one of my good friends, broad minded, got laid off today. the pool of my friends who are unemployed is bigger than those who are employed. this is scary for a couple of reasons--first, just because of the sheer statistics. i'm not a mathematician and don't use excel (like SOME people i know ::wink wink::: hotch) but i would say the percentage is high. second, because many of us work in the same field with the same skill set and in our geographic location, the publishing jobs are few and far between.
i have had a stomach bug for the last two days, or maybe it's allergies, i don't know but i have felt like crapulence (a word i stole from ali at callapipper tree). do not utter the words swine flu because that whole situation is starting to freak me the hell out as well.
you would think that i have oodles of free time, at least i thought i would. but, omg, do you realize the paperwork and red tape you have to go through to be unemployed? not only the crap from the company i worked at but then there's insurance shit and COBRA. and, companies have an inordinate amount of time to send you all of this information, by law, forgetting that the papers they're shuffling have people and families behind them, people who need their severance money and need their insurance etc. it is such a pain in the ass.
this morning i have been combing through job site after job site to find something to apply for. the companies that want you to fill out online applications (like government jobs or universities) holy hell they could not make the process any more involved and cumbersome. just shoot me. it took me about 3 1/2 hours to find and fill out forms for two freaking jobs. blech.
i talked with one of the girls who got laid off when i did this morning and she is in the funk as well. she'd been w/ the company twice as long as i had and is really feeling that loss a lot harder. i think, at least for now, i am feeling emotionally better.
i would feel even better if i saw hope on the horizon or light at the end of the tunnel. reading through pages and pages of want ads and coming up with two jobs to apply for, and those aren't even really in my field, which is totally fine, is just mind boggling. i am not committed to staying in my field, but then again i don't want to start all over again in something totally foreign making 10-20k less. i simply can't afford to do that.
there is a huge demand for nurses or anything health care related; truck drivers; sales associates or customer service reps.
i have at least two other posts brewing in my head, posts that are not unemployed whiner related or poor me related, but for now i have some housework to do before i pick up the boy who is cashing in on our last day of health insurance w/ a trip to the doc for is allergy eczema.
i will leave you with this moving paragraph i just swiped from broad's blog. she is one of my bff's in person. aside from the hubs (who, bless his heart has been pretty amazing through all of this shit, well, most days ; ) because damn we've had a lot to digest in the last two months) broad and big t have been saving graces for me. i wonder if being unemployed will change the tone of broad's blog, which has historically been based on politics (which she knows i am not passionate about). she is an incredible writer, sarcastic, witty, etc. and she's the first person i ever heard use the word snarky.
"What I expect from my male friends is that they are polite and clean. What I expect from my female friends is unconditional love, the ability to finish my sentences for me when I am sobbing, a complete and total willingness to pour their hearts out to me, and the ability to tell me why the meat thermometer isn't supposed to touch the bone." —Anna Quindlen, Living Out Loud
oh, and just because i want to rub it in your face---the hubs came home early yesterday and we had sex in the middle of the afternoon! LOL
14 comments:
LOl at your closing line, and can I just say that I immediately scrolled up to see if your "sexual healing" tally had changed...(although I'm not sure it did because I didn't recall it from the last visit).
only a movie: It did change, it was at 7. They are like monkeys. or rabbits. I used to feel good about our stats, but now I feel like me and Mr. P are monks. or nuns. (not priests, I think they get more action that us).
Anyhow, sorry that things are still brutal...last day of health insurance? That scares me! Be careful and stay away from pigs and hispanics.
TOTALLY kidding on the last line, just a bad joke based on my sister's blog post from today.
Oh my pigs and hispanics may be hard with our family!! How funny!!
SIL
Thank God for sex.
Maybe you could use your, ahem, middle of the afternoon skillz for some freelance work? Just kidding. And don't wish to be a nurse. Especially with all this swine flu. And normally we deal with vomiting, diarrhea, incontinence, and snot all day so it is not that much better. I say stay at home and enjoy the off-hours sex!
hotch--omg, i CANNOT wait for the hubs to read your comment! LOL cos dude often feels deprived. i can't wait for him to know we are rabbits or priests or something :) but, if you break that down time wise--that like once a work week right? and, last day before COBRA kicks in, though i don't have THAT paperwork in hand so anything between now and when i get that paperwork i have to pay out of pocket and then get reimbursed for. it sucks. i almost peed my pants at the pigs and hispanics thing, because, yes, as the SIL said, we have both in our family (by pigs i mean chauvanists).
sil--well, i don't think he's been to mexico in the last couple of weeks so i think we're ok.
Heh, I'm glad that your hubs is keeping up with his husbandly duties!
Thanks for the shout out. and I KNEW you would love that quote, it was all for you baby!
as far as health insurance goes, our cobra starts TODAY. yep, the day I got laid off was the last day i had insurance. nice, real nice. we hauled ass to the costco and got as many of the spouse's prescriptions filled yesterday as they would allow us. oh joy.
i am seriously thinking bankruptcy may be out only option, unless the mother in law kicks in the next couple of weeks.
and i already have dibs on becoming a sex worker, so don't get any funny ideas.
Loved the way you wrapped it up. There's a perk of being home during the day.
BTW Your comment at my blog. I had been referring to my father. Seems we have the same dad...
I have been looking through job ads too and you are not kidding...man if I was a nurse I could have had 50 jobs by now. I still have a job and I am STRESSED about getting another one so I can't imagine how you must be feeling. I hope it all works out!
love that paragraph!!! ahahahah!!!
and mid-day sex is so fab. well sex anytime can be fab and i am dying for it. sorry -- tmi. hahahaha.
everything is so damn depressing, and that stupid swine flu is freaking everyone out, myself included. i was going to go on a tiny trip in a couple of weeks (like a 2-day jaunt) and now i am thinking it would be schmarter and cheaper to just stay at home. B-O-R-I-N-G, but more economical and decidedly safe. wah.
Unemployment paperwork is a pain in the ass, and it makes a person seriously paranoid. I got laid off from my last job in 2002, and even though technically I didn't really want to return to work, since I was 5mo pregnant (and no one really wanted to hire me, both because of that and because we were still in the throes of 9/11 unemployment stuff), I still did everything I was supposed to, and MAN, it was a pain. Totally, nurses have it made, jobwise.
I've been a craptastic friend. I know things really suck for you now. I'm here.
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