The Unemployment Diaries

Rookies 9.03.10

Happy day-before-I-go-to work-day readers!

That’s right. I am one of you now. Well, some of you.

For those of you still unemployed, I want to invite you to keep the unemployment diary pages filled.  Just because I now

I'm ready are you?

have a job, doesn’t mean there aren’t others to make you feel better about hating/not having work.

That’s why for this last entry, I’m passing the torch. Well, not so much the torch as the hours of picking my bum and looking at job boards.

Enough about me. More about you.

This Sunday, I bring you two stories of fellow unemployees and their unemployment narratives.

Then, a little advice from an expert. Lets end this blog with a spark of hope. Unemployment isn’t that bad anyway, as I’m sure I’ll realize once I start punching in Monday through Friday. I feel another blog coming on.

Enjoy these tales from the unemployment front lines.

Thanks for reading. It’s been a slice. Time to buy some pie.

Marcus “Cous” Kaulback and I went to high school together and only really chatted drunk at parties. He’s three years older than me, and was therefore cool and unattainable. When our life paths converged once again last summer, this time at a party in a small town in the Netherlands, there were no high school politics to navigate.

We were both in a weird Dutch town, completely surprised to see each other, and had a buttload of catching up to do. We did some that night, and then some more when I joined Cous and his girlfriend Lauren for a trip in the van they were driving in Europe (they had come to the Netherlands to pick it up. Me, to visit a friend).

As we drove around the Italian countryside (here is a blog entry Cous wrote about the experience) to a quaint parking lot in Cinque Terre where we spent the night drinking wine and eating pasta, we did not talk about unemployment at all. Instead, we told traveler’s stories (Cous and Lauren had just come off two years teaching in Korea and I had just come back from a crazy French farm) and acted like vagabons, peeing in the parking lot bushes and begging restaurants for ice to keep our food and beer cold. Those were the days.

Now, back in Canada, our dialogue has changed. Cous and Lauren are currently trying to make a go of it in Vancouver, and last I heard, they’ve decided to avoid finding a job by going to school again.

Cous sent me a little diddy from across the sea I’d like to share with you all. Cous, I wish we were still listening to Roald Dahl on tape. In the meantime, someone hire this bloke! He’s good for it.

Now over to you buddy:

Ambition is a funny thing though, and in some instances, it reveals itself in spades.  In my particular case, when it comes to getting concert tickets or flats of beer, I might just be the biggest go-getter in the county.  But when it comes time to “job-hunt”, my determination heads South, and not just for the winter.  Don’t get me wrong though, I have dreams…and you won’t get anywhere unless you have dreams.  My biggest worry, however, is that I possess initiative enough only to try and realize them in sleep.

That moustache was probably styled with cheese. It's true. I've seen him do it.

I’ve been unemployed now for 11 months, nearly to the day.  For the first nine and a half, I wasn’t too bothered with my situation; only recently have I begun to feel a bit aimless.  I think I’ve followed the two classic steps of the jobless – extreme happiness at the prospect of total freedom followed by a state of dejection at the prospect of having no prospects – to a tee, albeit at a much slower pace.  What has taken me almost a year to realize, I should think most unemployed persons figure out in the space of about three weeks.  Perhaps my laziness has affected not only my chances of finding work, but also my ability to feel badly when work eludes me.  Which brings me to my next point: laziness is an affliction, one which, at its extreme, can and will kill you.

Like say if the Germans are coming, and all your able-bodied and busy-bodied loved ones are pissing off, heading for the high ground, said affliction might force you to flatback it for a while, sneak in a well-deserved nap.  (You might do this under the pretense of…no, forget it, people who have been struck down with the Lazy Disease rarely, if ever, feel the need to justify their inactions.)  Then your tombstone wouldn’t read that it was the Nazis who got you, but laziness.  And guess what…it would be right.

I’m Marcus Kaulback, and I need a job.”

Here’s a tale of my friend Simon Love’s long struggle with unemployment. Enjoy.

Unemployment wasn't always a party for Simon.

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And now, for the advice:

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HOME RUN! (2.05.10)

That’s right. HOME RUN. I did not forget the baseball analogy, which I started so that when I finally got a job, I could type HOME RUN. I’m sure it feels almost as good as doing the real thing.

Enough with the small talk. The rumours are true! As of May 10^th I am gainfully employed in the journalism world.

It’s not at a newspaper, and I don’t care (for those of you who haven’t been following, this was the original premise I started the blog under). It’s not really a job either, it’s an internship. Still don’t care.

I will go somewhere to work five days a week, and I’m getting paid to write. Mission accomplished.

Thanks to everyone for reading, sharing, and indulging my deprecation. You’ve made being unemployed truly a blast. Next week, I will put together a grand finale entry that will make your computers explode in to fireworks. This week, a simple narrative.

Like all good things in life, they are followed and preceded by bad things. Here’s the story of the roughly 24 hours leading up to finding out I got a job. Also, you have to read it to find out what my job is. I think this is called creating “tension.” Feel it?

