NEWS: A Job Was Just Created

[bpr]

I first put this in Rant and Rave, where it may rightly belong. But for me it's NEWS.

This is silly, considering the macroeconomic issues that are discussed on these boards.

But I just got a job.

A full-time, benefits included job.

There are tears in my eyes as I type.

I was unemployed for 90 weeks, and now I have the opportunity to prove my worth again.

I can't even explain how it feels.

Ninety unemployed weeks are finally over.

I was laid off in May of 2009, after our clients closed funds and my employer no longer needed my services to market them, and I haven't found suitable employment until now.

Just admitting to this, and typing it brings tears to my eyes.

Well over a thousand resumes were sent in that time. At least a hundred were through personal connections, such as an HR rep at a company that I knew from school or a family member that knew a hiring manager at some company or a friend that headed up the local Chamber of Commerce.

I have fleeced every possible connection to a job in and out of my industry for almost two years.

I applied to jobs from Portland, Maine to San Diego, California, always using the local address of someone I could "crash" with should i have an actual interview.

Jesus, I never thought it would end.

There are dark places that we don't talk about.

None of us thought it would end: I have called former colleagues and superiors, all of whom are either where I was or headed even deeper into the abyss. I'm pretty sure my former employer is headed for personal bankruptcy as well as dissolution of the company.

These are dark places. I have been there.

I pray that I was able to give them some sense of hope when I called them today, to tell them that there's some sort of light we can all strive for, but I doubt it.

These are dark dark places.

They are incredibly gifted people: you would know their work. But they are in dark places. Their gifts will wilt if they are not given the opportunity to flourish again.

One colleague was literally speechless when I told him I got a job "in the industry." I could hear his tears through the phone. They were tears filed with hope and darkness, and a weird sort of gratitude. He told me he thought industry people had stopped calling him so that he wouldn't feel worse about his situation.

I apologize if I have imposed these darknesses upon you here at itulip.

I have certainly been in dark places.

Anger, frustration and fear: these are the building blocks of darkness.

Looking back, I'm sure that many of my posts here were motivated by that darkness, and I apologize for my occasional rancor.

I get angry when I read certain things.

It's instructive, I tell myself. I usually keep quiet, and hate myself a little bit more for it.

In any case, I say we all rejoice: a job was just created, and I got it.

But I know the darkness, and pray for the well being of the other applicants. I know their darkness all too well.

[Chomsky]

Re: NEWS: A Job Was Just Created

Wow.

Good luck bpr.

[globaleconomicollaps]

Re: NEWS: A Job Was Just Created

I want to tell you that I sympathize with you. I went through a period of a year without a job in 2001-2 after the dotcom collapse. It was ten years ago and I still occasionally have nightmares where I relive the humiliation of asking my mom for money long after I left the nest, or getting the "We need to talk" from friends after several months of couch surfing. The bitterness and confidence destroying self-doubt has largely gone now, but it was a constant companion for many years.

Try to put this behind you, and do as I did, and make a resolution that you will never ever let yourself be put into this situation again.

My heart goes out to you man. I was there, but this doesn't belong in news. please move it to rant and rave.

-Global

[metalman]

Re: NEWS: A Job Was Just Created

I want to tell you that I sympathize with you. I went through a period of a year without a job in 2001-2 after the dotcom collapse. It was ten years ago and I still occasionally have nightmares where I relive the humiliation of asking my mom for money long after I left the nest, or getting the "We need to talk" from friends after several months of couch surfing. The bitterness and confidence destroying self-doubt has largely gone now, but it was a constant companion for many years.

Try to put this behind you, and do as I did, and make a resolution that you will never ever let yourself be put into this situation again.

My heart goes out to you man. I was there, but this doesn't belong in news. please move it to rant and rave.

-Global

it's news... good news... & the best thing i've read on these forums for a long while. best to you, bpr. & as globaleconomicollaps sez, the layoff... we can all see it coming... it's never a surprise... & getting a job when you have one is 1000x easier than when you don't. stay paranoid & always always always keep another door open so you're never left out in the cold again.

[flintlock]

Re: NEWS: A Job Was Just Created

Excellent news! Congrats. I can't imagine what it is like to go through that kind of period unemployed. Glad that is behind you.

[thunderdownunder]

Re: NEWS: A Job Was Just Created

My congratulations. You now have "options" that will give you greater happiness.
90 weeks without the hunter/provider genes being able to be used would have been the very darkest of dark places.
May your wings lift others in need up

[don]

Re: NEWS: A Job Was Just Created

My deepest congrats, pal. Go 'tulips! When you're up to it, can you share a few unemployment insights others might find of use? Fill-in work, time management (morale management), etc.

