Aloha GOP,

Well, the call I was waiting for yesterday has not yet been received.  The anxiety has now turned to agony.  As I power through the morning, I replay the interview discussion over and over in my mind in an effort to remain hopeful that a decision will be made in my favor.  Simultaneously, I am finishing up some household chores while preparing for a meeting scheduled this afternoon for some consulting work.  Opportunities are always on the horizon, but have not yet reached the shore.

During the times I find myself doing multiple tasks, I am reminded of an incident which characterizes some perceptions of the unemployed.  **UDATE** Just received the notification call that I was waiting for, and I did not get the job.  Move on.  I was driving my son and his teammates to football practice and was pulled over by a police officer.  My vehicle tags were expired because I was unable to afford auto insurance, or the registration renewal.  Of course, I was in violation of the law, but I still had an obligation to get my players to practice every day.  I was naturally prepared to accept the consequences of my choice to continue to operate my vehicle.

When the officer was writing out my ticket, he asked me where I worked.  I answered that I had been unable to find any work for two years.  He dropped his pen and pad, laughed and said, “Aren’t you tired of staying home?!”  Up to that point, I thought I had developed a resistance to people passing judgments associated with my unemployment.  Apparently, I was not that evolved. 

In truth, at the time I was laughed at by the police officer, I was diligently looking for work, attending college full-time, volunteering with several community organizations, actively developing a network that would improve my chances for employment, delivering newspapers at 3:30 a.m. every day of the week to make ends meet, and obviously providing transportation for a carload of young football players every day.  In fact, very little of my time was ever spent at home. 

It was disheartening to be unfairly judged.  I know he had to issue me a ticket as part of his function, but making an overt judgment of me for his amusement was outwardly personal.  Soon after this instance, I realized that I had been incredibly naïve to think that others would think better of me for trying to be interminably industrious while unemployed.

I have since coined a term that applies to many of us looking for work. I am among the “Working Unemployed.” 

Aloha GOP,

On Monday, I had a strong interview for a position that I really want and deserve.  At the conclusion of the interview, I was advised that I would receive notification on Wednesday.  Well, today is Wednesday and from my first conscious moment, the familiar and routine anxiety has set in as I wait impatiently by the phone and continuously check my email messages.  Again, I am prayerful.  Again, I tell myself “no news is good news.”  This particular position with this particular organization would exponentially change my life. 

For the past 10 years, I’ve been either unemployed or underemployed.  It’s been 10 years since I’ve been fairly compensated for my level of skill and experience.  While unemployed, the stress of pursuing work has been unimaginable, the stress of being underemployed in the workplace has been unbearable.  I have concluded that the qualities that have resulted in numerous successes for my employer are the very same qualities that have resulted in my inevitable unemployment. 

The culture in the workplace has changed drastically in recent years.  The new work leadership not only supports and defends the status quo, the new work culture punishes individuals that want to contribute to a thriving enterprise.  So much is reported in the news related to workers being laid off, but not much is reported about people getting terminated, time after time.  I know many, many qualified and capable people in the same situation and have even recently been advised by an attorney friend that wrongful termination cases have increased substantially.  This is a new, peculiar, under-reported phenomenon in the workplace.

 

Now that I’m unemployed, I indulge in a pastime that I am unable to enjoy while employed.  Most of my job searching is online or via telephone, so I remain in my home on most days.  Further, I find that any time I leave my home, it becomes necessary to spend money.  So, I stay home most days to save the little money that I still have primarily to prepare for any upcoming interviews.  In addition to having time to reflect on the reasons I’ve separated from past employment, I have more time for TV viewing.  I don’t care for soap operas, so I watch the “liberal” media because it makes sense to me.  Occasionally, I switch to the conservative channel, and I find their language extremely distressful, biased, and confusing.

I’m not an economist.  I am not an academic.  But, I’m many things to many people.  And, I’ve determined that I am the average American.  I am bi-racial.  I am a woman.  I am a single mother.  And, I am unemployed.