Unemployment 101
I've been here before. And by "here" I mean once again unemployed. I didn't mean "here" as in sitting in my underpants watching The E! True Hollywood Story Investigates: Curse Of The Lottery at 1pm on a Tuesday. Incidentally, I have actually been there before as well.
I know unemployment sounds ideal, especially in these fine summer months. Thanks to the dissolution of my department (read: a two-woman team we liked to call "Original Programs"), that ever-generous state of New York will be sending me Unemployment Insurance Benefits every week for the next few months. Free money, right? And no work obligation. I can lay out in the park or on my roof if the fancy strikes. Sleep till noon and still read the paper in bed. Head out to my ountry house (friends' couches in Westport) on a whim. Unfortunately, it's not all it is chalked up to be.
It's easy to get sucked into yet another episode of The X-Files or Monk (though at this point I've seen them all. Twice.), but it is helpful to stay on some sort of schedule in order to maintain a semblance of sanity. Not that I always live and die by these rules, but there are a few ways I try to get through the days/weeks/months (let's hope not) that I would like to pass on to you.
ATTIRE
Something I have quickly learned: Sweatpants are not okay to wear in public. Unless it is a Sunday, you are incredibly hungover, and you are simply running downstairs to pick up a pint of ice cream or a burger from Shake Shack during the commercial break of a Top Model marathon. (Or Coyote Ugly, but you know that shit will be on at least three stations - thankyouverymuch Turner Broadcasting - so that's really no excuse.) It is mportant to get yourself up and dressed everyday, even if you don't necessarily feel like it. If you stay in your pajamas or kimono until 5pm you will hate yourself. Trust me...the day will end with tears and the throwing of otherwise inoffensive clothing items all over your room. Fashion is a skill, much like tennis or abstinence. And not exercising that muscle on a daily basis will make it nearly impossible to get dressed the next time you actually have to leave your lair.
Yesterday is a prime example. One of the loveliest parts of collecting unemployment is proving to the Department of Labor that you are, truly, être au chômage and looking for a job. Therefore, you are required to come in and attend a Career Workshop down in the particularly charming neighborhood known as "that no-man's-land by the holland tunnel entrance."
Naturally, realizing that my favorite summer dresses all have names like Diane, Stella, Missoni and Derek (not exactly Mandee, Strawberry or Forever 21), I faced the challenge of not only dressing myself to face the elements, but also dressing appropriately for the occasion. To make matters worse (or better, depending on how you look at it), the Unemployment Office wasn't my first stop of the day. I had a brunch date at Balthazar at 11am. Talk about a conundrum.
I eventually settled on a blousy black tee with dark denim and a brown purse (it was Loeffler Randall but I guarantee nobody there would have known). I slipped off the Hermes watch and bracelet before I entered the (wholly pointless) group meeting. Not that it mattered - the way the economy is these days, there were plenty of bankers and lawyers in the room as well. Come to think of it, I should have dressed up. Maybe I would've bagged myself a husband. (And you know me - that's always been my loftiest goal.)
Point is, not only is fashion fun, it can serve as an activity for your otherwise empty day.
NUTRITION
Being out of work, one of the best ways to keep yourself busy is by having dinners, drinks, lunches and coffees with your employed friends. It gets you out of the house and keeps one sane and social. However, the point is mildly moot since you have neither
A) the funds to go out to dinner, nor
B) anything to discuss
Your friends have undoubtedly very little-to-no interest in what happened on Tyra today, or how jacked up her wig was. Therefore, it is best to dine whenever you can, at home. Painful, but true.
I highly recommend getting yourself out of the house and to the supermarket once you come to terms with this. Otherwise, you may find yourself eating the entire contents of your fridge in one sitting. Yes, while it's a Top Chef!-worthy discovery that vanilla soy milk, organic peanut butter and Claussen pickles make a surprisingly delicious three-course tasting menu, I highly doubt it is nutritionally sound. Furthermore, cereal is a major food group but not the only major food group. Avoid what I have done on more than one occasion. Carbs can be your friend but not when you start with an appetizer of Kashi, lead in to an entree of Uncle Sam's, and polish it off with a nice dessert bowl of Cinnamon Life. I have also found that a tall glass of 2008 multigrain Tostitos with Sabra hummus help it all go down smooth. 15 months of culinary school - worth every penny!
ACTIVITIES
Going to the gym every day is one absolute given - endorphins are imperative at a time like this. You will feel better about yourself. It forces you to get out of bed, to shower and to get dressed (see: ATTIRE). It brings oxygen to your otherwise clouded and unsharpened mind, and it counteracts the effects of CarbFest '08 (see: NUTRITION). But once that 60-80 minutes of your day has passed you find yourself asking: Now what?