[Rajiv]

Re: NEWS: A Job Was Just Created

bpr,

I am truly glad for your good fortune. So please accept that.

However, in this ongoing catastrophe, not everybody has been as fortunate -- to whit -- A Disillusioned 99'er Shares His Disappointment With The American Dream, Welcomes Death

"Mark", a member of the ever growing cadre of disillusioned, disenchanted and disgruntled millions of American unemployed, has written a letter shared by A Company of One, in which he explains the plight of 99'ers (those whose extended unemployment benefits are set to expire) in which he chronicles his plight and his terminal disappointment with the American system. One can only imagine how all the "99'ers" would feel if they did not have the benefit of living at least partially subsidized for 2 years in the socialist state of America. If Bahrain is any indication, where the government's attempt to purchase the love of its people just failed today, pretty soon not even the 99 weeks of EUCs will do much to suppress what is an unmistakably rising anger among the broad US population.
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It is with a heavy heart that I have set my death in motion, but what I am facing is not living. So off I go, I have made peace with God and placed my burden on Jesus and He forgives me. This nation has become evil to the core, with cold-hearted politicians and tycoons squeezing what little Main Street Americans have left. It is not the America into which I was born -- the land of the free and the home of the brave with kind folks who help neighbors -- it is now land of the Tycoon-haves and the rest of us have-nots who march into hopelessness and despair.

Every unemployed person I have met over these past two years have been saintly. Sharing what little they have, and being charitable -- being kind and patient and supportive. Isn't it amazing that we Americans who suffer so much, have not taken to the streets in violence, riots or gotten out the guillotines and marched on tycoons and Washington in revolt as would happen in most other nations? But rather we plead with deaf politicians to please help us. We don't demand huge sums -- just 300 bucks a week, barely enough to cover housing for most. Most of all we say, please help us get a job, please allow us dignity.

I can't help but juxtapose our plight to the tycoons and politicians. They are never satisfied with their enormous wealth, and always want more millions no matter whom it hurts. They STEAL from pension funds, banks, the people and government, and little Wall Street investors. Then rather than face punishment, they become petty kings in this world. They are disloyal to America, unpatriotic, and serve their own foreign UN-American greedy causes and demand more and more and more. I feel that this is not the nation into which I was born. I was born in America, the land of the free and the home of the brave. America, where people give as much as they receive. America, where all people work for the common good, and try to leave a better and more prosperous nation for the next generation. America, where people help their neighbors and show charity and mercy. This new America is alien to me -- it is an America of greed and corruption and avarice and mean spirited selfishness and hatred of the common good -- it is an America of savage beasts roaring and tearing at the weak, and bullying the humble and peacemakers and poor and those without means to defend themselves. I am not welcome here anymore. I don't belong here anymore. It's as if some evil beast controls government, the economy, and our lives now.

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Also from the Burning Platform -- GRAPES OF WRATH – 2011

“And the great owners, who must lose their land in an upheaval, the great owners with access to history, with eyes to read history and to know the great fact: when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that companion fact: when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed.” – John Steinbeck – Grapes of Wrath


John Steinbeck wrote his masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath at the age of 37 in 1939, at the tail end of the Great Depression. Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize for literature. John Ford then made a classic film adaption in 1941, starring Henry Fonda. It is considered one of the top 25 films in American history. The book was also one of the most banned in US history. Steinbeck was ridiculed as a communist and anti-capitalist by showing support for the working poor. Some things never change, as the moneyed interests that control the media message have attempted to deflect the blame for our current Depression away from their fraudulent deeds. The novel stands as a chronicle of the Great Depression and as a commentary on the economic and social system that gave rise to it. Steinbeck’s opus to the working poor reverberates across the decades. He wrote the novel in the midst of the last Fourth Turning Crisis. His themes of man’s inhumanity to man, the dignity and rage of the working class, and the selfishness and greed of the moneyed class ring true today.


Steinbeck became the champion of the working class. When he decided to write a novel about the plight of migrant farm workers, he took his task very seriously. To prepare, he lived with an Oklahoma farm family and made the journey with them to California. Seventy years later the plight of the working class is the same. If Steinbeck were alive today he would live with a Michigan auto manufacturing family making a journey to fantasyland of green energy, where automobiles ran on corn and sunshine. The working class bore the brunt of the Great Depression in the 1930s and they are bearing the burden during our current Greater Depression. Steinbeck knew who the culprits were seventy years ago. We know who the culprits are today. They are one in the same. The moneyed banking interests caused the Great Depression and they created the disastrous collapse that has thus far destroyed 7 million middle class jobs. Steinbeck understood that the poor working class of this country had more dignity and compassion for their fellow man than any Wall Street banker out for enrichment at the expense of the working class.

