November 2001

I Ain't Be Got No Job

I gots no job.

I hear that about 400,000 other Americans also do not have jobs of late. The economy, which was headed into the shitter has landed me into the jobless pool. Oh, I always wanted to be a statistic, it seems like everyone else got to but me, just not the unemployed kind. It is nice to know that sometimes, these things do affect people.

My former employers deemed my position, in their marketing department, expendable. How that makes sense, I cannot figure out. I have no idea how they propose to attract more work with less marketing help, but I can't explain this simple fact to them; they laid me off. I guess I just have to admit that I worked for fucking idiots.

My former industry, architecture, is failing rapidly. Hell the country is headed for the fucking dump, and Bush's economic stimulus package is a joke. We are facing the worst recession in 20 years, and he wants to give tax breaks to large corporations and the wealthy. This does nothing for the vast majority of citizens, people who could use the most help. People like me.

As part of the economic 'recovery' package, the bison-meat industry is slated to get a $10 million boost. What the fuck for? Who eats bison anyway? besides Ted Nugent? When in time did propping up the bison meat industry become a national priority? Give me some of THAT cash, christ almighty.

So I return to my former place of employment, to pick up severance pay. I enter the studio, and am immediately barraged with questions about projects I had worked on at one point. It seems that caught in the lay-offs were the two people (myself and an industrial designer) who knew how to use the graphic design programs in the office. I told my former co-workers that I was flattered by the attention, but that I really could not help.

Not without getting paid.

So what do I do now?

I sit around a lot. While the majority of the country is working, I am not working and getting paid. The government deemed me worthy of unemployment compensation, so now I get to 'look for work,' and get paid. I sleep in, I sit in the local deli in the mornings, with other out-of-work folk. I go out almost every night, as every night is a weekend night. I have a lot of 'me' time. When you are working late, stuck in traffic, in a boring meeting, remember that I am probably at home watching TEEvee, doing nothing.

Somebody give me a fucking job.