The Unemployment Follies (#3)

It's been a little while since the last update, largely because nothing funny has happened.  Well, when I say nothing funny has happened, I mean the normal funny stuff has continued.

When you're under-employed, it is said that your job becomes working toward being employed. It's a full time job.  Sometimes after chasing the Golden Paycheck down all day, I don't notice it's dinner time and I begin to wonder whether I've time warped or all that time flew by (when you're having fun).

The bizarre calls and emails continue to pour in. Job possibilities in all sorts of places, very few of which are in my state or commutable.  I try my best to be nice to the recruiters, even though being nice isn't one of my strong points. I reply politely that California is thousands of miles away, which puts it just outside of my range for driving (or flying).  One company has called me three times about the same job, only they can't seem to figure out if it's in north Delaware or south Delaware (not that it matters, as I'm not driving to either of the Delawares).  And everybody knows that you lose one IQ point for every mile below Wilmington, Delaware (ducking).

When I specify that I'm in security, why do you send me emails seeking an email administrator? Or a network administrator?  Or a database administrator.  Or a drive halfway across the state?

Searching for jobs is amusing in itself because when one searches for Security jobs, one gets mostly results for security guards.  It must be an interesting and exciting field, as there are so many ads, each one listing an hourly rate below nine dollars.  Hmm... I wonder if you get a gun...  One of my searches was at a research hospital and came up with Chief Monkey Handler.  Surprisingly enough, I did not jump at the opportunity (I live with enough animals as it is).


DAYTIME

So I'm home during the day, which delights the wife (and the dog). The only problem here, besides not having a job, is daytime television.  We don't have cable tv, so we're kinda limited to broadcast tv.  Have you seen broadcast tv lately?  Will the last broadcaster turn the lights out before you leave? This is what a friend of mine used to call dog-meat television.  Yes, I love my wife, but some of the stuff she watches makes me wish I were working, so I never knew about it.

There is a show called Wendy that comes on after the morning news (which is more concerned with Facebook than actual news).  I'll try to be polite here (but will ultimately fail): the woman is about seven feet tall (plus wig and heels) and may in fact be a man.  They say the transvestites always have better makeup and clothes because this is their area of expertise and they have to work harder.  So she's tall and has a giant set of mammalian protuberances.  She hoots and hollers, at which point the audience hoots and hollers.  I knew this because my wife likes to listen to the tv at earth-shattering volumes, making it difficult to concentrate on more important things (like poking my eardrums out with a pencil).

This is considered a talk show, for lack of better term.  When guests sit on the couch, the staff fires up the Shoe-Cam and they show the guest's shoes.  This is the kind of show it is.  And now you're ready to poke your own eyes out with a pencil.

If you can imagine it, the only thing more obscene than the alleged programming is the commercials. During the day, there are two types of commercials: SUE SUE SUE, the lawyer commercials and GET MONEY NOW commercials.  It makes your head explode.  It also makes me wonder who the audience is because this stuff is targeted to them.


SHOPPING?

I got another call from a recruiter who didn't seem anywhere near as slimy as the rest of them. The job sounded interesting, the commute reasonable and if they liked my resume, the interview was going to be the next day.

The next day?

This presented a small problem:  I was with my previous employer for about fifteen years, meaning that the last time I wore a suit was about fifteen years ago.  Oddly enough, I still have the suit but I suspect, fashion maven that I am, that it may look a bit out of date. So I was brutally honest with the recruiter, who said just wear something business appropriate.  I lied and told him I had clothes that fit the description.

Let me be honest with you too: when I say I'm a t-shirt and jeans kinda guy, I'm not kidding.  I have more t-shirts than most people have hair.  And some sneakers - that's it.  I don't dress up for anything or anyone, past a nice Hawaiian shirt.  They're lucky to have me at events in the first place so nobody complains about my clothes.

So it became time to go shopping.  I instantly knew I was going to regret this but it had to be done.  As it couldn't be done without the wife, I had to jump up and down upon the bed (it was daytime and she seems to sleep about twelve hours off my schedule, if at all).  We were on the road by 6:30 (I started waking her at 3:30) and off to the local mall.  The local mall has been undergoing changes for some time.  A lot of the really interesting stores have closed, making way for cell phone shops and more women's shoe stores.

