I read an article from the Wall Street Journal a couple of days ago that talked about the correlation between the rising unemployment rate and obesity. It never occurred to me that being unemployed can make you fatter. However, after reading the article, I can see why in some cases being unemployed can expand your waistline.
“As the unemployment rate inches toward 10% and U.S. consumers continue to find themselves strapped for cash, many are turning to cheaper fare to better balance their budgets. That often means fast food, canned and frozen processed foods that are higher in fat and calories and are made with refined grains and sugars.”
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If you are unemployed like me, I don’t have to tell you that being unemployed sucks. Each day unemployed is a day dealing with a wide variety of emotions. Feelings of good will are usually dashed after a few phone sessions with recruiters. Depressed feelings usually turn into fear, anxiety and hopelessness. Being unemployed is a sure sign, that smacks you in the face, that life isn’t fair. Not having a job to wake up to in the morning is a deep dark hole that is suffocating, if you allow it.

I will be the first to admit that I probably need therapy. I could use several bitching and whining sessions on a comfy couch to a stranger who claims that he/she can unlock the mysteries of my mind. However, since I am unemployed, with no health insurance, paying for therapy isn’t an option at the moment. I am not sure how our new digital leader health care reform bill helps the unemployed. It appears that although his intentions are noble, the government will find a way to screw us or screw it up if the bill is signed into law.

As you can imagine, bad management is a pet peeve of mind because it has unfortunately impacted my life negatively. I have seen enough bad management in my professional lifetime, that I could write a book on how to manage. All I would need to do is take what I have seen and put into words the opposite. I have encountered managers who were either bi-polar, insecure, untrustworthy, or just down right bad. I was fortunate to avoid most of the land mines in the toxic environment created by these individuals by being sociable, working hard and covering my assets. However, despite all of my dedication to being a good employee in the face of ineptitude, I found myself on the wrong side of management decisions. If it sounds like I have an axe to grind about some of my work experiences, you are correct. I was the type of employee that showed up for work everyday, rarely complained, kept my head down and tried to do my best under the most adverse situations. I was a company man, drone, worker bee who was to scared to rock the boat.

The key word is “was” because I am no longer afraid to rock the boat. All political correctness went out the door the day I was laid off from my last job. In retrospect, I now realize that having worked for several bad managers probably has done irreversible damage to my career. I am a by-product of career suicide, even though I had little or no control over the events that led to me being in this jobless situation. The decision of a faceless individual has caused my life to come to a stand-still, it sucks and I truly hope that person doesn’t sleep well at night. Despite my somewhat cynical and negative connotations, I do have a positive outlook on moving forward.

For the first time in my life I have a sense of freedom of not being one of the worker bees anymore. I am jobless, however I am no longer stressed out worrying that my boss has a bad perception about me because they can’t relate to my quirky ways. I no longer have to bite my tongue out of fear of losing my job because I disagree or have several questions about a project that is doomed to fail no matter how many hours I put in. Also, I am not the biggest loser in the office anymore and I am no longer a pawn in the popularity contest to sit on the right hand of my boss. Since it appears that God has chosen to look after bad managers, it’s only fair that I take control of my jobless situation and do what is necessary moving forward to create my own path.

While stewing in the afterbirth of our current recession, I am very much gainfully unemployed. On my good days, I wake up in the morning and carefully send resumes to jobs I feel that I have a good chance of qualifying for and actually getting a phone interview from a recruiter. On my bad days, I just aimlessly send my resume to any job that looks good enough, fully knowing that I will never hear or see a peep from that employer. My feelings usually go from upbeat, to rage and anger, followed by depression, at the flip of a switch. One of the major downsides to being unemployed is that you have a lot of time on your hands, and if you don’t use that time wisely, those imaginary people you talk to throughout the day actually start to talk back.

I tend to spend a portion of my day, scraping the internet for news items that pertain to the state of the economy, unemployment news, and other related stories of interest. One particular news item that caught my interest was about the State of Maryland and the problems it has with its dwindling unemployment insurance fund. The state’s unemployment fund has dwindled down to $341 million. A year ago the state unemployment fund was around $900 million. In order for the State of Maryland unemployment fund to stay solvent, the state will have to triple the unemployment tax on its businesses. As you can imagine, many business owners are upset about this, claiming that they will have to lay off more individuals because of the unfair increase. The article also mentioned that 21 states have already exhausted their unemployment insurance funds and are now borrowing from the federal government to maintain them.

This chain reaction of unfortunate events is what I would call “unemployment irony”. Many business owners’ decision to purge payroll, dumping many hard working individuals into the realm of joblessness is coming back to bite them in the butt. They are faced with paying higher unemployment insurance taxes, due to the unprecedented number of individuals who are unemployed. According to US Labor stats, it is taking a unemployed individual six months on average to land a new job.  The increase in unemployment insurance tax affects all businesses across the board.  The companies that have managed not to lay off workers will feel the pinch as well.

I often wonder why, when times are tough for businesses, their first plan of action is to purge payroll.  I can somewhat understand purging payroll if you have some fat to trim.  However, I suspect some companies are doing it because if there was ever a time to dump salary for the hell of it, this would be the time.  The aftershock of the current economic crisis will be felt by many of us for years to come.  Consumer confidence is at an all time low and from the look of things, it is not getting better anytime soon.  If you are out of a job or worried about your current job, spending money unnecessarily is a luxury.  Business owners who depend on consumers to buy their goods and services will continue to see a decrease in their profit margins, causing them to lay off more individuals.  This is a vicious cycle that needs to be broken sooner rather than later.