A Few Things I Learned Along the Path to 35 and Unemployed.

So, the day this post goes live is my 35^th Birthday, and let me tell you, I really considered completely taking the day off. However, when I did my Origins week, and managed to have a full week of updates despite being out of the state, I established some sort of internal precedent. So, with the arrival of guests looming and tasks around the house still unfinished, this piece will be a little shorter than usual.

No lies ahead, just a few thoughts. Some will inevitably be thought of
as cliches... that's just how these things go.

Without further ado, I present: 

7 things I know as an unemployed 35-year old that I didn't understand at 25.


1. The mind overestimates the long-term impact of tragedy on the heart.

This one, I didn't understand until recently. The loss of a job, end of a relationship, death of a loved one, these things suck. The incredible resilience of the human mind to find happiness when there is no choice but to deal with what has happened is amazing. (It is called impact bias, we also overestimate the effect good fortune has on happiness.)  There's a TED talk about it here, you owe it to yourself to make a few minutes to watch this.

2. No matter how much free time or money you have, what you think you need will take up almost all of it.

Whenever I made a decent amount of money, I never felt I had enough to cover what I needed and wanted. The same is true now, with a whole lot less. On that same front, I've been out of work for almost six months, and despite having nothing but free time, I always manage to be too busy to get to everything.

3. Little, stupid, easily correctable things will erode your sanity if you let them. Don't.

The things that have driven me to stupidity aren't usually the big arguments with friends, family or my wife. It is stupid things like coming back from a hard day and the remote doesn't work. I always have spare “AA” batteries in the house, it is an investment in peace of mind.

4. Sometimes, the most important thing you can do is shut up for a few seconds.

Some people will never get this one. They'll wreck relationships trying to “talk it out,” get attacked by someone who was on the verge of calm, and won't understand why. Sometimes, what you gotta say is nothing at all.

5. It is key to identify when you are losing control of your emotions, and make sure no rash actions are taken or decisions are made until you get it back.

Sane and rational adults lose it sometimes. Instead of denying that fact of life, recognize when it is happening to you and don't say or do anything in those moments that will wreck your life.

6. Learn to let things go.

I still struggle with this one. I've stayed in relationships that were hurting me and going nowhere, stayed at jobs where I was miserable and had no future and stuck with projects that were a waste of more time and effort. When things stop working, don't let the fear of the unknown make you stick with it. Learn to bail when it is time.

7. Life isn't a competition, or if it is, we don't all use the same scoring system.

I've worked jobs where people looked down on me for what I did or how much I made. I've gotten myself down looking at where people around my age are, and envying their success. Forget it. Triumph and tragedy happen suddenly, when they happen and no particular moment guarantees either. I've been happy by experiencing and learning, playing and sharing with people around me. By the way I'm keeping score, the lack of an expensive car of annual vacations doesn't mean I'm not winning. What you do for a living isn't who you are.

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Enough musing. Time to get ready to celebrate surviving another year, and get on with doing what I do. Back next week with the usual comics, games and science fiction.

Thinking Outside the Maze – A Rat's Perspective on the Race.

When you are out of work for more than a few weeks, thinking about the system and its implicit promise of a stable place in society in exchange for hard work and a willingness to follow the society's rules is natural. As population swells, technology modernizes and eliminates certain jobs and people live and work a greater number of years in developed countries, the system strains a bit. Rather than play the blame game, or fish for “hang in there's” that I don't really feel I need at the moment, I want to talk about what some other people have done in trying to “opt out” of the traditional school-work-retire-die plan that society tells us to expect. Let's try to understand that plan first.

A cliché image, maybe. An appropriate visual metaphor for sure.

Some of the criticism of the system here in the United States comes from the feeling that choosing a “default” path leads to massive debt which requires repayment in such strict terms that most people are forced to take whatever work they come by that is enough to keep themselves solvent. These careers are often taken independent of personal goals, individual aptitude, skills or training; leading to job dissatisfaction, lack of personal growth and stagnancy. The people trapped by this “gotta pay the bills” mentality represent well over half of the American workforce, and low morale keeps productivity only high enough to not lose jobs that workers need, but don't want. The critics of this system have termed it “wageslavery.”