I have been asking people to read about Modern Monetary Theory -- with a very specific purpose in mind -- it did not have to be this way, and it still does not have to be this way. I juxtapositioning Ralph Musgraves article -- “Make work”, the Job Guarantee, WPA, etc: should they be limited to the public sector?

Summary.

Make work schemes, like the WPA in the U.S. in the 1930s do not make sense. However they involve temporary subsidised work for the unemployed. And temporary subsidised work for the unemployed with EXISTING employers, as distinct from “specially set up employers” like make work schemes, DOES make sense. Plus there is no reason to confine this sort of work to the public sector.

Temporary subsidised work with existing employers actually amounts to something very similar to a totally free labour market, that is a labour market with no artificial interferences like minimum wage laws. While the price that employers pay for such labour can be “free market price”, i.e. very low, obviously the take home pay of the relevant employees must be up to socially acceptable levels.

If you find this article hard going, don’t worry. I estimate the number of people on planet Earth with enough brain and enough genuine interest in the subject to understand the article to be about three!


Introduction.

The idea that there are an almost infinite number of useful jobs the unemployed could do is as old as the stars. Pericles in Ancient Greece 2,500 years ago had the unemployed work on public sector construction projects. And more recently in the U.S. in the 1930s millions were employed on schemes of this sort: the “WPA” for example (which stood for Work Progress Administration).

And then there is the particular form of “make work” currently advocated by some Modern Monetary Theory enthusiasts, namely the so called “Job Guarantee”.

In principle, unemployment can be reduced to zero at the flick of a switch by schemes of this sort. For a very crude illustration, we could tell the unemployed their benefits are henceforth conditional on walking round their neighbourhood keeping it free of litter. Those accepting the work would be deemed to be employed. And those refusing would be deemed to have turned down work, and are therefore not unemployed. Hey Presto: unemployment vanishes.

Incidentally, I’ll refer to WPA, Job Guarantee, and similar schemes below as “make work”, for want of a better phrase.


Limit make work to the public sector?
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[Thailandnotes]

Re: NEWS: A Job Was Just Created

http://www.accessmylibrary.com/artic...ng-grapes.html


RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, John Steinbeck's work of fiction, "The Grapes of
Wrath", has offended our citizenry by falsely implying that many
of our fine people are a low, ignortant [sic], profane and
blasphemous type living in a vicious and filthy manner, and
WHEREAS, Steinbeck presents our public officials, law enforcement
office and civil administrators, business men, farmers, and
ordinary citizens as inhumane vigilantes, breathing class hatred and
divested of sympathy or human decency or understanding toward
a great, and to us unwelcome, economic problem brought by an
astounding influx of refugees, indigent farmers, who were dusted
or tractored or forclosed [sic] out of Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska,
Arkansas, Missouri, Texas and others of our sister states, and
WHEREAS, Steinbeck chose to ignore the education, recreation,
hospitalization, welfare and relief services, unexcelled by any
other political subdivision in the United States made available by
Kern County to every person resident in Kern County, and
WHEREAS, "Grapes of Wrath" is filled with profanity, lewd, foul, and
obscene language unfit for use in American homes, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, that we, the BOARD OF SUPERVISORS, in defense
of our free enterprises and of people who have been unduly
wronged request that the production of the motion picture film,
"Grapes of Wrath", adapted from the Steinbeck novel, not be
completed by the Twentieth Century-Fox film corporation and request
that use and possession and circulation of the novel, "Grapes of
Wrath", be banned from our library and schools.

[Rajiv]

Re: NEWS: A Job Was Just Created

http://www.accessmylibrary.com/artic...ng-grapes.html


RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, John Steinbeck's work of fiction, "The Grapes of
Wrath", has offended our citizenry

Further from the article you quoted -

The desperate conditions in farming areas of some southern and Plains states resulted from a composite of causes. The Great Depression was in full force, making cash and jobs scarce and, as a result, causing prices for farm products to decrease. The board's resolution mentions people being "forclosed [sic] out" of their farms. This was certainly the case for some farmers who in the boom times before the Depression had mortgaged their farms and become unable to make payments; others were tenant farmers who could no longer pay their landlords. Being "tractored ... out" refers to the increasing mechanization of farming that displaced hand pickers from the harvest, particularly of cotton. Finally, to add the crowning blow to these already-crushing economic circumstances, the drought brought these dry-crop farmers to their knees; farmers simply had no crops to harvest; farm laborers had no crops to pick. So, they moved. Carey McWilliams, California's controversial director of immigration and housing, reports that in 1935 and 1936 "87,302 migratory workers entered California of whom nine tenths were white persons and over a third of whom were from Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas." (5) These migrants, who came to be collectively known as Okies, changed the face and culture of California, particularly the San Joaquin Valley, of which Kern County is a part.