We went into JC Penneys, which was wonderfully devoid of patrons.  My wife instantly went into BUY MODE, looking at the clothes and handbags and shoes and trinkets and clothes as if she hadn't been shopping in years.  I had to keep reminding her that one of us was still unemployed so it wasn't a particularly good idea to buy that eighty dollar dress (or that five dollar trinket - she doesn't care). Eventually it hit me, bright observant guy that I am, that this store was not divided by men's and women's - it was divided by designer.  Again, I don't get out much but it seemed ridiculous because you have to walk around the entire store if you're comparison shopping for any clothing at all.  Perhaps this is the idea but it seems like a lot of wasted time and effort to me.  My wife looked at me like I had three heads, which isn't all that abnormal.  Hey - I've never seen this before.  And it's stupid.

Once I got the wife back on task, we went to find a shirt.  This task was almost impossible by itself because we'd have to find the men's section amid all the designer women's sections. When we finally located it, I had my choice of many brands in many colors.  I figured white was a good choice, business-wise.  We found it instantly but, of course, not in my size.  In fact, none of the shirts came in my size.  I had my choice between choking and too much shoulder (I chose the latter). Oh yeah, black socks (because, naturally, I only have white ones).

And now it was time for a tie.  I thought my head was going to explode.  There were more colors and designs than I've ever seen, none of which I liked.  Putting on a tie ranks just above mowing the lawn or going to the dentist on the list of things I love to do.  Finally something caught my eye: a Jerry Garcia tie.  A hideously expensive Jerry Garcia tie.  Now he was a guitar player, like me, but he's also dead, unlike me.  It just seemed weird.  And expensive.  Fortunately it was on sale.

At this point I could take it no longer.  I felt like I had multiple personalities: a child who kept saying, "I'M NOT GONNA WEAR THAT SHIT" and an adult who knew he had to but preferred to let the child vent.

As anyone who has been to a mall knows, all stores are required to have loud, annoying 'music' blaring throughout the store.  Look, I know I'm not going to like the alleged music but does it really have to be loud enough that we have to shout over it in order to ask a question?  I have amplifiers that can deafen a sales associate at fifty feet so I'm no stranger to volume. [Hey you kids - GET OFF MY LAWN!]  At this point my phone keeps telling me I have a voicemail.  Mind you there's no signal in the store, so how can it be telling me anything?  It was pretty insistent so I ran outside to check.  Apparently there is an even newer law stating that there must be loud music playing outside the store too (I kid you not). It was so bothersome that I had to go out into the parking lot to check voicemail.  Checking voicemail, I discovered I had none.  Ok, now the phone is just screwing with me.

As if ties weren't bad enough, it was time for Shoes.  Remember, I'm Mr. Sneaker.  Everything that isn't a sneaker is horrid, ugly or for people who love to pay a lot of money for many pairs of shoes. My wife was quite lovely in this regard, picking out two pairs of shoes in the entire section that she thought I wouldn't lose my dinner over (bless her).  So we took the shoe to the counter to ask for a pair in ten and a half, only there was nobody at the counter.  We waited a while and still there was nobody at the counter.  It's crap like this that makes me walk out.  How can they take my money if they don't man their counters? I suggested taking the display shoe and walking out the door, setting off the alarm. Then coming back in and asking for someone to help us in Shoes.  But I was trying to play nice, so I went and got someone from general checkout.  Not only was the place deviod of customers, it was devoid of employees.

New cashier comes back and informs me they don't have ten and a half but she brought out a ten and an eleven (I see where this is going). My choices were largely limited to tight shoes or loose shoes. I chose loose.  I'd prefer to have chosen another store but my wife's back hurt and she wasn't long for the mall.

Cashier rings us up, we hand over the card and POOF - the entire machine grinds to an immediate halt.  Rather than rebooting, checking a manual or waiting, the young lady started pounding on the keyboard and the display.  If it wasn't completely foobed before, it was then.  Her eyes started rolling like a slot machine.  Finally another employee happened by and as she was explaining it was stuck, it became unstuck. When he moved back, it was stuck again.  It seemed to like him but unforunately not enough to complete our transaction.  Unbag and over to the main cashier.


INTERVIEW

I have gone through a number of phone interviews/screenings recently.  It seems to be a relatively new thing to weed out the riff-raff before calling people in for a personal interview.  This guy didn't want to talk to me on the phone; he wanted me to come right in.  Alrighty then, appointment set. Possibly with multiple interviewers.

