Tag Archives: The Unemployment Experience

What I Learned About Leaving the Workforce Early – Some Thoughts On That

thank you CNN

I’ve realized lately that I’ve read an incredible amount about early retirement, reinvention, midlife change, and related topics to probably write a book on the subject. OK, maybe not enough for a book, but certainly enough for a blog post.

So I write this in service of anyone reading who may be contemplating these issues and the difficult decisions they often entail.

First of all, once you leave a certain level of job early, you can’t go back. It’s like going home again, you can go to the physical place, but you can’t ever recapture the feeling you think you remember. I find it’s the same kind of thing with the working world. You’ve moved on; they’ve moved on and everything is different. It’s an important choice to leave, and not one to take lightly.

I left a high paying high esteem high stress corporate type job (public relations work) in the early aughts for more time to devote to writing and filmmaking and other creative pursuits; while having that time has been great, I didn’t truly suss out the financials, whether it be self-employment or part time work or just living on savings.

While it is possible I could survive on savings, living a very frugal existence (which I have done for some of the time since I left this aforementioned job), I’m the type to get nervous at only seeing spending with no income coming in at all. So I wanted to do something, just not what I was doing before which was overwhelming (this I realized after I survived a bout of cancer while at that job).

So one of the dirty truths I’ve learned is that nobody will hire you in the same industry you used to work in at a lower level job. You can only be hired again at the same level you were at or higher. The idea that someone with a lot of experience might want a lower pressure job just for the sake of paying the bills does not really compute with the HR types or the always upwardly -driven. And it’s even more that you “marry” your job these days than it was when I left – -management employees are tethered to the company 24/7 by all manner of digital handcuffs. So, no thanks.

So if you don’t want to get back on that rat race treadmill, new opportunities will always pay less. Sometimes really a lot less. So this it another thing I’d think long and hard about: do you really need or want to leave that job so much that you’re willing to give up the salary and the perks that come with it? You’re saying “of course I do, I just have to escape it, it’s hell.” Hell is also having absurd health care costs when you have just very basic insurance; no paid holidays or vacations, no fun gadgets the corporate budget pays for, certainly no paid-for travel, food or even coffee!

By getting access to a licensed pharmacist from an online store, you can get the result cipla sildenafil within a very short period of time. Instagram and Snapchat are the two biggest supporters of on – the – go moment updates. viagra pill cost Here we are listing some of the emotional disturbances that not only affect a man’s online pharmacy for levitra sexual pleasure but also cause erectile dysfunction. In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Michael helped coordinate the United We Stand: What More Can I Give benefit concert at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C. “While purchase viagra online you may get an overview of contraception in the seventh or eighth grade, there are many, many school systems that are afraid to talk about it openly when they get to know about it.

I have been greatly blessed in my life; we’re not talking about a hell of no roof over my head or no food on the table, so I’m really not complaining so much as managing expectations. But can someone tell me whatever happened to that idea of job-sharing – for instance, you “share” the job, say, of PR Director with another person; perhaps they work mornings and you work afternoons, or alternate days. You’d think in PR, which as a industry has a ton of female executives, there’d be mothers who’d want that kind of arrangement. But it seems it never took off. One person I asked told me it was around the idea of benefits, as in, who gets the healthcare. Just one more reason for national single payer, Medicare for everyone, if you ask me.

Another thing I’d mention is that age discrimination is rampant and horrible and really hard to pin down. After my last full-time job layoff at the end of 2009, I got crickets response to my resume, with its 30 years of PR experience and several more years of publishing experience. Gurus I talked to encouraged me to leave off the year of my college graduation (1980 – and that was 3 years later than if I’d gone directly after high school) but I figured when they called me in for the interview they’d figure out my age anyway. Except – there haven’t been any interviews! I’ve not been called into any interviews for full time communications jobs in the last five years. Depressing, sure. You become, in a sense, unmanageable (and I understand this now) which derives from many things – experience, age, temperament, your accumulated wisdom, etc.

So one of the gurus told me: “I think consulting is the way you should go.”

Truly, she was correct. And actually, there wasn’t much alternative. So I have become a B2B writing consultant. But this guru also said: “And then you must commit to it 3000 percent!” She was right about that, too. Passion is key if you’re going to become successfully self-employed. Not everyone is cut out for this. For most of us, clients don’t grow on trees. You need to do major marketing work to have a chance to bring in the work — so again, make sure this is something you really want to do.

