UnemploymentT.J.Seitz Copyright 2011 by T.J.Seitz Smashwords Edition My brain is starting to play tricks on me while the second hand blindly ticks away on the old-school analog clock hanging above my head. My thoughts wander aimlessly and I often find myself wrestling with bizarre ideas that are hard to control. It’s entertaining at times but can also be disturbing. I begin to wonder which Greek god I upset. Did I do something bad in a past life that affected my Karma or is this experience nothing more than a lesson in character building? Being unemployed with nothing but time to burn, a large stack of bills, child support and a monthly mortgage payment with no job prospects on the horizon really sucks. My long days at home alone sometimes feel like a form of banishment or prison sentence, especially when I don’t have access to a car. I’m sitting here listening to the creepily depressing Tom Wait’s CD Swordfishtrombones. The Recession, home foreclosures and unemployment benefit extensions litter the news headlines of the websites I’m browsing. The animals in the other room are annoying me with their scrapping and whining amongst themselves. It’s too cold to go outside for a walk or do yard work. I’m finding it very difficult to relax with endlessly random jingles from decades old TV commercials, forgotten phone numbers and the names of games I played as a kid slam dancing inside my head. I have books cases full of books and lots of unfinished essays to devote myself toward. Reading and writing though involve a focus that is far too hard for me to achieve at this moment. Music has been very helpful at keeping me somewhat sane. It tempers my grim moods and reminds me that I’m not alone. I’ve learned a lot about music during my longer stints of unemployment. Listening is easier for me because it’s more passive than writing or reading. Trolling the CD bins of local libraries, searching for artists and genres I’m unfamiliar with is something I am less inclined to do when I don’t have the time. I discovered some of my most favorite albums this way. Carreg Lafar’s Hin, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will The Circle Be Unbroken, the soundtrack to Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Big Mamma Thornton are several examples of music I inadvertently stumbled upon when borrowing materials from the library. I’ve also been started converting all my old CD’s and tapes to data files, and then organizing them. It’s a long drawn out process but if I want to listen to those songs on a computer playlist or my IPOD I need to bite the bullet and do the required work. There’s no one to talk to but myself or the dog. The cats all ignore me and the guinea pigs only squeak in chorus if they think I’m feeding them some greens. My wife is working and the kids are at school. The dog gives me funny looks whenever I start to pace around, fidget, grumble and sigh because from her point of view me being home during the day is a major change in her routine. My fiscal worries and uncertainty mean nothing to her. I suppose I could just bundle up, brave the cold and go for a walk. Put the IPod headphones on and start moving I n one direction or another but then I’d feel guilty that I’m not bringing the dog with me. Walking the dog is a pain in the ass. I want to keep moving at one smooth and steady pace, not stop to watch her sniff, shit, piss or eat something gross every six steps. There are only so many online job postings I can apply for in the course of one day and it seems like there are less of them every day. I’d make follow up phone calls to businesses I’ve sent resumes to but those phone numbers just refer me to their website. I feel guilty about sleeping in or taking naps because I need to find work and contribute more to the household than clipping coupons and cooking meals. I’ve grown bored of playing video games which can easily eat up lots of time. Time does not matter so much when you don’t have to work. Weekends and weekdays start to blend together. I measure it by when our kids are here. My wife and I share custody of three our children with our ex-spouses and have all of them one half the time in different combinations throughout the week. Internet access might be considered an unnecessary luxury for someone in my position but the cost is easily justified considering my wife needs it for her college classes and I need it to find work. Most businesses today do not except unsolicited resumes for open positions anymore, they expect interested candidates to submit everything through their human resources management systems. Automation makes it a lot easier for hiring managers to ignore desperate people during hard times by removing the human element from the process. Facebook is another timewaster I’ve recently discovered. The more friends a person has on their page the more topic threads they can get involved with or just respond to. I probably drive my friends crazy with all the smart ass comments I make and frequent status changes. Who gives a crap that I need to go get gas or that I’m missing a sock? A former boss warned me years ago about people who stay home all day and don’t have anything productive or stimulating to occupy them-selves with. It didn’t matter if it was a temporary situation, they were just doing it to raise their kids, if it was a man, a woman or that the person was retired. She asserted that people always needed something to do and interact with others outside their homes; otherwise they will start to act weird. I agree with her. After going for a walk a few times in the neighborhood I began to see what she was talking about. These individuals will go out of their way to talk to you about anything, even when you’re not interested. The topics of conversation are often stretched pretty far too. Anything between mundane and scandalous is fair game. I’ve heard complaints about neighborhood cats casing birds’ nests for babies, discussed water drainage problems, how to buy children’s clothes at discount prices and had a woman confess to me about an affair she was having. Something I didn’t really need to know about. Young stay at home moms are easiest to understand and socialize with because they are mainly looking for support and a connection with other adults after spending hours on end alone nursing, changing dirty diapers, doing loads of laundry, wiping runny noses and picking up toys while Barney the Purple Dinosaur or the Wiggles sing in the background. Even retired people are not so bad to talk to because they usually have lots of interesting stories to tell about the neighborhood and their lives. It’s the middle aged people with no children, grandchildren or spouses at home during the day that make me feel the most uneasy. I don’t know why but it seems like they are actively looking for others to participate in their unique flavor of crazy making and will try to recruit anyone who is naive or polite enough to stop and acknowledge them. These are the Mrs. Robinsons