Here we go…

MY skirt is soaking wet with beer. The guy beside me spilled a pint and because we’re packed like sardines in this basement bar, it went all over me.

“Sorry,” he says, getting up to grab some paper towels. “I guess I should’ve absorbed some myself.” He laughs. The dudes clothes are bone dry.

He doesn’t even offer me a beer, or a quarter of his club sandwich that arrives shortly after. I awkwardly ring one side of my skirt out, tie it in a knot, and turn my back on beer boy.

Tonight is not my night. I just came back from the Ottawa Writers Festival and am experiencing some serious self-doubt. I’m trying to be a writer and I only make it out to one event because my friend had a free ticket? Why haven’t I read any of these books? Why have I never heard of this quintessential Canadian writer? Lame-o. Hypocrite. You’ll never succeed in life.

I’m doing the whole self-hate thing in my head, expounded by the fact I just heard a presentation by Canadian writer and anthropologist Wade Davis, who makes public speaking seem as natural as those Olympic divers who barely make a splash. Now there’s a smart man. When you speak it’s like more like a belly flop. He can rattle off names of places you’ll ever be able to pronounce, much less remember. Did someone say these things are supposed to be inspiring?

I guess they can be, but not when you’ve been waiting a week to find out if you got a job. It’s been like waiting to hear for someone to determine my self-worth. Am I smart or stupid? A success or failure? I know “the job isn’t everything” but after four months of unemployment, it kind of is.

The only thing that could make me more depressed and anxious right now would be meeting a bunch of smart, ambitious journalism grads talking about something like how to “change the media landscape.”

The people I’m sitting with at aforementioned basement bar have gone for a smoke break. I tune into beer boy’s conversation and realize he and his two friends are discussing different CBC shows they’ve worked for.

Our proximity is such that I’m sitting in between my table and theirs and staring directly at one of the guys. At this point, it’s creepier if I don’t say anything.

“You guys work for the CBC?” I ask, casually. They laugh at this.

“No no,” says the girl with thick glasses and brown hair. “We’re journalism students.” The scariest kind!!!

Turns out these three Carelton University students are sitting together to discussing the creation of a website that somehow maintains press privileges they had as students once they’ve graduated. In other words, like all journalism students, these kids are trying to take over the world.

There’s nothing scarier when you’re feeling self-conscious about your unemployment than running into a group of driven journalism students with their summer internships lined up.

Naturally, we start talking shop. Beer boy and the girl had done internships at the CBC and the other guy had worked at a small-town newspaper.

When unemployment gets you down, fight back!!!

The girl just got a summer internship at the Ottawa Citizen (an internship I applied for and thought I was still waiting to hear back about) and beer boy was off to some developing country to practice do-gooder journalism.

I tried talking about my passion for narrative non-fiction, but these hard-nosed journalists weren’t having it. Beer boy told me he didn’t think good storytelling really had a place in newspapers. He also thought I’d never make a living writing this way, and would have to find a job that supported my passion on the side.

I furiously scanned the bar for a self-esteem IV, and realized another beer would do the trick.

The next morning, I wake up with the inability to get out of bed. I force myself up and to an exercise class, which leaves me exhausted. I think about how I’ll never be as sharp-minded as Wade Davis. I think about how I’m not like the ambitious J-school students with their hard news sensibilities.

I go over last week’s interview in my head, and pick out every faulty answer that may have resulted in me not getting this job. I call my friend to tell him I’m stupid and never succeed. He entertains me for a bit, and tells me some people are naturally talented as others have to work hard at it. This makes me feel worse.

I put on a dress for an interview I have at the restaurant down the street and practice saying “Want some cheese with that?”

I see I missed a call and check my messages. “Hi Angelina, It’s Steve Maich from Canadian Business. Can you give me a call back when you have a chance?”

Here it is. The conversation that determines my self-worth. I had been so confident I would get this job. I’ve worked at a business magazine before. My clippings are good, my references solid. I even mimed hitting a home-run after walking out the building.

A week later, I wasn’t so sure. I took a couple breaths and braced myself for a conversation with Steve-O.

“Hi Angelina,” he said cheerily. And, well, you know the rest.

I started jumping. Up and down. Up and down. Mouthing screaming sounds and waving my arms. Next week, I’m starting a year-long writing internship at Canadian Business.

I called my friend back to tell him I got the job. “I knew it,” he said. “See? No need to cry like a baby.”

Maybe that’s the moral of the story for all of us struggling with unemployment. Patience. Don’t panic. As my dad always reminds me: “I had a kid at your age.” Things could be worse. I think he also ate cat-food.

I called the restaurant to tell them I couldn’t make the interview.

“I’m moving to Toronto in a week,” I said excitedly to the guy who responded with an unenthusiastic grunt and click of the receiver.

Next Sunday, the Unemployment Diaries will reach you from my friend’s Toronto apartment where I’ll be spending the night before going to work in the morning. For real, this time.