Long time no write, mercifully for you. As some of you may know, I have occasionally written pieces about what's eventful in my life - generally exotic places or laughable things or whatever. In that vein, today's topic is:
There is no obvious place to begin. There is no structure to unemployment, no chronology, no waviform motion. Nevertheless, deep within it does harbor a rural character. Like farming, it is a dawn-to-dusk occupation (or preoccupation), based on mind-numbing, arduous investments with uncertain, and perhaps even potentially more arduous rewards. Your future, livelihood, and self-esteem are dependent on the Forces of Nature: the employers, Alan Greenspan, and the cruel, monomaniac resume scanners (both computerized and non) who exist purely for the purpose of making sure you don't get a chance to do anything that you haven't already done for 3 years. And in a urban, modern world with modern, urban friends, it means you have nothing to talk about at parties. "Still looking, huh? Well, hang in there," they say, before slinking off to people more worthy of their networking time - people with contacts, connections, cash flow.
This is not to say that, with the right attitude, unemployment can't be decent. You have time to read, cook, surf (and in an ideal world, other four letter words). The only problem is that, after you have read a battered battery of library books, cooked all zoological phyla, and surfed into red-eyed, pin-irised dementia, you can have enough. That's because you aren't really on vacation - because vacation not only connotes a decamping from the worries of work, it implies the eventual relieved and comforting return to them. You have the security knowing that, however prodigal you may be on your time off, there was be money before and will be money after, and the coolly slick ebony credits will eventually overwhelm those humanly warm, blood-crimson debits. With unemployment, however, it's different: you realize that the money can just go and go and go, while your skills and morale follow in a soft decrescendo.
Even though mine has been a voluntary unemployment, I seem to driving a well-paved road - my parachute fall is just a little slower. Every month was a new phase:
* January - true and thoughtless vacation. Feelings: light, airy - to hell with all of y'all! Self esteem: Titanic!
* February - preoccupied vacation. State of mind: planning, inquisitive - what's next? Self esteem: Bill Gates
* March - laying the infrastructure in California. Spirit: wide-eyed, optimistic - just looking, thanks... Self esteem: Steve Jobs
* April - looking earnestly. Morale: upbeat, goal-oriented - let's give it a shot. Self esteem: Average jobless MBA
* May - loitering randomly. Premonition: uncertainty, frustration - what the hell am I good for? Self esteem: flatworm-like
Just can't wait for June. Now, don't get me wrong, I was ready for this: had squirreled away my cash stockpile, keeping those expenses down, Rome wasn't built in a day. But these days, it doesn't help. You reflect: Rome was indeed sacked pretty quickly.
Not to say the opportunity isn't there. There are hundreds of job listings around (all on the Internet these days), but they all seem to divide up into 4 categories: (1) horrible, ink-stained, root-canal jobs which you must not take under any circumstances - typically these are related to finance or accounting, and are filled (you are sure) by people only marginally more pitiful than yourself; (2) jobs you absolutely can do but for which you are completely uninterested (for me, anything related to government or the environment - burn down the rainforests, that's my motto these days); (3) jobs you would probably perform "OK" but which must be resisted due to poor quality of life or harsh, repeated uncoolness (former is consulting, latter is conventional banking); and the worst tease, (4) jobs you desire and for which you are helplessly unqualified.
And what are these ideal jobs? Simple: they would make you feel you are cool and impressive and which would enable you to stand around at MBA parties with pride. They would provide a constant stream of thrills, new experiences, big money, and of course, dramatically better job prospects when you jump off in a year. Now, as for which jobs these actually are, I am not really sure. In fact, I haven't met many of my MBA friends doing these jobs either. Well, whatever ... the main problem is that these potential employers always want three years of doing exactly the same job somewhere else. Three years? Where can I get that from? I am not even sure whether I have even been employed for as long as three years. (Anyone remember?) I scratch my head in interviews, turning over mental garbage cans and opening all the psychic dressers, even pulling the cover off my cognitive toilet tank in hopes that somewhere, deep down, I have had a single experience which appears remotely relevant to these diabolical interviewers, or worse, to those anonymous cover letter scanners.
Well, enough. In 2 months of searching, my count is at least 80 resumes sent; perhaps 15 cover letters actually composed (many companies don't care so much in the Internet age, I like to think - that way I send resumes off to Categories 3 and long-shots in Category 4 without impairing my fragile ego); 2 interviews for jobs actually desired; and 0 jobs. Urk.
But it isn't really so bad: I have a little consulting project lined up, which should provide some middling income for a time. Already I am reading some preliminary materials for the project, analyzing, remembering what I'm good at. OK, it's only for a bank (in Australia! We are going to get data from places with names like Kookaburra Barrens and North Marsupial Wastelands), but I feel the blood coming back, a sense of feeling in my brain. In fact, next week - I can sense it - I will write more cover letters! (Please cue "I Will Survive" here.)
Anyway, I'm still here, even if I'm not boring you on a regular basis. Feel free to write or call. (And no, it's not so bad as all that. I am doing other stuff -- I think. Of which, more later...)
Take care,
Daniel