The causes are almost always systemic -- but the effects are almost always felt at a local, family and individual level. Kern County, just as the 50 states today, was figuratively "between a rock and a hard place."

[Thailandnotes]

Re: NEWS: A Job Was Just Created

My father grew up in Ft. Smith. He was playing sandlot ball when all this was happening. The way he descibes it, every week some friend was coming by to say, "We're packing up, see you later." Heading for who knows what.

[bpr]

Re: NEWS: A Job Was Just Created

I want to tell you that I sympathize with you. I went through a period of a year without a job in 2001-2 after the dotcom collapse. It was ten years ago and I still occasionally have nightmares where I relive the humiliation of asking my mom for money long after I left the nest, or getting the "We need to talk" from friends after several months of couch surfing. The bitterness and confidence destroying self-doubt has largely gone now, but it was a constant companion for many years.

Try to put this behind you, and do as I did, and make a resolution that you will never ever let yourself be put into this situation again.

My heart goes out to you man. I was there, but this doesn't belong in news. please move it to rant and rave.

-Global

Lol. I already put behind 2000-2001.

There was no couch-surfing, and your insinuation that this kind of situation can be avoided so readily is more than a little offensive given the economy that we're in.

2000-2001 was child's play, and you should say a nightly prayer for everyone you had the opportunity to crash with during that time.

After earning my BA I returned to my employer for six months and finally moved to New York on September 1, 2001.

Re-read that for a second, and do the math. My roommate worked in Building Five.

Before 9/11 I had no less than forty freelance clients, all of whom canceled jobs within a week. I had already signed a lease; couches were not an option in 2001 for me.

I've been through this before, but worse.

This time around, at least I could collect unemployment and I entered trade school to offset the loss and occupy my time. It beats the hell out of being a mover for $14 an hour when your rent is $1200 a month. (After 9/11 I was a mover for Citigroup's legal department for two weeks and got to experience Chuck Prince as General Counsel and saw the whole legal department change when he was in the office... amazing, but not worth the Brooklyn rent at $14/hr).

Your self-righteousness betrays your lack of understanding.

Oh, yeah, I started my own company in 2006.

[bpr]

Re: NEWS: A Job Was Just Created

it's news... good news... & the best thing i've read on these forums for a long while. best to you, bpr. & as globaleconomicollaps sez, the layoff... we can all see it coming... it's never a surprise... & getting a job when you have one is 1000x easier than when you don't. stay paranoid & always always always keep another door open so you're never left out in the cold again.

Thank you, MM.

I totally agree, and understand everything you're saying.

I didn't mean to imply that I was sitting on my ass waiting for a job for ninety weeks, though I'm sure some people took it that way.

And this job isn't the end of the rainbow, by any means. But it looks a hell of a lot better than "independent contractor" or "freelancer" on my resume.

This job pays 2/3 of my former position, and I fought hard for the starting salary.

I'm also a full-time student earning certification in a totally different industry, because I understand that my job didn't exist 20 years ago, and it won't exist in another 20 years.

[globaleconomicollaps]

Re: NEWS: A Job Was Just Created

Lol. I already put behind 2000-2001.

There was no couch-surfing, and your insinuation that this kind of situation can be avoided so readily is more than a little offensive given the economy that we're in.

2000-2001 was child's play, and you should say a nightly prayer for everyone you had the opportunity to crash with during that time.

After earning my BA I returned to my employer for six months and finally moved to New York on September 1, 2001.

Re-read that for a second, and do the math. My roommate worked in Building Five.

Before 9/11 I had no less than forty freelance clients, all of whom canceled jobs within a week. I had already signed a lease; couches were not an option in 2001 for me.

I've been through this before, but worse.

This time around, at least I could collect unemployment and I entered trade school to offset the loss and occupy my time. It beats the hell out of being a mover for $14 an hour when your rent is $1200 a month. (After 9/11 I was a mover for Citigroup's legal department for two weeks and got to experience Chuck Prince as General Counsel and saw the whole legal department change when he was in the office... amazing, but not worth the Brooklyn rent at $14/hr).

Your self-righteousness betrays your lack of understanding.

Oh, yeah, I started my own company in 2006.

