Anatomy of the Day of an Unemployed Man Part 1

Being unemployed can really suck. The bank account is ever dwindling as the sum total of your life's work slowly ebbs back out into the economy from which it came. Unemployment checks help stem the losses but there's an itchy feeling under the skin that receiving a dose of cash injection from the EDD tends to leave. I think it's got something to do with the stigma of being a leach on society. Sure, I know, I put into the system for over a decade so it's only fair that I be allowed to draw something back out, but it's still not the sort of thing that generally boosts one's ego. Quite the opposite, in fact. It would be a mark of shame if only there weren't so many others drawing from the same communal largesse.

Nevertheless, my impecunious predicament is gradually spiralling downward, compounded by a bleak job market punctuated by layoff after layoff after layoff. Like I mentioned, I've got plenty of friends in the EDD club. Despite the overall shittiness of the employement landscape I've thus far remained resolute in my efforts to find work. Word to the wise, the resolve is beginning to crumble, but that's a separate post.

So how do I go about accomplishing this commendable goal of rejoining the work force? How does an unemployed man's day get filled? Surprisingly easily. Shaking off the effects of a night's sleep interrupted repeatedly by feline shenanigans usually starts at about 8am. Then there's more coffee from the magical siphon and the "productive" part of the day begins. Honestly it's productive. There's less Guitar Hero involved than one might think.

A good chunk of my morning was spent tracking tailoring my resume for a job I found posted on McAfee's site. The job involves serving as a Web Marketing Manager; a role similar to what I did at my former place of employment. I could probably run rings around the job, but that's now what really matters. What matters is getting access to the right people. Submit the resume without any target softening at the intended company and it disappears without any word or trace. Trust me, this is how the job market currently works. Fortunately a former direct report of mine, someone whose career I had a strong hand in developing, picked up a contract job there about 6 months ago. He's my mole in the organization. I'm relying on him to ensure that my cover letter and resume find their way to somebody who might actually care.

But there's a snag, and it only dawned on me when I was at the gym a little earlier this evening. The cover letter is a revision of a cover letter I used for a cold-call job submission at Hotwire, a job for which I actually received a kindly worded "piss off, you suck" response. Even getting a "no" from a submission should be chalked up in the success column. Ninety percent of the time I don't even get that. The snag in this instance is that I forgot to change the reference to Hotwire in the first paragraph. Visions of the recruiter or hiring manager barged into my brain. His or her eyebrows twist and furrow while my hopes of gainful employment are tossed into the "not on your life" pile. Quickly phoning my mole I discovered, as I expected, that he'd not really done much to shop the thing around, so time was on my side. I've got the chance to put the right name in the letter.

To be honest I don't expect anything to come of my efforts. Just last week I went through the depressing agony of finding a job at Apple that was appropriate for my background. Kicking my intelligence network into full gear I wheedled my way into a phone screen—which went exceptionally well—only to be told via email, after a too-long wait for a good response, that the hiring manager was opting for an internal candidate. "He quite liked you," the email read, but that doesn't really count for much when there isn't a job hanging on the end of that stick. The hiring manager got a "gee, you're a nice guy, perhaps you'll give me a job later" email that will never illicit a response. It's good to feel loved.

These experiences temper my expectations, and with McAfee it's no different. They lack the glamour of Apple. They lack the Jonathan Ive shininess and rabid fan base, but they're hiring and they've got a revenue stream. Perhaps they'll take me on.

How else does a bum pass his day? Getting his homework done. I'm taking two classes for this supposed part time MBA that's bleeding me about $4,000 per month. One of which is Operations. Unlike the rest of my class mates I've got ample time to study the living shit out of the subject. People want me in their study groups since they sleep assured at night that when they show up for the meeting the next day they can feel confident that at least one of the team members has made some decent headway with the problem sets. My GPA rises up in testament to the power of having more time than the rest: 3.925. There's plenty of time for that number to drop. And in the meanwhile, as the layoff announcements keep flooding in, the ranks of students suddenly exposed to too much time continues to swell. I'm not so lonely anymore.