TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

I Know How It Feels To Be Unemployed

ADVERTISEMENT

By TOM JACKSON

tjackson@tampatrib.com

Published: March 27, 2009

I spent a few days recently reacquainting myself with the sensation of being unemployed. I didn't much like it.

It's not like there wasn't enough to keep me busy. Temporarily freed by edict issued by a faraway boss from performing any multiplatform journalistic assignments for Media General's Florida Communications Group (or being remunerated for same), my calendar was soon enough consumed by other activities.

My principal achievement was in addressing a garage shelving project that has needed attention for at least a couple of months. I mean, it was already well established that the last of the Christmas decorations and some other odds and ends cluttering the floor were not going to stow themselves.

I also conducted the afternoon fetching-kids-from-school duties; absolutely obliterated three fourth-graders in a game of Scrabble; chaperoned them at a sneak preview of "Monsters vs. Aliens"; organized assorted photo files on one computer and conquered a virus masquerading as spyware protection on another; and reread the better part of Thomas Paine's "The Rights of Man," this time giving no thought to what might be on the test.

Also, a rogue otter that turned up in our backyard retention pond one morning demanded my close observation for the better part of a mug of coffee.

Say It Ain't So

Nonetheless, all this activity, as demonstrably productive as it was, was no defense against an impression of being at loose ends, unfocused and vaguely ... shiftless. I felt at times dispossessed and at other times guilty. Other folks had jobs, were about their work creating value for their businesses or their employers. I was headed back, in the middle of a weekday, to the home-improvement warehouse to exchange shelf brackets that were the wrong size.

For better or worse, adults - from what I've read, Americans in particular - define themselves by their occupations. And for the four days bookending last weekend, I lived elbow-to-elbow with the notion of having none.

It scarcely mattered that I knew I would soon be back at my work station, and that the clutter I'd left would still be there when I returned. What nagged throughout my hiatus, what nags still, is my employer having declared that it could get along without me.

If this sounds whiny, it's not meant to be. Plainly, those of us in the Media General family subject to the quarterly furloughs are generally better off than those (in every industry) who have not survived wave after wave of layoffs, and find themselves hoarding their severance packages while speed-reading "Finding A Job After 50: Reinvent Yourself for the 21st Century."

Critics At Large

Listen: Even if the reinvention gambit works out unimaginably well, the first taste of unemployment is almost always blindingly bitter. Whether let go, dismissed, laid off, pink-slipped or bought out, diminished dignity latches on like a leech, accompanied by the inevitable knotted stomach, dull headache and inability to concentrate.

These symptoms presage the aforementioned guilt: They didn't fire everybody; they're still in business; my division still operates; what was wrong with me? And so on.

It helps to know, within this communications megaplex, we're all sharing the furlough yoke, and that the strategy may pull (more/most/all of) us through this grinding recession.

That said, we're all watching with keen and persistent interest how our elected officials respond. We'll view dimly bad choices (stimulus spending ... in 2012?) that prolong the downturn or limit the speed or strength of our rebound.

After all, being unemployed means having plenty of time to critique the failures of those who help extend our identity-challenged misery.

Keyword: The Jax Files, for further musings on the state of things in Tom Jackson's blog.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT