I remember when I first began to understand the way my parents raised my brother, sister and I. It was a moment of triumph, glory and glee. See, I did AmeriCorp right after college. Part of the program I was involved in required us to read a book on working with children. It was brilliant, and by brilliant I mean that it was like a window into my youth. I had found the holy grail of raising kids, my parents style. Granted it wasn’t as successful on me as my siblings, but that’s what happens when you’re the youngest of three. It’s not that you are born different. It’s that you choose to be difficult from birth. Honest. I had to sign a difficult contract.
Like children, unemployed people need to be approached carefully. One must come with a strategic plan in place. We unemployed can smell weakness and poor planning. So friendly working employed people, how do you talk to unemployed people so unemployed people will listen and listen so unemployed people will talk? Here are my friendly tips:
1. Avoid telling us how we are feeling.
No one likes to be told you look tired today. If we aren’t tired then suddenly we realize that it was mistake not to buy the eye brightener at Sephora. Crap! That sales girl was right. If we are tired then it’s a reminder that we are not as young as we once were, and watching The Wire marathon the night before was probably not the best idea for a successful morning.
A simple observation goes a long way. How’s your morning going? You aren’t moving as fast as you usually do. Nice, kind and observant, notice there was no mention of tired, wrinkles, or black circles. Let unemployed people talk to you about they they are moving slower. You’ll be surprised at the willingness of an unemployed person to detail their night of television and Internet consumption to willing ears.
2. Pause.
It sometimes takes us unemployed people a while to formulate our feelings and emotions. Putting things like that into words and describing them to the working employed in a language they understand takes time. Give us a second. Silence can be golden, especially when you hear what we have to say.
3. Observe and wait
Good friends, we will come when we are ready. Not everything makes sense to us right now and we will probably say a lot of things that are contradicting. Let that be ok. No need to point that out now. Leave that for when we are working again then you can tell us all the stupid things we ever said. Trust me, it will never be funny but we will pretend to laugh along with you. I have my family to thank for the stupid kids things I said. They like to remind me of all the words I mispronounced. So I said strawbabies instead of strawberries, so what? Creative I tell you.
It’s not so hard to talk to us unemployed kids. Some of us are feisty, others are sullen, some even lash out, it’s all good. We’re learning and growing, and we do appreciate all of you. We will talk, eventually. Just give us time.
