My deepest regrets to Clarissa, but I don’t recall her ever creating a I-helped-Ferguson-get-a-job-after-he-was-fired-for-being-a-troll game. If Clarissa had created a game for Fergwit it would include jumping over bills, avoiding credit card company calls and chasing down EDD all while going up the ladder of employment interviews. Like her other collection of games, Clarissa would include joystick integration and a kickin’ soundtrack. Unfortunately for me there is no such game, and Clarissa did not explain it all, in fact.
It came to my attention, via several in-person and instant messaging sessions with different friends — all might I add with the best of intentions — that much like the Bermuda Triangle there is a mystery surrounding unemployment. A mystery you say? Ah yes, a mystery as to why your unemployed friends and family get noticeably perturbed when you ask them so, what’s your plan? Or, I should say, how I try to not cry out in pain. Here’s a quick rundown on the way California unemployment works — any money you earn is deducted from your weekly stipend. Of course going by the honor system that would mean that in order to survive you would have to make more money than you are getting from EDD, or get paid under the table. Full honesty here — I hate the honor code. I’m neurotic enough as it is. Throw in the honor code and I go into hives thinking about how guilty I feel that I drove my friend to the airport, got paid and didn’t mark it down. Shoot me. Pew. Pew.
So here I am. I am under-employed and trying to keep myself afloat. Not going to lie to you kids, it’s really hard. From the small things like electricity bills to the bigger hurdles like getting a new deposit for a cheaper apartment, unemployment keeps you down. Granted I put myself into some credit debt — graduate school for one, credit debt for two — but for a system that is supposed to keep you from failing it is well, failing. It’s frustrating being a part of a system that isn’t working and not having the power to fix it, or at least dialogue about it with the decision makers. All I can say is that being single with no kids barely helps and that’s even scarier to think about. I just keep truding along looking for a light. Honestly, any light will do at this point.
So, what’s my plan? I don’t have all my plans worked out. I’m looking into part time work and thinking about life in terms of phases. I shall call this phase the how-I-got-pwnd-by-life-and-kept-going. Ok, maybe that was a bit dramatic, but whatever, I used to be a theater kid — judge me.
What I can say is that I’ve asked my friend Scott to join me here on Tales from the Recently Laid Off. Scott, like me, is now under-employed. He’s a good kid and while I judge him openly for his love of chocolate, it stands to reason he has a good story to tell. I try not to judge him too hard. It just means more salt licks for me.