Look friend, Don't take me wrong. I "prepared" for a prolonged period of unemployment by skipping restaurant meals and taking a second job on weekends for several years to have a cushion. I did another thing that in retrospect was a god send. I decided not to buy a house at the top of the bubble. As of right now I am unemployed ( the company I worked for folded ). Due to a chance event, I have enough money to hold me for a while, but even without that I had more than a year of savings in the bank before I was layed off. Oh, and by the way If you don't want my sympathy, I will be sure to keep my opinions to myself in future.

[bpr]

Re: NEWS: A Job Was Just Created

bpr,

I am truly glad for your good fortune. So please accept that.

However, in this ongoing catastrophe, not everybody has been as fortunate -- to whit -- A Disillusioned 99'er Shares His Disappointment With The American Dream, Welcomes Death

Rajiv, my heart is with the plight of the unemployed. I know them well: they are my colleagues, my family, and I was one.

You seem to imply that I don't understand the global situation we're in.

Perhaps you missed the end of my post:

(I) pray for the well being of the other applicants. I know their darkness all too well.

There were over 300 applicants for this job, which was posted online for only four days. Not in a major market, but a town of under 100,000 people.

It pays 2/3 of my former salary, about a third of what it would pay in a better (larger) market.

Back to Mark: I feel like I know him: I know people in his position. I have a duty to call them and encourage them, reinforce their worth as much as possible. Without family, however...

The problem is structural, and the sooner we realize this the sooner we will avoid these kinds of situations.

Americans (and, indeed, "global citizens") define themselves by their jobs, not by the lives they live.

This is a cultural problem as much as an economic one.

As for MMT, I'm all for it as a new understanding of our economic systems. PythonicCow and I had a humorous back and forth trying to understand it a few months ago*, before we found your posts.

I think there are some specific areas where our government can help the unemployed in my own industry; I just don't know how to initiate them. I have looked into the opportunities at www.fbo.gov, and it seems that they are limited to relatively large operations, while some work can actually be done by very few experienced professionals far cheaper than the rates expected.

I'm all for a modern WPA, perhaps as a mediation between workers and FBO. The federal government spends way too much on advertising alone given the number of people out there on public assistance who have proven track records of success in creating global brands.

Many of my former colleagues are in similar straits as the "Mark" from ZeroHedge. Admittedly, most have living family to either support or harass them.

Some, however, don't. All you can do is support them. Give them a call and see how they're doing.

Every major ad agency has laid off creatives en masse since 2008. Ogilvy laid off so many people at one time that they told them not to pack up their things, that they'd be packed and shipped to residences, so as to avoid a caravan of people carrying boxes out of their offices.

Ogilvy got the "Let's Move" campaign, which, amazingly, has a wide footprint in right-wing radio (the "Lets Move" campaign has run widely in radio for both Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage, meaning that the First Lady's own initiative is funding radio that is overtly anti-president).

Many of the unemployed are receiving unemployment benefits, and could be creating ads for initiatives like "Let's Move," or "Army of One" at a cut rate, while strengthening their portfolios, rather than languishing the way they are: if you get $300 a week from the government for doing nothing, you feel like crap; if the government paid you $300 a week to make something valuable for it, you at least have some self-worth, and you have something new to show potential employers.

In any case, you seem to think I don't quite understand the plight of the unemployed, so I'll tell you some stories.

A guy who used to make $400k as a creative director with a proven track record, a guy that turned a regional cookie company with under $2 million in revenue into a global brand with over $40 million in revenue, a guy who has 2 commercials in the permanent collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a guy with the ethical stance to walk away from an eight-figure industry-leading client because he disagreed with the client's insistence on marketing their cereals as "healthy" is unemployed. He's living with his parents, now in their eighties. He's on unemployment assistance.

I've had the suicide conversation with him. He's a first cousin of mine, and the reason I got into advertising to begin with. I was there at the right time. I pried the gun from his hand and gave him a pen, told him to write.

A nurse for thirty-five years at the same hospital. She's personally dealing with a mother stricken with Alzheimer's and her hospital was just closed. All she knows is caring for the patients in her ward and reading the doctors at the hospital, which she was very good at.

A corporate lawyer, who's salary once allowed for her husband to follow his dream of tracking down public corruption as a federal prosecutor. She lost her job, forcing him to move into the private sector, with far more hours but the same pay since he is not bringing any corporate clients to the firm, though he is one of the most highly regarded litigators in Northern New Jersey/Manhattan. The idea is he will eventually get a raise and start bringing in clients.

These aren't some middle-managers who's position was created by corporate largess that we can blame on FIRE. These are people we need to deal with and compensate accordingly. I'm not seeing any of the wage inflation that we're expecting yet.

BTW, all of these folks are in my immediate family, and there are probably more who aren't admitting to their problems.