exact answer. The national unemployment rate fell to 8.1 in April of this year. This is good, no? Of course, having fewer people unemployed is good . . . on paper. But, the problem is there are government and statistical definitions that define "unemployed" as different from "jobless." This article talks about how 342,000 Americans actually just left the labor force and gave up this year. Although our unemployment rate fell, actually 169,000 MORE people were without-job in the first quarter of this year. That's great news, by the by, for someone like me who faced this economic and job-crunch crisis THIS YEAR. Ahhhhhhh. Worse: many companies practice unemployment discrimination and rule out resumes and cover letters from those who aren't working in a variety of ways. So, if by no fault of your own, you find yourself not working, you could really struggle to even get someone to look at you as an applicant. Which is ironic really, because I never could have launched this thorough of a job search before, when I was working 60+ hours a week on the road.

So, if there are no jobs out there or companies willing to consider you and you have looked faithfully for months and years, doesn't it feel reasonable to look at your other options? As this article says, "Many workers are leaving the labor force because of retirement or to collect Social Security disability checks. But an untold number have simply given up looking for work after long months or years of unemployment." Eeeeee. Skerry. The article goes on to quote an economist as saying, "If someone spends two years sending out resumes with almost no response, don't I give up or go back to school?" Umm, YES. It's been a scant seven months for me and since early retirement and disability aren't options for me, my other choices are school or start a family (which isn't a real choice, since I can't just run out and get knocked up given my medical issues and couldn't support a little one right now even if I could).

At some point, of course, unemployment benefits run out. I stumbled across an article that made me want to scream regarding this. This article lightly nudges the reader to consider that because people got jobs RIGHT after their exhaustion date (the time at which their unemployment insurance benefit runs out) there was at least some evidence to support the idea that as long as people are collecting they may be less motivated to job hunt and job-land. Ummm, hi. How many of those people took jobs that paid MUCH less than what they had been making when working, doing something that they never trained for and that does not position them to get jobs that will better match their expertise and former pay rates just because they needed to buy groceries? (I wonder also, how many people who are forced into that strategy also end up doing things that put more strain on communities and the economy like: moving back in with parents, claiming bankruptcy, etc.) I see no data on that. Cello!!

This is where the chip on my shoulder starts to show through - you may look down on me for not applying to work at grocery stores and gas stations and Targets that are hiring right now. I accept that this means, on some level, I am choosing the hunt and potential options over having any paycheck at all. But frankly, it would be better for everyone if I got a job that matched my work and education experience with a higher paycheck so I'm taking the gamble that I can find that. I'm not above cleaning houses or hotel rooms, or stocking shelves at Target (ahem! Look at the things I did to pay for school), and guess what? I will do my best to talk my over-qualified ass into those jobs if I still haven't found anything when my exhaustion date approaches. That doesn't mean it's the right choice today or that it makes me less worthy of unemployment benefits. Because for now, if I do that, I limit my ability to find the better job that allows me to build the kind of career that makes me a better contributing member of my community and economy. And, haven't I earned the opportunity to continue that search by being a working tax payer for 17 years and putting myself through school?

I guess what I want to ask people who are judging those who collect is this - imagine you worked for a company or organization for years. You got hired, got trained, and did your job well and even were asked to move up and take more responsibility. Then, suddenly, not because you did anything wrong, not because you failed to do your job or did it badly, your job was GONE. (If you want to add emphasis to this scenario, imagine it happens five days before Christmas) You only have so much severance and savings. And no spouse. And you took this job with the organization that is now eliminating your position in a far-away state where you don't have a huge professional or personal network. You have enough education to look over-qualified for the jobs you apply for outside of your field. Do you . . . not accept unemployment insurance on principle even though you are suddenly broke and without a good way to earn money? Do you write little slips of paper and send them in with your bills saying, "Sorry. I'm unemployed and don't agree with unemployment benefits?" Do you move into your mother's basement? How do you pay your bills then?

