It’s happened to me once before, but when it happened to me for the second time in less than a year this week, I was pretty upset to find myself back in the familiar territory of being laid off, and unemployed. Last October, before I started writing this column, I was working forty hours a week as a bartender, hating my job with every ounce of ill will and bad attitude that I could possess, because I don’t like serving alcohol to people. But I still needed the money, and the money was good, so I showed up and worked hard for that first restaurant job of mine in Portland, and given the friends that I made there, it was worth it. I was warned by many locals upon moving to Portland that the restaurant business here is a fickle and unsteady beast, not to be tamed, and they are right, because I became a first time victim of downsizing last October, and the sequel debuted this summer. But I disliked my first job so much at the time, that I was more than happy to be ‘set free’ from the chains of obedience, and at the time, I was elated to have a chance to do the only logical thing a freshly unemployed and nearly broke twenty something should do when they get laid off; I went online, and charged 300 dollars to my credit card, and hopped on a plane to visit some old friends in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
This time around, the latest job to sack me was the best restaurant job that I’ve ever had; a job with an extremely kind owner and boss, a great co-worker, and clientele that I actually enjoyed cooking for and serving. This job was so good that it must be the last restaurant job that I will ever have, for nothing else could ever compare. I vowed six months ago that I would never set foot back in the service industry after the expiration of my current job, and this week, I was told to put my money where my mouth is, and I’m determined to be a man of my word. Luckily, my track record for making “absolute statements” and then following through on them is pretty high, if you don’t include statements made about fabled ‘last cigarettes.’ If you count cigarette vows, then my track record is akin to Bush’s promises of WMD’s in Iraq, or a Kennedy’s marriage vows.
So now that I’m unemployed again, I have to face the stark reality that is life without income. The good news is that I have some money saved up this time around, but the bad news is that since I refuse to take up another job in the service industry, I have no qualifications to offer this world, and no real job prospects in mind. Since I refuse to use my four plus years of restaurant work on my next resume, and I’m pretty dead set on never even using a resume or ‘applying for a day job’ ever again, I’m left with a pretty lousy resume that reads something like this:
I am a film studies and English Literature College Graduate, with a concentration in Philosophy who enjoys playing the drums, guitar, and bass in any band that plays music that I like. I also like to write about whatever subjects I feel like writing about, whenever I feel like writing, and I will exchange the fruits of these labors for any combination of food, money, and shelter. I’m almost always on time, and I’m rarely sick, too. Hooray!
So who wants to hire me? I don’t even want to hire myself. I think last week’s dating resume sounded better than this one, and that’s not a very good thing, based on many responses I received from that column (I guess some women only like covertly sexist assholes). The way I see things right now, in so far as my future income goes, is that I am so screwed that not only do I not have any paddles; I can’t even find shit creek.
If my memory serves me correctly, being unemployed is lots of fun for the first week or two, and then it gets really monotonous and dull. Last summer, when I quit my job in Ithaca, I became a professional gambler at the black jack tables, and made a decent living for three months. My black jack streak had me inspired to the point where I was considering gambling for a living. But then my good friend Dr. Chuck and I decided to drive from Montana through Idaho and into Washington, and then down through Oregon and into California, hitting up every single gambling casino that we could find. We managed to hit up more than ten, and by the time the trip was over, my ego was down big, and my wallet was down even bigger (an ego is measured in dollar units, F.Y.I.). But it was still the greatest two ‘work weeks’ of my life. And whisky and beer taste even sweeter than they normally do when you are down and out at the black jack tables!
The first thing that I like do when I become unemployed is to give myself a ‘state of the union address.’ This involves going over your strengths and weaknesses as a worker bee in the giant hive colony that is the workforce of America. I would say that this time around, my biggest strength is also my biggest weakness; which is that I see through the façade of the so-called American dream. Instead of endless opportunities, I see endless inflation, over taxation, the devaluation of the dollar, and the death of Adam Smith’s invisible hand (I think Enron found it, sold it to World Com as energy, and then Dick Cheney shot it dead for good with his rifle on his Texan Ranch.). I find it hard to buy into the system anymore, but it’s not that I think the system is flawed; I think the system works great; if you want to be rich, you just find some capital, then find people who work hard, and promise them trivial compensations for their hard work, and then take most of the profits and celebrate the returns on your investment by throwing parties at restaurants and bars that your employees can’t afford to attend, while they worry about bills, health care, and the rest of their blue collar woes. I would gladly do this, if I had the capital, and if my heart could learn to pump oil, and my stomach could process greed as food.
