Wrapping Up Double-barrel Unemployment. In 1 Hour. Because I'm Missing My Cartoons.

Hi! Tonight, we're going from Day 432 to Day 700 in the next hour of distracted, half-TV-watching 38 words-per-minute typing. Unless I'm not done after an hour. If I'm not done at the end of an hour, I'll just stop wherever I am and wrap up the rest of the story in one succinct and awe-inspiring sentence. K?

Here we go...

Day 432 - [Maris]'s first full day home from her adventure in Intensive Care, tubes, wires and machines that beep all the time and keep the sick people from sleeping. Also, it snowed approximately seven hundred thousand inches. Ha ha ha! No it didn't, but 2 1/2 FEET of that crap did fall on us that day. More than another foot fell some four days later. We had 54 inches of it within 12 days. In suburban Maryland. Not funny. Moving on...

Day 445 - Headcount reduction. I'm unemployed AGAIN after only 3 months on the promising contract job that was supposed to last at least a year. I wouldn't shed any tears over the loss of the hellish commute, but SWEET ZOMBIE JESUS! [Maris] and I were not going to last long with neither of us earning more than unemployment insurance. And needing to drink more than ever at a time when you can't really afford to? That's just cruel.

Day 470 - [Maris] has a new hobby! It's a big Excel spreadsheet, on which she dissects deliberately and unnecessarily complex, misleading and often duplicate medical bills and attempts to reconcile them with deliberately and unnecessarily complex, misleading and often duplicate explanation-of-benefits forms. It's like a shell game, but with math. The numbers are staggering. Our health insurance provider had covered like, not very much. Managing, minimizing and stretching out this new pile of debt during our time as a couple with dual lacks of income became a major project, and a priority equal to that of finding new jobs. Awesome.

Day 480 - I had an interview! I tried really hard, too. I learned all about the company, I prepared questions, I wore a suit! I didn't say anything Tourettesy or insult anyone or fall down or tell them about my loathing of hard work, of what they do, of the name of their HR guy. I kept my clothes on and didn't even ask if I was getting paid for today. I still didn't get the job. Weird.

Day 500 - I cut the grass!

Day 521 - After two visits to a really cool nearby employer, interviewing (very well, I might add) with five different people, I get the "it came down to you and another candidate and it was really hard, blah blah blah, but we're not hiring you" call.

Day 522 - For the first time in this whole ridiculous story, I moped. Ha ha ha! It looks like I just typed moped, as in the little scooter/motorbike thingies that were all the rage in the late 70s and early 80s. Remember those things? Ha ha ha! They were tiny and weak. If you hit a squirrel with a moped, the squirrel would totally win.

Day 547 - [Maris] is working again! It's terrible and clearly not a long-term solution, but it's a good-paying job in a putrid employment market, so she gladly takes it and quietly keeps searching for a better gig. The stories she brings home are awesome, but sharing them is out of the question. Sorry kids - I ain't gettin' sued. Let's just say she boarded a sinking ship of bigger fools than either of our previous Vortexes (Vortices?) of Doom. Yes, I realize that the only truly "double-barrel" unemployment we experienced was from Day 445 to day 547. So what. Shut up. It's my story and I can call it "monkey calculus and zen garden hoe design sparkle pancake bunnies" if I want to.

Day 588 - [Maris] is working again! At a job/company so good, she took a pay cut to go there from the ship of fools. I knew she could do it. Strangely, as much pressure as her re-employment took off my search, in some ways, I felt even more pressed to find something. From May until October, I could hardly get so much as a phone interview. Some funny stuff probably happened, too, but I only have seven minutes left, so I'll save any of that for later posts.

Day 680 - I had interviews at TWO DIFFERENT companies. I know! It was like an episode of "Three's Company" when Jack has two dates on the same night, like at the same restaurant and everything! I scampered back and forth between the two buildings, making up excuses about emergency phone calls and car alarms and things that they'd have to believe, like loose stools. Ha ha ha! It was fun! I kept talking about the wrong company and calling the interviewers the wrong names and stuff. I was pretty sure they knew what was up, but they played along.

UNTIL...

Day 697 - One of them got wise and broke it off, and the other one HIRED ME!

I'm out of time, but we're pretty much done, aren't we? WOOHOO!! After 700 days, Double-barrel unemployment is over. It didn't kill us! It tried, but it failed. Epic failed. We live to work and earn another day. And another and another and another and another and untold thousands of additional others forever, just as it should be.

We know how lucky we are.

Day 277 of Double-barrel Unemployment: Whaddaya Know - The Light At The End Of The Tunnel Really IS A Train!

SEPTEMBER 3rd, 2009
(A Thursday)

Okay, so I promised myself I wouldn't do this again. Ever, ever, ever - as I recall. In March of 1994, when for the last time I stepped out of the Suncoast Motion Picture Company store where I had paced the floor as a miserable slumming assistant manager, when I for the last time hiked up my pant legs and patted myself down to prove to my boss that I wasn't stealing (we had to do this at the end of every shift - I kid you not), when I handed my keys to said boss and smiled "See you in hell, asshole!"* -- I promised myself - aloud - that I would never work another day of retail for the rest of my life, so help me FSM. I promised.

Well, desperate times and whatnot. I hadn't had an interview in over five months. Also, I rationalized that this hardly counted as breaking that promise. My friend Godfrey Ozzenbarq III (not his real name), himself a frequently laid-off and fed-up-with-the-grind kind of guy, had been managing a small model railroad hobby shop for almost a year, and he needed an extra body in the store for a few shifts. Godfrey (not his real name) and I are railfans, so spending a couple of days surrounded by model trains and the retired men who buy them, working with my old friend again for the first time since about 1991 seemed to not really count as breaking my promise. The pay was negligible and it was only for a few shifts, plus it got me out of the house, so there I was. In retail. Again.

I have to admit, working with a product that I really like went a long way toward transforming a retail job from unbearable to downright pleasant. That wasn't the only factor, though (as I recall, I loved movies when I worked at Suncoast). Not being in a sunless cave in a snooty upscale mall, not being forced to work with bad people, not having to frisk myself (unless I really wanted to!) before being allowed to leave the premises, and selling fun stuff to an odd mix of fun customers made this hardly seem like work at all. I offered to let them pay me in trains, but a lot of those things are extremely expensive, and I only had enough hours to have earned a battery-operated "Thomas" train (batteries not included) and some plastic N-scale cows and trees, so I took a check instead.

Sadly, this "gig" lasted only a few days, but it was refreshing to see that not all retail is as I remembered it from my past life. It's still a low-paying field with long hours and nights and holidays and weekends and so on, but given the right type of product, it can be fun.

I was right back to work with the job boards and recruiters the next day. Someday, when he wins that big-but-not-big-enough-to-just-retire-to-the-Caribbean lottery, Godfrey (not his real name) is probably going to buy that store from his friend. I will totally work there.

Next up... Something Else!
* - I didn't really say that, but to this day, I'm not sure how I managed to resist.