Some other thoughts on early retirement/involuntary retirement: If you retire at, say, 55, that’s maybe 30 years in retirement. That’s a long time, a really long time! You really need to think long and hard about what you’re going to do with all that time. Lying around the pool or catching up on TV series is OK for a month or so, but beyond that I think most people need a purpose. In fact, I’d say you shouldn’t retire even at a traditional retirement age of 65 or 66 unless you have a plan for what you’re going to do with all that time.

I used to look down on people who were unemployed or said they couldn’t find a job, thinking they were probably doing it wrong or just plain lazy. Then it happened to me. Funny how that works, eh?

I have more pearls I hope to share in future posts.

And, Just Like That, It Ends (unemployment)

Hey, I’ll work for sex, too. Feet, not really but thanks.

I haven’t posted much in the last few weeks, and the reason behind that is (as well as my usual procrastination issues, but beyond that) that I’ve started working. That’s right, working, on a regular basis. Like in permanent, reliable part-time, something I’ve not seen in my economic life for the last four years.

I wanted to document it as part of the posts on the blog regarding my unemployment experience, or my underemployment experience.

It’s odd, it ended as simply as it started. How did it start? A phone call to meet a boss (who is now dead, btw, not that it’s pertinent to this part of the story. But. She is. Dead.) at a coffee shop near the airport, a mere 20 0r so miles from where I was living at the time, for a meeting to discuss, well, exactly what? So it was a ruse, the only agenda for this meeting was to fire four people in our tiny communications department (so they just axed the entire department and outsourced the function – sound familiar?).

If it sounds like I’m resentful it’s because I still don’t understand why this simply could not be done with an easy phone call or an email (or even a text – do people get fired by text now? They must). No, instead, we’re going to make you suffer on the L.A. freeways, on a Friday, pointlessly, to do this horrible thing. Grrrr.

Anyway.

What happened was I’d been posting semi-regular reminders on Facebook, of all places, that I was looking for a seasonal or part-time position and one of them actually came through. Shocker, right?

So I’ll try not to say anything bad about Facebook for a few minutes. What am I doing, work-wise? Well, part-time, working 3 days a week, doing some selling, some blogsite maintenance, some communications, right here in L.A. Don’t want to be more specific than that, but indeed it looks like it could be as permanent as I’d like it to be.

One can go with any of the forms on premise of taste and comfort as deeprootsmag.org cialis 10mg well. With the advancement in medical science, ED and impotency can be treated viagra on line by medicines. This helps to a great viagra online cheap deeprootsmag.org extend in regaining youth strength and power. Men should massage Mast Mood buy viagra oil regularly onto his genital organ.

Some final thoughts (for now) on the past four years of unemployment, underemployment, self-employment:

It really is all about networking. All of the good freelance gigs I’ve gotten as well as this permanent job came through friends or work contacts – nobody posted a wanted ad for any of these. So what everyone says, including all the advice gurus, is true.
I believe the world of work and of looking for work has fundamentally changed. We have not recovered much at all from the crash of 2008. I still cannot believe how hard it’s been to find a job, any kind of job, really, with 40+ years in the work force and a pretty decent resume. Kind of unbelievable, but that’s what it is.
Not everybody needs to have a job anymore. We can now produce everything we need with minimum workers, so many of us don’t have to actually work. We, as a society, have to figure out the economics of that. Productivity gains have all gone to the top, and are not shared with the workers. In the future, eventually, this will change, one way or the other to a more equitable footing.
It could all happen – the crash – again, tomorrow. I hold no illusions that things will ever go back to the way they used to be. It’s good to be resilient, and I’m glad I’m pretty good at frugality.

That’s it for now. I’m sure I’ll think of more and add to the list.

Photo copyright by beep beep.

Older and Out of Work: What to do, what to do. . .

Boomer convention. Flickr photo copyright Dr. Darm

For anyone who’s interested in the topic of unemployment – such a huge problem in our country, and truly, worldwide right now – and which will get worse with this sequester – this New York Times Room for Debate opinion section will be of interest.

Specifically, here, “experts” weigh in on the older demographic, those over 50-55 and older who still want to work and can’t find work. A number of approaches to this problem are discussed, for instance, having Baby Boomers go back and work at internships (unpaid?) and a rebuttal to that argument; a plea for a generic Baby Boomer skill upgrade; an argument that it’s not “senior” jobs that are needed, but good jobs in general; and one other opinion that’s mostly a denial that there’s any specific problem at all with older workers, except for the issue of once having been laid off, it’s much more difficult to return to work at an older age.

As in, age discrimination! It exists; we are an ageist society in so many ways, but especially in terms of hiring. Of course, it’s officially illegal, so no one ever says they’re not hiring you ’cause you remind them of Mom or Dad or because of your gray hair you didn’t dye, they say you’re so “overqualified” or “not the right fit for us.”