It was obviously Time to Panic.  Remember, like my suit, I haven't had an interview in fifteen years either.  I'm no slouch jobwise but I don't interview (or test) well. Consulting some online resources, I read about the DO's and DON'Ts of interviewing.  Combining it with what I got from phone interviews, I made a cheat sheet of stuff I'd have to remember, phrased appropriately.  Since one cannot use a cheat sheet at an interview without looking like a total moron, I had to try to memorize everything.  This was not a good thing, as I have the attention span of a pregnant ant and the retention of a Yak.  The words kept running around the paper, like .. well... words do on paper.

So it's the morning of the interview and I'm still cramming.  Things are starting to get interesting around the house, as there are two hurried and agitated people occupying it.  I also discovered that one cannot wear a shirt from the package - it needs to be ironed (this is just too much change for one person).  Wife tore the house apart for an iron while I brought up the ironing board.  Up went the ironing board then down went the ironing board with a mighty CRASH; the holding upper thingie wasn't holding up.  After a quick visual mechanical inspection, I made a temporary repair with locking pliers.

The wife also turned up some spray starch (which quickly failed to spray or starch).  The atmosphere got more tense as the people got more agitated.  The poor dog kept being in the way, as if on purpose. Where's the tie? Over there where you left it.  Hang the shirt up and don't put it on til before you leave.
DID I JUST PAY FIFTY DOLLARS FOR A SHIRT?  No, you don't look gay in those shoes. Do I remember how to tie a tie?  I think I do.  Good lord, I'm choking.  And I'm melllting......

Out the door I went, accosted by my elderly neighbor (the sane one), who clapped in approval of my bozo attire.  I left myself an hour to get there early, as any more wouldn't be worth the daily drive to me (picky bastard for being unemployed, no?).  Here's a pro-tip: DO NOT USE MAPQUEST for anything, unless you just like the colors.  Especially do not use Mapquest for directions.  You simply cannot turn right where there is NO ROAD.  Really.  I finally got to the address, which looked suspiciously like a private home, not a business building.  Giving up, I got out the GPS, which got me where Mapquest couldn't, with fifteen minutes to spare.

I sat in the lobby, cramming for the exam, checklist on my phone. I couldn't help but notice the amount of very attractive women passing by at regular intervals.  This company obviously hires wisely, as opposed to the last one, which was so severely lacking that attractive people would occasionally picket the place and demand that they hire at least one or two of them.

I met my contact and went to a room.  I'm shaking like a leaf and sweating like a person who is very nervous. Even with no caffeine, I noticed my foot tapping.  I read that in interviews, you DON'T tap your foot.  Then I started to swing the chair left and right a tiny amount, which you should also not do.  So I had to hold myself still, except for the shaking, and nod appropriately at the nice man interviewing me.

The strangest thing happened... he completely failed to ask me about myself. He did not ask me about my triumphs and failures.  What I do to blow off steam.  If I beat the wife or the dog.  Nothing.  He simply asked me how I'd go about doing the job.  He didn't even ask me if I were a tree, what kind I'd be.  There was no firing squad of interviewers. I didn't even spill my water on myself (because I put it on the floor, knowing what would happen if I tried).  He thanked me repeatedly for coming by, then asked about my availability to start.

So that's all until I hear from the recruiter.

The Unemployment Follies

So, as I mentioned, I got laid off about two weeks ago.  It wasn't that I didn't see it coming, it was more like I didn't see it coming that day.

Now that things have semi-stabilized, I figured I need to get back to the premise of this blog; that is, your gain from my pain.  Along those lines, I'm going to start noting Random Shit<tm> from life while I'm unemployed. When I get re-employed, I'll switch back to a different set of Random Shit<tm>.

DAY ONE

Not being completely without sense, I filed for Unemployment Compensation immediately.  The last time I filed, about thirteen years ago, it was primarily phone-based.  These days, it can all be done online.  This is a great thing for me, as you know of my great love for my fellow man (especially those fellows that work in city or state jobs).

I have to hand it to Pennsylvania - they did a great job of making the entire process quick and painless. Some would say that they haven't yet funged up the entire quick and painless process of signing up for unemployment. They told me I'd receive paperwork within ten to twelve business days.  Several days later, my paperwork arrived (not that paperwork).  Most impressive, PA.

My nephew assured my wife that total compensation came to 60-80% of normal income.  Fortunately I was approved immediately.  My nephew turned out to only be off by ten percent, in that it is much closer to fifty percent of my regular income.  My wife figured this out quickly (she's the brains and the beauty of this outfit, begging the question of what I'm doing here in the first place) and got a worried look on her face, as we weren't exactly doing too well when I was employed.