So at this stage of life, and in this political, social, and economic climate, I wonder why I should work as hard as I always have for other people, when in the end, I doubt that I will ever see any of the promised social security benefits that I pay into every day of my working life, and most of my tax money goes to a war I don’t approve of, and tax breaks for companies that don’t mind ruining the environment if there is a profit to be made by it. In the meantime, every single day that I waste away my youth and energy in the service industry, preparing food and handing it to other people, is a day that I didn’t focus on any of my passions in life. If giving up on your passion to pay bills is the right thing to do, and that’s what makes me a good American, then I guess I’m an immoral traitor.
But if my hunch is right, and it is possible for everyone to make a decent living, yet still do something that they have passion for, then this recent lay off was a true blessing in disguise, because it is pushing me to rack my brain harder than I ever have to come up with a use for one of my many passions or talents in exchange for some money. But I do have to admit that bartending sure beats hunting and gathering in a desert, all the while fearing an attack from a lion or some other dangerous predator. So, you see, I see both sides of the coin, but I’m an equal opportunity complainer—and I don’t like either option.
So I’ve decided that I’m not going to go out and find a ‘regular job.’ This isn’t because decent, hard work is beneath me, but rather, because I’m tired of complaining about working, so I should shut up about it, and motivate myself to create the changes that I find necessary in order to enjoy my life. So this is a great beginning, right? Well, it would be, if it weren’t for that darn lack of income. Because I have no income, Cocoa Puffs have suddenly become an unaffordable luxury in my life. Happy hour chicken strips and two-fifty pints at the local bar are indefinitely on hold, and even the two for the price of one macaroni and cheese boxes are out of my league – this week, all my meals will come from the dollar store, where macaroni and cheese are three for the price of one.
Getting laid off is a real wake up call, for it causes you to obsess over your so called resume and options, and while it’s too early for a final verdict in this category, right now I’m somewhere in between ‘too lazy and proud to make it” and “unqualified for life.” That is why this column was originally titled: “Opportunity Mocks”. Because I feel like that is where I am situated, mentally, as I sit at a coffee shop to type my twenty fifth column about whatever I feel like writing about, for the sole reason that I love to communicate, and share my opinions of the world. This column has been a strange experiment, and even though it’s absolutely free, and provides me no income, it’s still become a weekly job in my laundry list of “to do” tasks each week, and so my question for you, readers, is if you do something responsibly, and on time, week in and week out, but you do not get paid for it, is it still work? In other words, if I’m trying to impress some girl at a bar, and she asks me what my job is, can I say that I’m a writer? Or do I have to look down, and mumble, “I’m unemployed,” since this ‘job’ provides an annual income of $0.00 (that figure is rounded up to the nearest cent). At least I don’t pay taxes.
But I have lots of time to think about things, and about the world, and to take these thoughts and try to convert them into something profound. I’ve come up with a few ideas for publication that I think I should receive some sort of grant to research and complete (which means that I’ll take the grant money, spend it on cheap beers and semi-fast bar food, and then at the last second fake all of my research and write a not-so-compelling dissertation on said topic.) My best idea so far is to track just how it is that a fly knows the exact spot where it once landed on you, and how it can repeatedly find that same spot and continue to try to land on it even if you violently shoe it away. How do they know the exact spot to re-land on, and what attachment do they form to that spot, and why do they always go back for the same spot? Whatever the answers are; flies disgust me!
Other good news about all of this rapid change in my life (I found out on a Thursday that my last day of work will be this Tuesday) is that as a creature of habit, and one who hates any and all change, I know, deep down, that change is good for me, and that all of my favorite stories I tell about my life involve tremendous changes and surprises, and how I dealt with them. So this is a new phase in my life, and I accept this! But as far as jobs go, I can’t see myself doing anything ‘normal.’ Most of my friends are teachers, bankers, lawyers, or service industry employees, but I’ve never liked working, even though I’ve held down a job for almost every year of my life since I was twelve years old. I’ve been a tutor, worked at Burger King, worked at a comic book and card store, worked at a video store, done custodial work, bartended, been a coffee Barista, managed restaurants, served food, and finally, at my last job, I even learned how to cook. But that’s where my resume ends, because all of my heroes’ lives only got exciting once they were forced to make exciting changes in their life, and when they took risks. So consider this the last chapter in the boring part of the story that is my life, and get ready for the next one: the climax.