The Glass

Much of the last eighteen months have been an excruciating mindfuck for me. From the announcement of my impending job loss to the agonizing uncertainty of when, precisely, I would be joining the ranks of the unemployed, to adjustment to a life collecting unemployment insurance (or "Jennifer Granholm Party Ca$h" as I liked to call it) to fruitless months searching for employment to - finally, in the past month - finding a job and starting over. I'm not saying I've been miserable every moment of the last year and a half; indeed, I have had many wonderful days with family and friends. It's just that there was always, nagging in the background, the constant worry about what would happen if I was unable to find a job before the unemployment benefits ran out. Like a leaky faucet, it would always be there. Sometimes other sounds would drown it out for a bit, but when things quieted down there it would be: drip... drip... drip... Will we have to move? drip... drip... drip... How will we afford healthcare? drip... drip... drip... What if our house or one of our cars has a major problem? drip... drip... drip Will we be able to properly provide for our children? drip... drip... drip...
Sure, the dripping would get annoying, but I also knew that - given enough time - dripping water can erode even the hardest granite. I could put on a brave face in the short term, but sooner or later one of two things would inevitably happen: either I would find a new job or my unemployment benefits would run out. The future course of my life would hinge on which of these was to happen.
And that's why I was thrilled to finally be offered a job in early August. True, the pay was half my old salary, but from my perspective I wasn't in any position to complain. It would be like miraculously finding a life raft as you were about to drown but then complaining that the raft wasn't as nice as the boat that sank in the first place. At that point, you're just happy you won't drown. And that's the key to this entire situation. How do you spin it in your mind? One can choose to dwell on the fact that your salary is much lower and you'll lose the benefits for which you had worked over 20 years hoping to secure. Or one can be grateful that you will avoid such calamities as foreclosure, raiding the retirement account just to pay bills or having to move your kids out of the school district they've grown to love. Me? I've been unemployed and searching for a job for so long that my old job now seems like something from a previous life. There's a recession and Genesee County is more "recessed" than nearly anywhere else in the nation. I was lucky to find anything.
Even so, however, there was the reality that I now had to start over. I was going from a position in which I had worked over two decades and had some degree of seniority to a position where I was definitely the" low guy on the totem pole" who had to learn a new job from scratch.
It wasn't fun.
Although I had lots of experience in television, when it got down to this position I was a rank beginner. The software and procedures were entirely new. The workload seemed overwhelming and there were seemingly zillions of details I had to learn. The first couple weeks were a stress-filled nightmare. It was one thing having lots of work to do. It was quite another to have lots of work to do but not being entirely sure how to DO it! The person training me, however, was not only highly competent, but was also patient. I slowly gained confidence in my ability to master the job. While I certainly know I will make some mistakes in the coming weeks, I'm now in a position where I'm learning enough about my responsibilities that I will be able to learn from them and keep improving.
I also am re-adjusting to a "work mode" schedule. Despite my best efforts to prevent it, I have to admit that six months of down-time, while good for my blood pressure, caused a bit of mental atrophy. At first, it was difficult to get used to having someone else's schedule imposed on you for much of the week. But, as with anything else, one learns to accommodate oneself to the realities of a new job.
So now my big question is: how do I handle this "new normal"? Do I curse the fact I must start over again at age 48 through no fault of my own for much lower wages or should I feel relief that I managed to find ANY sort of a job in the middle of a recession in one of the most economically depressed areas of the nation (let alone a job in a field I must grudging admit I enjoy)? In other words, is my glass half empty or half full?
After some careful consideration, on the optimism/pessimism scale, I choose to cop-out and merely state my life now is a glass in which liquid occupies 50% of the available volume. And, for now, I'm okay with that. Cursing the loss of "what might have been" will do me no good. Did I get screwed over and lied to by my former employer? Yes. Will it do me any good now to dwell on it? No. Spending time looking in the rearview mirror only makes sense if you're going backward. I choose to move forward.
Besides, if my glass was entirely full, it would mean there was no room for more. And isn't anticipation of future happiness one of the things that makes life interesting? True, my life is far from perfect, but for now I have adequate food, shelter, a happy marriage and two wonderful, smart, healthy children. And most importantly, I have gained some hope for the future. And for now, that is more than enough.