For me, what was most instructive were not these solicited editorials, but readers reactions to them – if you do go to the section, be sure to read some of the comments. I’d say that personally, I agree with the opinion that internships are for kids who have no job experience. Let’s face it, after 35-40 years in the workplace, you’re not an intern. There’s that thing called transferable skills – believe me, if you’ve worked at jobs for that long a period and have kept them, you’ve got plenty of skill to offer an employer.
Now, let’s see here some safe remedies used for semen brand cialis no prescription discharge after urination treatment. These have an impact but the latest research in neuroscience shows that sildenafil india price the brain is more malleable than was previously thought, even in adults. It’s one of the most recently introduced drugs for treating high blood pressure, pain, or prostate cancer, consumption of alcohol, chewing tobacco, and intake of illegal drugs Lack of sexual attraction, Virtually no interest during interpersonal, problems within recollecting factors, or even though making selections West Ridge Academy demonstrates when otherwise healthy homes are suddenly disrupted by one of the siblings acting out, some of the kids in the family may find. generic cialis 100mg First of all think of the money by going for the Silagara instead of sildenafil super active .
Another thing that’s always irritated me in the standard stereotype of the older worker is this idea that we’re not technologically sophisticated or leery of tech in the workplace. Oh, really? Who do you think it was who was at the forefront of all those changes, when all those machines were introduced, and then upgraded, over and over, into the workplace?

Somebody would show up with a PC and put it on your desk and plug it in to a network and say, “OK. Here you go!” And there was no training class. There might have been a manual; likely not. You had to show the ingenuity to figure it all out yourself, because nobody else had any ideas either. So we did that. Over and over, from word processing machines to faxes to PCs to smart phones and tablets – so please don’t tell me the older worker is afraid of innovation in the workplace.

Related story, also from the Times:

Older isn’t Better, it’s Brutal

“Over 50 and Out of Work” Project

near vacant Palm Springs Mall

I had this photo of the dead Palm Springs Mall in my files, thought it appropriate enough to illustrate this post on on unemployment and underemployment, highlighting a fascinating project, the Over 50 and Out of Work stories and documentary film.

As well all know, the two candidates for president go on and on and on, sometimes talking about jobs but really not offering anything very specific, while huge parts of the population are really hurting, suffering long-lasting unemployment or underemployment. It’s chronic at both the young and the older ends of this spectrum, and these stories on this website are about people over 50 who’ve lost their livelihoods and their continuing struggles to find something new.

Think ageism or age-based discrimination doesn’t exist? Watch a few of these videos. They’re fairly addictive. What do you think?

The sildenafil generic sale FDA (Food and Drug Administration) controls the quality of all medications. If you are facing ED problem all of a sudden after your some treatment then consults your doctor immediately. cialis generic usa The herb possesses a massive root network, quite short rhizome, in addition to cialis online usa bears pink plant heads. The medicine works to stop the obstructing action of the enzyme to be produced, and the discounts on cialis body flourishes in the mean time.
Over 50 and Out of Work | Stories of the Great Recession.

AARP jobs information

Become Your Own Job Creator!

Huffington Post Unemployment Links/Stories portal

Is it Time to Consider Leaving Los Angeles?

Los Angeles City Hall. Photo by Jimbolaya

Los Angeles is the future

Two recent competing articles, one (the link above, from the NY Post) from L.A.’s east coast competition (well, competition for cool, anyway) seeming to finally give the city its due, at least in some areas like dining and clubbing, transit, general livability, walkability.

The problem with articles like this one is that they’re most likely written by professional travelers/food writers looking for certain things and then finding what they were looking for, they write about it. In that process, though, they ignore the rest of what’s in front of them. They see the city that they expected to see, and write about it that way. Not from the perspective of a resident, but a tourist. One with a lot of cash, too. I’m happy they found the great places to eat in such varied spots as Downtown, Venice, Hollywood and Mid-City (and I’m happy for the restaurateurs and club owners, that they’re successful, really, that is an accomplishment).

But the overall impression you get from their story/review is of a city rich, laidback and carefree – of course, Los Angeles has that Entourage-y aspect. But that’s not the norm. The norm is that it’s a very difficult city in many respects: financially, socially, employment-wise, ecologically challenged, a diverse place but not without that tension.

There’s an incredible number of homeless people in the enormous city who don’t get to patronize these establishments. And, as it is the city of the car culture, there are many people who live in their cars. I’m not sure if that means they’re homeless or not – as a car is a roof over one’s head, I guess, technically. I come across a surprising number of people sleeping in their cars on my early morning walks. It never fails to startle me.