and Humbert Humberts of a neighborhood. They are the kind of people who go grocery shopping in their bathrobes, bunny slippers, sometimes with their hair in curlers or a baseball cap, thinking that a pair of big dark sunglasses will disguise or make them invisible. A persons mind can play tricks on them when they have nothing to do. To occupy itself it will sometimes meander down unfamiliar paths and fantasize. I see how easy lots of time and no responsibilities can lead someone towards trouble with little or no effort. I sometimes ask myself what would happen if I just packed a bag and left everything behind. Charging a one way plane ticket to Prague in the Czech Republic or hitchhiking my way across the Canadian Border to Montreal. Places where no one would know me and I could create a new life for myself. Or what would happen if I had a secret affair with a former co-worker, no the chatty twenty-something intern at the community center would be more fun but then I start to walk myself through all the (kinky) details and I start to feel guilty. I couldn’t do that to my family or myself. I know I can always do chores or bake something for dinner but that only takes a few minutes and is not particularly pressing. Being home all the time also makes it easy to do a little something every day leaving plenty of time to spare. I flip through my Grandmother’s recipe cards. None the recipes look appealing to me or I don’t have all of the listed ingredients on hand. I start to look forward to my unemployment money or better yet an unexpected windfall in the mail. Unfortunately, I don’t have any long lost great aunts with money and still have about week before I can collect and use my apportioned benefit towards groceries so in the mean time I need to just make do with what we have. That means another dinner of rice and beans or a casserole made from a bag of egg noodles, canned chicken and cream of mushroom soup. Tasks like grocery shopping become much more involved and a motivating form of entertainment when there’s not a lot of money to spend. I have the time and enjoy the challenge. I shop for five people in our household along with my grandmother who lives in an assisted living complex. I try to make ends meet by using just the money I get from unemployment and what my wife earns as a veterinary technician, only asking for reimbursement from my grandmother when we don’t have enough money to buy her unexpected requests for less conventional items like cat food or Fixadent. Her income is even more limited than ours. To save money I cut coupons, religiously return bottles for deposit money and scan the Sunday newspaper ads for all the best deals based on a list that hangs on the refrigerator door. Every time we run out of something or there is a food request the item gets placed on that list for consideration. Once a week I match coupons and sales to that list then go to Wegmans, Walmart and/ or Aldis depending where the items are cheapest. Weeks there is additional money available in the food budget I am more liberal and purchase the entire list, other times I’m forced to limit myself to just the bare minimum such as milk, bread, eggs and fresh vegetables. . . I also taught myself how to make fancy homemade breads and can stuff like apples, pickles, salsa and jams made from produce grown in the backyard or bought in bulk at a farmers market. I inherited all the necessary equipment from my mother and grandmother over the years and figured that I might as well use it to help save money and offer more of a selection at mealtimes. The processes turned out to be a lot easier than I thought they would be. My quarterly trips to BJ’s Warehouse help us stock up on many items. There are always basic food ingredients like flour, potatoes, onions, canned tomatoes and soup stock in the pantry. I just have to force myself to get creative about meals and not just open a box. I abhor Hamburger Helper, which is all my wife knows how to cook, so it have some incentive every day to make something healthy and flavorful. The younger kids don’t notice a difference but the older one does. He complains and pouts during shoestring budget weeks because there are no convenience foods like cold cuts, limited cereal choices or bottled water. When I prepare hearty simple dinner entrees like green beans mixed with plain pasta and olive oil or a stir fry from carrots, celery and peas he frequently gets quote, puts on a poo-poo face and chooses to not to eat as a form of protest. The little ones complain too but still eat what’s put in front of them for the most part, even if they don’t really like it because they are not as stubborn. I created a sizable list of tasks to complete within a few days after getting laid off. Over the course of three or four days it’s been whittled down to a few things that can’t be done until the weather warms up or a scheduled day such as going to the doctor for a physical which I’ve been avoiding now for a few years. The bulk of the list consisted of things my wife and I usually don’t have time to do during the week while working a nine to five. They are jobs where we had all the components and supplies to complete the tasks but no time to do them like updating obsolete light fixtures and replacing a broken storm door. I figured that we saved between seven hundred and one thousand dollars easily by me doing the work instead of paying a repair person. Even the stuff we needed to buy was covered by several gift certificates we got for wedding gifts last summer. I guess to escape myself and find stable employment I will need to reinvent myself. Times have changed and so has the job market. I have to start highlighting my universal skills and formal education when searching for work not necessarily relying on my past experience in IT. I had such a secure job situation for so long that I began to identify a lot of myself with the jobs I worked. I worked for the local government for over twenty years with no fear of losing my job. It’s not the same anymore especially when my wife and I rely so heavily on her income because my income has been so undependable lately. Since getting laid off the first time at the end of 2006 I’ve been laid off another 3 times so far. It’s 2009. Well-paying temporary jobs are hard to come by let alone permanent ones. Who wants to hire an overeducated middle aged computer specialist? I feel obsolete. . talking about. These individuals will go out of their way to talk to you about anything, even when you’re not interested. The topics of conversation are often stretched pretty far too. Anything. didn t matter if it was a temporary situation, they were just doing it to raise their kids, if it was a man, a woman or that the person was retired. She asserted that people always needed something. process but if I want to listen to those songs on a computer playlist or my IPOD I need to bite the bullet and do the required work. There’s no one to talk to but myself or the dog. The cats all