The Evil Parrot Unemployment Guide: Your Sanity

I'm not some CEO, or human resource specialist. I'm not some economist on the telly with a Cheshire cat smile. I'm not some "doctor" on a television show. And contrary to my good man's suggestion, I'm not a life coach (yet). I am an average, single, working class bloke (with a technical college degree) that WAS unemployed for about five months towards the end of the last year. I'm not going to whine about what's wrong with politics and the usual bunk, I'll just describe my experience. Who knows, maybe some folks might find something in all this, and use it to their advantage. Time will tell.

In October, after six years of service, my work area was basically phased out. Don't worry, I'm not going to mention the name of the place nor the reason (since it is bloody pathetic and it's hard to believe that grown "professional" folks still think this way). The thing is that we knew it was coming and had started to take the usual precautionary steps (job searches, etc.). Mentally, it was a different situation. You try to put up a brave front about what's going on but the reality is that what I was doing was trying to put a cork on a rumbling volcano of emotions. This manifested into a myriad of physiological problems where your "healthy" body starts behaving in strange ways (e.g. you feel like you are shivering but your hands are as steady as ever). Needless to say, with no medical coverage, WEBMD became my best friend, and I learned some interesting things about my body. What did it take to return to normal? Watching a scene from Crash (you know with the little girl and the guy with the gun) that turned an Evil Parrot into a hysterically sobbing girlie, coiled into a fetal position. The best part about that was that the next day my body returned to normal. This happened on the last day of my job. Anxiety and stress, who would have guessed

• Point is, go with your emotions. I know, it sounds too new age-ish and non-manly, but for crying out loud be a little secure in yourself and allow yourself a bloody cry, rave, tantrum ... whatever it takes (within the boundries of the law) to get it out of your system. Just don't let it pile up and you end up being a bundle of nerves. Get it out of your system. You're going to need it. Today I have to deal with tension headaches ... a small price for keeping it locked up for months. Go figure, mates.
  
• Unless you've graduated from the Ivy Leagues, work in the medical, pharmaceutical, educational or financial fields brace yourself to spend an indefinite vacation. Yes, I have a technical degree (I was supposed to be one of the high demand workers of the "future") and I've applied across the border from Underwriters Laboratories to Home Depot. Four months later, I found work. Decent work. And not in my field. So brace yourself for this possibility.
  
• Occupy your mind and free time with little projects. Maybe there was a book or a website you started and never really followed up. Take the the time to brush up on it. Maybe learn a new software program. Or take a trip to the public library and borrow those novels that you wanted to read but never found the time to do so. If you own a digital camera, explore the possibility of being an amateur photographer and display your work on photoblogs like Flickr, and who knows, your work just might catch the right person's eye. I could go on. The point is, just keep your mind constructive and distracted WHILST doing your job searches. Trust me, mates, it is a much better option than curling up in a corner and moaning "woe is me".
  
• Resist the urge to run off to vacation spots. That is spending money that you don't have or may need for really important stuff such as rent, food, phone, power and ... cable (ok, maybe not cable). Explore the local scene. You might be surprised at what you find. Sort of like me, stumbling into Central Park in 2005 after living in NYC for 17 years. I know, it's pathetic but I was awed.
  
• Watch less of the telly. I'll be precise. Stick to the fictional stuff (CSI, Scrubs, Battlestar Galactica, etc.) and some real world stuff (the weather, period). Networks like BET, MTV, VH1 and E! are downright depressing. Showboating people with the talent of used toilet paper living the high life is bloody crippling to the psyche, especially to those of us that put ourselves through college only to find that our degrees are barely worth the price of the paper it's printed on. Avoid watching economic "analysts" on so called trust networks. These folks deliver humongous piles of bollocks whilst wearing a Cheshire cat smile that makes you wonder if you're on the same planets much less the same country with these blokes. Yes, they love to use statistics, but as someone once told me "statistics is truthful lying". That was professor that teaches statistics. Ten thousand burger joint positions gets filled equal ten thousand jobs created. Go figure. If you read the news, read online or buy a newspaper, that way you can select the juicy bits and ignore the depressing stuff. By chomping on my exposure to the telly, did wonders for my mind and made my spell a bit bearable.
  
• Lastly (and this may sound like something out of the Sound of Music or Pollyanna), always remember nothing lasts forever, and something will come around. Just keep hacking at it. My philosophy: every day I live equal numerous second chances and exponential possibilities for opportunity.
  

Tags: life, employment, unemployment, labour, people, living