For many positions that pay what American society would call a “living wage”, individuals are expected to have a college degree, as competition for jobs makes secondary education as a condition to “thin the herd” of applicants seeking a particular job. In the United States, this means that young adults are likely to start with significant debts to pay back through educational loans, without any guarantee of a career capable of doing so. As jobs become more scarce due to the inevitable march of technology, homes also become more scarce due to an increase in global population. More private loans are needed to finance homes whose prices are driven higher by supply and demand. Well before getting into any of the economic problems with credit or the recent mortgage crisis and housing bubble that caused an economic recession, it is little surprise that some people want to look for alternatives to the path society assumes adults will take.

Moments before head explosion from financial worries.

Some people have dedicated themselves to the concept of sustainable living, popularized as far back as 1978 along the fringe of American culture. The book “Possum Living” by Dolly Freed (18 at the time of writing) talks about her experiences living for five years with her father on a half-acre lot outside of Philadelphia without traditional sources of income. The book describes a life of living off the land, raising rabbits and chickens for meat and growing produce, making much of what is necessary for life, and trading for a lot of little luxuries that cannot be self-produced. Despite some unusually bad (and illegal) advice concerning resolution of disputes with “city folk”, the book, and the philosophy that followed it make for an interesting read. The life presented is very similar to, and some ways better than, a typical middle class lifestyle, providing that one is willing to eschew technology beyond trips to the local library for internet access. Perhaps not the best choice for the modern geek.

The life of the entrepreneur calls to others who want to drop out of the “rat race”, and starting personal businesses, making money online and developing as many streams of income as a person is able defines this strategy. Many, many books have been written on this subject and more than a few blogs are dedicated to nothing but this. It is difficult to separate the true success stories from wishful thinking and those who want to make this life a reality by selling promises of how to achieve success. Professional bloggers would fit into the category of the modern entrepreneur, as would those lucky few artists able to make a reasonable standard of living from their creative endeavors. The downside to this approach is easily apparent, with a lot of competition and great personal discipline required for any measure of success. It takes a lot more than writing a few hours a week and tossing around buzzwords like “SEO Optimization” and “Online Content Marketing” to make income capable of supporting a family like this.

No offense to the legit SEO/Marketing bloggers out there, but some people
seem to think that there are magic words you put on a webpage, and people give you money. 

Science Fiction titan Robert Heinlein wrote “There Ain't No Such Thing As a Free Lunch” in his 1966 novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and criticism of those who write in dissatisfaction of the current state of the world says that people expect something for nothing. Libertarian sci-fi from the 1960s aside, I think that application of the Law of Unintended Consequences producing a large disaffected working public is more likely than a majority of people harboring an unrealistic set of expectations. People in general seem to be willing, even eager, to put in effort and time in exchange for financial security, but a complex set of problems denies many that opportunity, and even more are denied the opportunity of a career that is fulfilling in addition to “just paying the bills.”

I've done a lot of reading and thinking about this, one really interesting article from a professional blogger (who falls into the “entrepreneur” category, naturally) named Steve Pavlina way back in 2006 discusses the merits of a non-traditional income here. I wonder how many different ways there really are to be 'unemployed' but capable of living without collecting unemployment or any other sort of financial assistance, and if one of these ways is right for me. Is anyone out there making a living using one of these, or a method like it? Maybe you know someone who does or did. If nothing else, it is something to ponder and dream about while looking for a new place back on the traditional mouse wheel.

Can We Please Stop Confusing Unemployment With Welfare?

I'm not going to get political here. Believe what you want about welfare, its role in society, etc. That's not what I want to talk about. These pages have, lately, been all about geeky stuff, and not at all about being out of work. Honestly, that's because the unemployment posts I've put together seemed... well, boring. A lot of them fell into the “weepy LiveJournal” kind of stuff I don't want to write, and no one wants to read.

Talking about video games, comics and tabletop RPGs is way more fun than whining.