August Haiku

Cool breeze at dusk. With
Nothing left to prove, summer
Ages gracefully.

Yow.

Just a quick note to let you know I'm not dead. The last week or so has been very intense at my new job. There are lots of new things to learn and I'm trying my best to cram all that new information into my tiny brain. When I get home at night I'm generally too pooped to do much else. Hopefully, as I get the hang of the new job I'll settle down enough to start writing regularly again. In the meantime, please be patient...

I'M EMPLOYED!

Hooray! My six months in the economic wilderness are over! I'll be working at a local commercial TV station starting August 9. (Well, pending the passing of a drug test. And let's face it. I'm not exactly Keith Richards in that regard, so that will be no problem.)
The pay isn't nearly what I was once making, but combined with my wife's salary we should be able to pay the bills... and that was my biggest concern.
So new adventures await. This should be interesting!

Please Stand By...

Maybe things weren't as grim as I had thought yesterday. That commercial station called back today. They have upped the salary offer to what I was asking. They asked if I was still interested. When I replied that I was, they said they would call back tomorrow. We'll see what happens...

Back to Reality

Thanks to the generosity of one of my wife's co-workers, the family and I were able to spend a long weekend at a cottage in Lexington, MI. The cottage itself was wonderful and its location - a mere block away from the sandy beaches of Lake Huron - was even more so.
The kids and I spent hours in the Lake. I even spent one afternoon splashing around in the whitecaps as though my 48 years didn't matter. I may as well have been 10 for all the fun I was having.
And then, yesterday, we returned home.
There was a phone message for me from a local commercial television station at which I had applied. I set up an appointment for an interview.
And so today, I had the interview. The station manager seemed very impressed with my qualifications. When asked what salary I was looking for, I gave them a figure that was less than half my previous salary. It was too much for them. By several thousand dollars. They wouldn't budge in the least. In fact, for the salary they were offering, I could flip burgers at McDonald's. It appears they value cheap labor more than actual experience. Then, when I returned home, there was a letter in the mail informing me that I didn't get a job I had interviewed for a few weeks ago. There's something soul-crushing about giving your all in an interview and it - and the glowing recommendations you provided - not being good enough.
I am depressed, discouraged and frustrated. I don't mean to be self-pitying, but at times like these it's difficult to put on a brave face and keep going. But keep going I will. Not because I have any optimism left, but because I simply have no alternative. Maybe someday a decent job opportunity will present itself. Maybe not.
I hope one day I will be able to look back upon this posting and smile with relief that I made it through these hard times. But then again, I fear I may look back at these times as the "good old days" when I still had unemployment insurance and subsidized health coverage.
I'm torn between wanting to simply give up and wanting to grit my teeth and persevere. I know this recession is affecting millions of people. I know I'm not alone. But I keep thinking of the words attributed to Josef Stalin. Something like "If one person is affected, it's a tragedy. When millions are affected, it's a statistic."
Maybe that's my real problem. I'm tired of being a statistic. I am a person with a life story, intelligence, talents, hopes, quirks and dreams. I'm tired of being a percentage or a mere potential source of desperate cheap labor. I'm tired of daily fruitless job searches. I'm tired of endless applications and resumes that fly off unanswered into the vastness of cyberspace. I'm tired of wondering when my unemployment insurance will end. I'm tired of wondering when I'll lose the healthcare subsidies that are the only thing enabling coverage for my family and me. I'm tired of being labelled "lazy" or a "drug user" by some simply because I lost my job through no fault of my own. (Are you listening, Sen. Hatch?)
But most of all... I'm just... tired.

My Blog: Now Featuring Optional Noise

Hi all!
Just for the halibut I've added a little gizmo to the right side of this blog where those of you so inclined may listen to some sonic dandelion fluff by Ice Halo, the band for which I vocalize and occasionally scribble some songs fer.
You don't have to click on it, of course, but it's there if you want to. There are only a few songs there as I type this, but I plan to add more in the coming days.
Don't expect much, though!