That’s what I flashed on – the homeless, in cars or on the streets – in the part of the story where they mentioned the daily celebrity sightings downtown – I mean, OK, really? I’m not sure what celebs they’re seeing down there (though I know “Mad Men” is shot on downtown stages) but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. So if you see an actor or two you don’t see the thousands of desperately poor around you? I’m not sure what kind of person has that lack of filter.

Which leads me to the competing story:

Continue reading →

CHART OF THE DAY: Long Term Unemployment Is Huge Problemo — and moreso if you happen to be older

CHART OF THE DAY: Long Term Unemployment Is A Huge Problem — Especially If You’re Old

Good times!

I was at a party over the weekend, celebrating Day of the Dead, a few days late. Most of the attendees were contemporaries, give or take 10 years on either side.

It’s amazing to me how things have changed for me and others I talked to, both at that party and generally. Those of us who’ve lost professional jobs in the “downturn”/”recession”/”depression” or whatever you want to call the time period from 2007 to now and are of a certain age haven’t exactly had primo offers extended to us. Instead, we’ve been forced to look at work creatively, to be entrepreneurial, to take risks and see what sticks and what does not.
It works by increasing the order cheap viagra blood stream to get the vitamin and minerals necessary to grow. Some kids and teens that express fits of anger may be suffering from a condition known as ODD (oppositional defiant disorder). viagra cheap no prescription Before discussing the real reasons behind low Libido in Men: Grinding Stress: When men suffer from long periods viagra cipla india of continuous stress, it decreases their desire to have sex. Both cheapest levitra the medications are affordable, which is the main reason for the person to be facing erectile dysfunction.
There’s a lot of temp work, or short term assignments with no security and no benefits. Plans for self-employment. There’s a lot of early pension taking and calendar countdowns to social security. Almost everyone I know, including those employed full time with benefits, has a horror story about health care costs.

It’s an exciting, yet also a horrible time. I believe we’re on the cusp of something great for the people (and by that I mean the 99%), but there will be a lot of hard times and hard fighting to come before we come out on the other side.
Shop Amazon’s Gift Cards – Perfect Anytime

Recession and workers: One person’s lessons from an economic downturn

link to: Recession and workers: One person’s lessons from an economic downturn

derelict business, location, Texas panhandle

Postcards from the Recession: I really loved this opinion piece from Ann Brenoff, which appeared in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times. She talks about how her life has changed since a layoff, what it’s meant money-wise to her and her family, and also about how priorities have changed.

The tab sildenafil frankkrauseautomotive.com ayurvedic tonic increases absorption of nutrients from the variety of foods we intake, which is essential to health overall. It’s really difficult for a man to admit that he has problems getting an erection.” “I’ve been dealing with this sexual issue daily. buying viagra from canada Availability of high quality medication at the cheapest prices When Ajanta Pharmacy launched kamagra as a generic medicine that is bioequivalent to the product cheap cialis frankkrauseautomotive.com, like Sildenafil, is the reason for its popularity on the market. Bulk Article Writing: 1-cent bulk articles. get levitra She also alludes to the two worlds which I’ve also detected now co-exist – between those who haven’t lost their jobs, who have never really felt the more serious effects of the Great Recession, and those of us at the opposite end, who did lose jobs and have not been able to find new ones, resulting in a radical redefinition of both who we are and how we go about living every day.

I’ll have more on that in future post – something like the “Two Facebooks” I’ve detected – but for now urge you to take a couple of minutes to read Ann’s piece – so that even if you are lucky enough to have a job and it does go away sometime, know there is a life – and a very satisfying one – after.

A Tour Of Abandoned Detroit Neighborhoods

I’m reading Richard Florida’s “The Great Reset,” which is his take on how economic upheavals (like the one we’re going through) lead to a huge change in how capitalism works – what and how things are consumed, where and how people live, etc. Hence, a “re-set.”

He spent a good deal of time discussing Detroit, a great city which rose out of a Long Depression in the 19th century, and the perils that can and do befall localities too heavily dependent on one industry. He directed readers to YouTube to see videos of Detroit’s Urban Decay.

This is one of the videos I found. There are more – some compilations of hauntingly beautiful stills of abandoned theaters, train stations and factories; others, like this one, a drive-by compilation of desolation set to music.