That said, a way to write about something and make it somewhat interesting is to get good and riled about it, and I am. I have, in the last few weeks, read far too much about “people collecting unemployment on my tax dollar.” I've read blogs, forum posts, and tweets/status updates about it, and it pisses me off. Ignorance is something I have a short fuse for anyway, but when it is used to paint a group I fall into with a wide brush as lazy thieves, I approach meltdown. I'm going to say this once, using the smallest words I know to express it. IN THE US, A PRIVATE CITIZEN'S TAXES DON'T FUND UNEMPLOYMENT.

For clarification, I'm not talking about the “extended unemployment” offered by the US Federal Government, I am talking about the checks I am currently receiving, issued through the state. The way it works is that employers pay into an insurance fund for every employee they have, and if one of them becomes unemployed and qualifies for benefits, those benefits are paid from that fund. The fund keeps a surplus because not everyone qualifies for benefits, and quite a few people have another job (or something else) lined up when they leave a position, and the funds paid in for them are never used. No tax dollars. Don't believe me? Here. Or... Here. (First source is an article/overview, second is from an employer advocacy group, two sources as different as I could find.)

When I see someone yelling about how they are paying for me to sit on my ass, this is what I see and hear. DEY TUK OUR JERBS!

I've read articles recently (and am now wishing I'd bookmarked them so I could link) blasting the people who have chosen to not spend 8 hours per weekday looking for jobs that aren't there or worse, taking a job that will have a negative impact on their work and salary history in the future. There are people openly debating whether it is right for the unemployed to be happy in their situation. Why is this even a question? It isn't wrong to be happy, period.

There aren't so many people writing articles that display this level of arrogance and ignorance, forgetting that they or someone they care about are one corporate decision away from the same fate, but there are a LOT of commenters who feel this way. It makes me mad and a little physically ill to know that the expectation of quite a few of my fellow citizens for the pittance I receive that they did NOT pay for is: to be miserable daily, trudging along and willing to take the first foodservice or call center job that will take me.

Fair warning, strawman ahead.

I know there are a few people desperate enough to hold to this arrogant line of thinking that respond to the facts about how unemployment compensation is paid for that can take it a step or two further. Forgive me if I straw man a little here. The continued argument against unemployment says that if employers didn't have to pay into unemployment insurance, the extra funds could be passed on to employees. I understand this line of thinking, but respectfully disagree. The amount of compensation to employees has historically been determined by two factors. A federally mandated minimum wage, and what percentage above that minimum is the least a qualified applicant with specialized skills or training will accept to do a job that they are needed to perform.

I'm not sure where such anger and venom comes from. I suspect that there is a perception that there are a large number of people gaming the system and living like kings while sitting around doing nothing. In an extended time of high unemployment and strained financial conditions worldwide, this perception becomes less and less accurate as the weeks and months roll on. That is, if the perception was ever accurate. They took our jerbs, indeed. My apologies to non-US readers, back to geekery tomorrow.

Icecream For Breakfast

The first week I spent out of work started with a little self-indulgence and a lot of guilt and feeling like I was worthless. I'd play computer games, screw around online, make plans I knew I likely wouldn't follow through on and drink screwdrivers or rum 'n cokes. I wasn't doing anything productive, and what's worse, I wasn't even enjoying myself. This is when I first started realizing that maybe I wasn't handling the whole unemployment thing as well as I'd hoped.

Near the end of that week, I made a decision. For just a little bit, while I have severance coming, being paid for my time, I resolved to do whatever I wanted, while refusing to feel guilty about it. Indulge just a bit, so I wouldn't have to eat the worst parts of not working and have the best parts ruined. Instead, I'd eat ice cream.

I made this decision shortly after waking up, and decided to do it literally. Walked to the freezer, got out a cookie-dipped drumstick, and had breakfast. Damned if I didn't feel better. All of a sudden, self-loathing was gone.

I'm not a child, I knew then and know now that I can't just style myself as a "gentleman of leisure" and just do whatever the hell I want forever. But dealing with the reality of my new situation involves needing to cope. Guilt wasn't helping at all. Icecream helped a little.

Hating yourself for things that are beyond your control is a waste of time. Don't.

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