Museums are a great choice, though if you are anything like me you have probably already hightailed it to the 6 exhibitions worth seeing at the 3 museums worth visiting in your hometown. Coffee shops are nice because they keep you away from the TV and get you to interact with other people, but too much caffeine and you are even more anxious than before (and probably $10 poorer).
Try to plan little outings for yourself. Incredible that when you were working full time you found free moments to steal away to Duane Reade and Whole Foods and your cobbler and the cleaners, yet now that you are home all day dragging your ass to the deli downstairs seems like such a hassle? Well turn that frown upside down because now the most miniscule of daily trips and tasks can become your entire day's activity! I find that when I have one goal - grocery shop, renew a driver's license, post office - and I get it done I feel better about myself. For example, even though it made up 60 of the most boring and insignificant minutes of my life, the hour I spent at the Unemployment Office gave me a purpose. I had to be somewhere and talk to someone.
So getting out of the house is good. But when getting out of the house is not an option or you are slowly becoming agoraphobic (a disease often associated with Unemployment, along with Low Self Esteem and Depleted Checking Accounts - don't worry friends, they're incommunicable), you must get creative with indoor activities. May I suggest cooking? Scouring your pantry for edible items and trying to create a feast. Or when you get a craving for something, why not run downstairs and buy the ingredients to make it yourself?
Also try:
Rearranging furniture
Organizing your closet
Laundry
Waxing yourself (BONUS! You also save $$$)
Waxing a friend
Calling your parents for purposes of: venting/crying/agonizing/unconditional loving/asking for money
Playing with yourself (when I mentioned to a good friend of mine - a comedian, of course - that I spent a lot of my time with battery-operated devices, his reply was "Yeah, I know, Chaden. I've been unemployed too." It is a universal day-filler.)
Now that I have been out of work, oh, say, 4 times in as many years, I am able to start this round of paycheck-free living with an entirely different outlook. I wish someone had offered this advice to me in the past, and I hope that it helps you now. At the very least, if you are the dolt sitting in a cubicle wishing you were in my situation, it should give you a laugh. Now, you need to get back to "making calls" (reading usmagazine.com), and I need to get back to "networking" (watching Law & Order).
NB: Looking back on this post it occurs to me that my neighbors must love me. How many people hold cook-offs with themselves in their underpants in the middle of the day? See? Unemployment is anything but boring.
I know unemployment sounds ideal, especially in these fine summer months. Thanks to the dissolution of my department (read: a two-woman team we liked to call "Original Programs"), that ever-generous state of New York will be sending me Unemployment Insurance Benefits every week for the next few months. Free money, right? And no work obligation. I can lay out in the park or on my roof if the fancy strikes. Sleep till noon and still read the paper in bed. Head out to my ountry house (friends' couches in Westport) on a whim. Unfortunately, it's not all it is chalked up to be.
It's easy to get sucked into yet another episode of The X-Files or Monk (though at this point I've seen them all. Twice.), but it is helpful to stay on some sort of schedule in order to maintain a semblance of sanity. Not that I always live and die by these rules, but there are a few ways I try to get through the days/weeks/months (let's hope not) that I would like to pass on to you.
ATTIRE
Something I have quickly learned: Sweatpants are not okay to wear in public. Unless it is a Sunday, you are incredibly hungover, and you are simply running downstairs to pick up a pint of ice cream or a burger from Shake Shack during the commercial break of a Top Model marathon. (Or Coyote Ugly, but you know that shit will be on at least three stations - thankyouverymuch Turner Broadcasting - so that's really no excuse.) It is mportant to get yourself up and dressed everyday, even if you don't necessarily feel like it. If you stay in your pajamas or kimono until 5pm you will hate yourself. Trust me...the day will end with tears and the throwing of otherwise inoffensive clothing items all over your room. Fashion is a skill, much like tennis or abstinence. And not exercising that muscle on a daily basis will make it nearly impossible to get dressed the next time you actually have to leave your lair.
Yesterday is a prime example. One of the loveliest parts of collecting unemployment is proving to the Department of Labor that you are, truly, être au chômage and looking for a job. Therefore, you are required to come in and attend a Career Workshop down in the particularly charming neighborhood known as "that no-man's-land by the holland tunnel entrance."
Naturally, realizing that my favorite summer dresses all have names like Diane, Stella, Missoni and Derek (not exactly Mandee, Strawberry or Forever 21), I faced the challenge of not only dressing myself to face the elements, but also dressing appropriately for the occasion. To make matters worse (or better, depending on how you look at it), the Unemployment Office wasn't my first stop of the day. I had a brunch date at Balthazar at 11am. Talk about a conundrum.