As I've mentioned,  I have interesting timing.  This time, however, life had interesting timing.  The wife's uncle was in hospice, dying from cancer.  The combination of a terminal uncle and an unemployed spousal unit kind of set the pot boiling over its own lid.  By this I mean that she went on a little internal vacation, as in checking out for a bit.

My wife's first exclamation after discovering my new and improved employment status was that it was about time I left and that it would be good to have me home for a while.  Oddly enough, yesterday was the first full day we spent together

So yeah, I'm officially on the unemployment rolls of PA.  They apparently try to discourage potential recipients of unemployment by sending them several envelopes with various colored papers, in various languages.  I think they're weeding some portion of us out.  There were so many papers that it became overwhelming.  Perhaps they were thinking survival of the fittest, as in the ones able to navigate the morass of paperwork and procedure were going to receive any compensation.

DAY TWO

This was resume day.  It was time to fine-tune the resume and start shooting it out to the right places. Or at very least, the online job boards.

A resume is where you write fine prose about your past employment, duties and accomplishments, making sure to embellish in every category possible.  Downright lying is apparently encouraged in some circles.  If you performed some task in some department, tell them you were the manager of that department... it was close.  If you did something once, make it an important full time job skill.  Invent all sorts of higher education that can't be verified.  Throw in an actual certification or two.  Vastly inflate your salary. Have your friends cover for you.  Make a lot of connections and annoy a lot of connections on LinkedIn and various other forms of evil that is social media.

Now let's talk facts: I have been out of the job-searching market for thirteen years or so. It wasn't so much updating the resume as writing one.  So no resume, no job-hunting skills and no real idea how to proceed was the order of the day.  I got right to work, made the resume look semi-impressive and sent it off to large job boards like Monster and Dice.

Recently, at my recent job, I had a recent neighbor. It was interesting to watch him take phone calls, get frustrated and slam down the phone.  Recruiters were calling him all the time about jobs. He told me it was predictable and inevitable... there were a bunch of Indian recruiters who would call, mispronounce his name and offer him jobs in different states, areas of the country or the other side of the same state (a nine hour drive one-way).  It happened several times per week.  I took to mispronouncing his name too, just to annoy him (that's the kind of guy I am).

Within two days of posting the resume, I had many emails from Indian recruiters for jobs in Chicago, Pittsburgh (a nine hour drive), San Francisco and many other job functions that weren't on my resume and that I wasn't willing to perform.  Boy, my ex-coworker wasn't kidding....

DAYS LATER

I'm not going to make stuff up; I am much more well-rested.  I get up early enough to scour job listings and respond to emails, phone calls and invent creative ways to look for jobs.  The custom-made job for me is around the corner but it hasn't exactly made itself known as yet (not for lack of trying).  All things in time.

My wife sure was happy to have me around.  So happy, in fact, that I got to go food shopping with her. This trip ranks just slightly above dentistry for me on the Things I Love to Do list.  One does not food shop with my wife; one follows silently, answering questions only when spoken to and never, NEVER wandering off or getting out of sight.  If one commits any of these transgressions, one will pay the price for throwing off her groove.  As silly (or painful) as it sounds, I have seen it a few times before. My wife normally does the shopping and does a great job of it.  The moment I come with her, she forgets where she's going and doesn't pick up items that were on her list in the first place.  Imagine having that kind of power.... I got to thinking that this is yet another reason people hate unemployment.  We like to go to work so we don't have to be home.

The wife shops at Costco (where all good things come from), which I don't get to see too often (fortunately).  They have weird hours and the parking lot is full at any time of the day or night.  Like many places in which I've shopped, they hire people to follow us around and see what we buy more than once.  When they figure it out, they immediately stop carrying them. I love these chocolate chip bars.  Because of this, they stopped carrying them. Now they have lemon bars.  Wife explained to me that lemon is the replacement for chocolate.  IN WHAT KIND OF UNIVERSE IS LEMON AN ACCEPTABLE SUBSTITUTE FOR CHOCOLATE?  I've seen people eat their own pocket lint before eating lemon bars.

Costco has extra wide aisles, so old people have to work much harder to put their cart in the exact center and block most of the pathway while they stand there, confused.  Mind you, old people succeed nonetheless.  The store also features people sampling random stuff at every other aisle.  When buying vitamins, neither of us were interested in cherry-flavored laxative samples, thank you very much.  One old sampling person asked if we'd like to try lemonade, just like Grandma used to make.  I was smarter than that - my grandmother never made lemonade.