What I want to say is that I know, we all know, that there are people who manipulate these systems beyond all recognition of what they were intended to accomplish. But making anyone ashamed for losing their job through no fault of their own, or not being able to work, isn't a solution for them, you, me, our economy, or our frustrations.

This is me - my job evaporated. There were lots of factors that went into the company's decision to eliminate my position, but none of them had to do with any fault in how I performed tasks, completed projects, or discharged my professional responsibilities. Before that, I put myself through college and then grad school. That I did so without becoming skilled in the waitressing arts or learning how to shingle roofs means I can clean houses like nobody's business, and in an apocalypse (you know, where all the recently employed barristas disappear from their espresso-makers leaving someone like me who knows how to use one but hasn't done so since 1999 as the best choice) I could run a cafe and remember how to make a latte. But I have no recent, hire-able, hard skills like short-order cooking, pipe-snaking, or house-painting. I have a plethora of soft-skills like business planning and training and consulting. Where does this leave me? I can't run down the street and work at a restaurant or hire myself out to wield a band-saw. In fact, the first words out of my mouth after I got laid off were, "I just lost my job," but the second words were, "I don't have any hard skills. What does someone like me do in this situation?"

So, while people can say things about people who CAN work but don't overlook that I CAN work but with all of my degrees, and a workforce of college students or people with relevant and recent waitress/cleaning/office administrator/roof building/etc. experience competing, I CAN'T get hired to do any of those things.

Should I feel bad that I went to college and grad school and that my training and expertise aren't in food service or plumbing? If that is what those posts are saying, then I'd like to ask - why are we so hell bent in everyone graduating from high school and going off to college then? 

It is a hard fact that my degrees don't prepare or recommend me for taking whatever cleaning/retail/food service/driving/etc. job that pops up next, but it's not harder on anyone else than it is on me. So, making me feel like that is the equivalent of not being willing to work doesn't benefit the people who are angry about it, the economy, or me.

If someone offered me a job tomorrow that paid the same or more than my unemployment and used the skills I DO have, I would take it. Post-haste. I have spoken to many women in my mom's generation and before who said, "All I ever wanted was to be a wife and mother." Well, all I ever wanted was to be an astronaut. But then, the next thing I wanted was only this: to be smart and self-sufficient enough to make an independent life for myself. That's why I worked my tail off to put myself through school. I don't see collecting as more desirable than working. But, I also don't see how taking a job I'm not capable of performing well, or one that doesn't pay my bills helps anyone. If I can't pay my bills and go bankrupt or end up evicted, don't I then put MORE strain on the economy by needing even MORE severe interventional services? If I take a job that I can't succeed at, don't I then get fired for incompetence? That would make it very hard to find a job I CAN succeed at, thus dumping me right back into the collect-or-lose-everything cycle.

I fail to see how this benefits my community, the taxpayers, or my eventual ability to once again join the workforce, and contribute to industry and economy in this country.

Facebook posts that point at people like me who aren't working and place shame and blame for other's taxes and income on us . . . well, I'd like to first note I DO pay taxes on this income. And further, more importantly, this is a "there but for the grace of God go I," experience. I watched family and loved ones go through this thinking, "whew! Glad it's not me." And now it IS me. So, this means, if you do the math and realize I didn't DO anything to "deserve" this it could be you too. An old adage about walking in other people's shoes before judging them comes to mind for me because I'm in those shoes now for much longer than has been comfortable.

If all of this means I have a chip on my shoulder when discussing unemployment or other benefits for non-workers, then so be it. I hope you all won't be offended (sarcasm) if I keep it there while I sit on my ass eating bon-bons and taking bubble-baths. It goes pretty well with the cozy lifestyle I've developed around an income that is less than HALF of what I made last year, job hunting like it IS my job, lying awake with a panic attack about what would happen to me if, during this time that I have no health benefits, I fell down the stairs, and you know, generally leading a pretty worry-free existence.