I eventually settled on a blousy black tee with dark denim and a brown purse (it was Loeffler Randall but I guarantee nobody there would have known). I slipped off the Hermes watch and bracelet before I entered the (wholly pointless) group meeting. Not that it mattered - the way the economy is these days, there were plenty of bankers and lawyers in the room as well. Come to think of it, I should have dressed up. Maybe I would've bagged myself a husband. (And you know me - that's always been my loftiest goal.)
Point is, not only is fashion fun, it can serve as an activity for your otherwise empty day.
NUTRITION
Being out of work, one of the best ways to keep yourself busy is by having dinners, drinks, lunches and coffees with your employed friends. It gets you out of the house and keeps one sane and social. However, the point is mildly moot since you have neither
A) the funds to go out to dinner, nor
B) anything to discuss
Your friends have undoubtedly very little-to-no interest in what happened on Tyra today, or how jacked up her wig was. Therefore, it is best to dine whenever you can, at home. Painful, but true.
I highly recommend getting yourself out of the house and to the supermarket once you come to terms with this. Otherwise, you may find yourself eating the entire contents of your fridge in one sitting. Yes, while it's a Top Chef!-worthy discovery that vanilla soy milk, organic peanut butter and Claussen pickles make a surprisingly delicious three-course tasting menu, I highly doubt it is nutritionally sound. Furthermore, cereal is a major food group but not the only major food group. Avoid what I have done on more than one occasion. Carbs can be your friend but not when you start with an appetizer of Kashi, lead in to an entree of Uncle Sam's, and polish it off with a nice dessert bowl of Cinnamon Life. I have also found that a tall glass of 2008 multigrain Tostitos with Sabra hummus help it all go down smooth. 15 months of culinary school - worth every penny!
ACTIVITIES
Going to the gym every day is one absolute given - endorphins are imperative at a time like this. You will feel better about yourself. It forces you to get out of bed, to shower and to get dressed (see: ATTIRE). It brings oxygen to your otherwise clouded and unsharpened mind, and it counteracts the effects of CarbFest '08 (see: NUTRITION). But once that 60-80 minutes of your day has passed you find yourself asking: Now what?
Museums are a great choice, though if you are anything like me you have probably already hightailed it to the 6 exhibitions worth seeing at the 3 museums worth visiting in your hometown. Coffee shops are nice because they keep you away from the TV and get you to interact with other people, but too much caffeine and you are even more anxious than before (and probably $10 poorer).
Try to plan little outings for yourself. Incredible that when you were working full time you found free moments to steal away to Duane Reade and Whole Foods and your cobbler and the cleaners, yet now that you are home all day dragging your ass to the deli downstairs seems like such a hassle? Well turn that frown upside down because now the most miniscule of daily trips and tasks can become your entire day's activity! I find that when I have one goal - grocery shop, renew a driver's license, post office - and I get it done I feel better about myself. For example, even though it made up 60 of the most boring and insignificant minutes of my life, the hour I spent at the Unemployment Office gave me a purpose. I had to be somewhere and talk to someone.
So getting out of the house is good. But when getting out of the house is not an option or you are slowly becoming agoraphobic (a disease often associated with Unemployment, along with Low Self Esteem and Depleted Checking Accounts - don't worry friends, they're incommunicable), you must get creative with indoor activities. May I suggest cooking? Scouring your pantry for edible items and trying to create a feast. Or when you get a craving for something, why not run downstairs and buy the ingredients to make it yourself?
Also try:
Rearranging furniture
Organizing your closet
Laundry
Waxing yourself (BONUS! You also save $$$)
Waxing a friend
Calling your parents for purposes of: venting/crying/agonizing/unconditional loving/asking for money
Playing with yourself (when I mentioned to a good friend of mine - a comedian, of course - that I spent a lot of my time with battery-operated devices, his reply was "Yeah, I know, Chaden. I've been unemployed too." It is a universal day-filler.)
Now that I have been out of work, oh, say, 4 times in as many years, I am able to start this round of paycheck-free living with an entirely different outlook. I wish someone had offered this advice to me in the past, and I hope that it helps you now. At the very least, if you are the dolt sitting in a cubicle wishing you were in my situation, it should give you a laugh. Now, you need to get back to "making calls" (reading usmagazine.com), and I need to get back to "networking" (watching Law & Order).
NB: Looking back on this post it occurs to me that my neighbors must love me. How many people hold cook-offs with themselves in their underpants in the middle of the day? See? Unemployment is anything but boring.
posted by Chaden at 7:31 PM
1 Comments:
Classic advice, although perhaps "battery operated devices" are TMI for family members ;-)
I have a fun activity for you, hit the baby stores so that you can help your dear sweet pregnant employed sister decorate a nursery.
So glad that you are back to blogging, I love your writing!
XO, Sissy
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