Seven hundred dollars later, we were out of there.  Of course I kid... but I'd have no trouble getting the bill over seven hundred dollars, especially if I liked televisions large enough to take up an entire wall of my house.  I swear... that place has everything. Everything but suits.

Fcuk... SUITS!

SUITS?

Another thing I haven't done in thirteen years is wear a suit (I'm still post-traumatic about it).  The last suit got me the last job, damn near paying for itself.  Since it still fit, I figured I could wear it for interviews.  Well, even I am occasionally intelligent enough to question whether an ancient suit would look silly and ancient on me (as opposed to just plain stupid).  The general consensus was that it was New Suit Time. Have I mentioned how much I hate suits?  I'd rather mow the lawn and you know how much I hate mowing the lawn.

Costco had shirts, though.  The only problem there was that I had to know what my size was.  And again, in thirteen years, I had never thought about my shirt size or retained any of the numbers.  There were certainly a lot of numbers on the hideously colored dress shirts there but they weren't making any sense.  We figured we'd just get a shirt with a suit and be done with it.  And, heaven forbid, a tie.

Have I told you how much I hate ties?  In all this time, I haven't worn ties or dress shirts.  If there is a sad event like a funeral or wedding, I either don't show up or show up in my normal uniform (a clean t-shirt and jeans).  Because I spend so much time not showing up, when I do show up, everyone's so happy to see me that no one notices I'm wearing sneakers.  It's an interesting life.

Out of nine million things my wife has purchased over the years, she remembered one: the tiny little sewing kit that contained a tape measure.  She located the sewing kit, which was a minor miracle in itself, and proceeded to try to measure me.  This was made impossible by the fact that she had no idea how to measure.  While she called her mother for advice, I had looked it up on the internet, where all good things come from.

Since that was so much fun, I looked up how to measure someone for a suit.  Since neither of us had much higher education, it took quite a while, a straight edge, two rulers and some KY Jelly to finally ascertain my suit size.  Then it was time for the pants.  Do you know there is a seat measurement? They should have put it in plain language: ass size.  I kept asking my wife if she was Mr. Humphries taking an inside leg [Are You Being Served?].

Apparently I have the neck of a football player, the shoulders of a weight lifter and the lower torso of someone who was just over the required height for a dwarf.

The only thing worse than buying a suit is wearing a suit.  I wanted this circus done.  But the other thing worse than buying a suit is having it altered.  Some people, meaning me, don't really care if the suit fits and the pants are eight inches too long.  Apparently I'm not the only one: stores only sell suits in my size that come with pants better suited to a guy who consumes a case of beer in one sitting, several times a week.

Another ex-coworker was talking about going to some outlets and seeing really cheap suits... you know... like three hundred dollars.  At this point, my eyeballs bounced off the back of my skull and I thanked my lucky stars that I didn't have to buy a suit.  As it turned out, my lucky stars were more like meteors, plummeting to earth.  Or recent cruise ships, plummeting to the bottom of the ocean.

Three hundred dollars is rather a lot for an unemployed guy.  It's too much for an employed guy too. That's a lot of t-shirts, folks.  At this point we remembered that all good things come from the internet, so we set about searching for them.  The suits were a mix of cheap and Oh My God.  The only uniformity was that they were ugly.  Some were uglier than others.  Some looked like they'd be better suited (get it?) for waiters.  Some for gangsters.  Some for golfers. The sharkskin purple ones, well, I have no idea who they were for.  When we finally found an acceptable price on an ugly black straightjacket.. uh... suit, we discovered that it would take up to ten business days to arrive.  I told her this was a sign that I was not supposed to purchase a suit.  She refused to take that for an answer, so we'll be shopping locally soon.

So you can't wear sneakers and jeans to an interview?  I figure it shows individuality and creativity.  You mean nobody wants individuality and creativity?  Oh.

YOU TELL THEM

On the way out the door, my wife greets the neighbor across the street.  I'm not exactly busting out with social grace but I generally manage a hi, hello or at least a grunt.  Immediately after hello, the wife starts telling the neighbor about my being laid off.

I stood there, partially humiliated, wondering what to do.  Never being short for words, I waited for my wife to finish, then blurted out, "And my genitals are too small also."

I realize the benefits of telling people... maybe someone knows someone who's looking for someone. But telling the mailman and the cashier at Wawa probably isn't going to do much for me, other than affording me another opportunity to tell people about my genitals.  As it turns out, many people now know about my genitals.


I'll continue this as things continue to happen.  Try not to become unemployed.