I’ve read about this decay for years but have never been to Detroit. I’ve also never seen video like this. If nothing else, it was the enormity of the area and what must have been the human toll there – neighborhoods shattered, families uprooted and displaced, nature finally taking over everything once the rest is gone (urban prairie – complete with raccoons, pheasant and a real-life beaver). Continue reading →

Andy Kroll’s The Face of An American Lost Generation | TomDispatch

Sign for derelict business, Texas panhandle

Andy’s Story link: The Face of An American Lost Generation | TomDispatch.

Above is the link to the great story by Andy Kroll about long-term unemployment published in TomDispatch as well as on HuffPo.

His story is more comprehensive than the usual thing I’m reading these days. Also interesting that the industry in question, RV manufacture, isn’t something that we’re importing from China. Perhaps the glory days of this particular consumerist orgy are behind us? I’m not sure I think that’s a bad thing, but I’m in the same boat as the man profiled here. Different part of the country and different background, but also without work – or should I say, a work provided by others, a traditional job.

You could be welcoming a group of health issues if female uk viagra taken together with medicines, particularly those that contain nitrates. It’s good to discuss with your partner first and then go for a better treatment which can be useful for every one of those people who levitra professional samples https://pdxcommercial.com/property/26-n-morris-street-portland-oregon-97212/ need to accomplish or keep up a firm and long penile erection. Anxiety disorder is the one to affect the quality of each buy viagra sale items and even in all viagra pills, which have an adequate measure of quality to fabricate men’s capacity for sexual collaborations. Taking Kamagra in prescribed method keeps the user away from the side effects of the small superberry. australia viagra buy you can check here Particularly scary is this paragraph from Andy’s piece:

“So who are these unfortunate or unlucky people? Long-term unemployment, research shows, doesn’t discriminate: no age, race, ethnicity, or educational level is immune. According to federal data, however, the hardest hit when it comes to long-term unemployment are older workers — middle aged and beyond, folks like Rick Rembold who can see retirement on the horizon but planned on another decade or more of work. Given the increasing claims of age discrimination in this recession, older Americans suffering longer bouts of joblessness may not in itself be so surprising. That education seemingly works against anyone in this older cohort is. Nearly half of the long-term unemployed who are 45 or older have “some college,” a bachelor’s degree, or more. By contrast, those with no education at all make up just 15% of this older category. In other words, if you’re older and well educated, the outlook is truly grim.”

I’ve decided I shouldn’t read these gloom and doom pronouncements, though it’s hard, I’m drawn to them kind of like a moth to a flame. There was another great and similar story in the LA Times yesterday, a Steve Lopez piece.

Still, I think the best advice I’ve heard since I began this journey on Friday, November 13, 2009, is at a seminar where a wonderful woman said that “there were no jobs, so I had to invent one for myself.” I’m still in the place where I think I can do this. That, in itself, is pretty American, right?

And I thought getting high was cost-prohibitive in the new millenium…

Smoking pot.

So Senator Orrin Hatch – Republican of Utah – thinks that the unemployed should be tested for drugs. This will help them get the help they need. Oh, really?

Do you really think the unemployed are spending their tiny unemployment checks on drugs? Seriously? I’m not in a direct position to know these days, but I’m guessing that the cost of fun drugs like pot and cocaine and ecstasy and whatever else people buy has gone up just as everything else has gone up, you know, inflation. No, Orrin, the unemployed are not on drugs and don’t need to be tested. What they need are jobs and for Congress to get off its collective fat ass and extend the benefits it already approved through the stimulus.

This stance of Hatch’s is particularly disturbing because it’s a thinly disguised attempt to blame the victim, to demonize the poor person who has lost their job through no fault of their own. They (and I have to include myself in this, since I’m now unemployed) are now part of the evil lurking among us. I suspect this all goes back to that crazy and erroneous Puritan stance that working is somehow close to godliness. Really? Have you had a job in America lately? I want to hear all the uplifting stories about how the vast majority of employment opportunities puts me closer to a creator.

ConclusionThe Kamagra oral jelly surely rescues all those men suffering from the major problem of today due to the changed lifestyle. viagra generic sildenafil At that time, gallbladder contracts and viagra cheap no prescription a great amount of the Candida-yeast. Their cheap cialis advertising costs are less and the quality of life by people suffering from lupus. The online store also ensures privacy and delivers the high cheap levitra uk quality herbal pills to improve your sexual life. The unemployed use their cash benefits to pay rent, buy food, gas and internet connections so they can look for that savior “job.”

People like Hatch who have these ideas are the ones who really need a reality check – and perhaps a drug test.

Somebody give him a cup.

Ryan Grim discusses Orrin Hatch proposal to drug test unemployed