For ChaBongo

Sometime ago, I visited your blog and found you (understandably) freaking out about the difficulty you'd had in finding another job after getting laid off. I've been there, I know that panic feeling. Responsible folks like you and me, we hate being faced with the idea of becoming one of "those people"--you know, one of those people who are behind on all their bills, owe everybody money, scrambling to keep the utilities turned on while putting food on the table, robbing Peter to pay Paul (creative credit card management--until the credit runs out). Without a paycheck, it seems that becoming one of "those people" is inevitable--yikes!

I left you what I hope were encouraging words, and I hope that you weren't offended by my comments because I'm going to basically give the same advice here again now, only in a lot more detail. (If I recall, the theme was "Think Outside the Box.")

First of all, "those people" are born that way, they are not created from simple financial misfortunes like getting laid off. Even if you fall behind on your bills--even if your electric gets shut off, your creditors have developed the persistent desire to speak with you on the phone, and you have to visit a food bank for groceries--you're not one of those people. You're just broke, that's all. A temporary condition and not one to be ashamed of. I've been broke. It sucks, but it does make you appreciate not being broke when you finally unbreak yourself.

I hope I don't sound insincere or condescending to give advice in this regard, since I do have a job. Easy for me to say your glass is half full when my glass is running over. But, as I see it, your glass is no where near empty, and I believe in your ability to fill it up again.

You're not the only friend of mine struggling to find a job, I have a few. And I always have the strangest feeling of envy when I think of your circumstances. Envy, yeah. Weird, huh? Remember, I said I've been there--earlier this year, in fact, I was laid off right after buying a new house for which I had spent all my savings on the down payment. So not only did I have a house payment to make now (a rather big one--twice as much as my rent had been), I had no cushion to fall back on to tide me over to another job.

Yeah, okay, envy wasn't what I was feeling then--I was freaking out!

For a week or two. Then I caught my breath and started to put together an emergency plan. I came up with several ideas to bring in some cash and/or reduce expenses, and I implemented those. I began the job hunt.

Fortunately, my job field has an excellent market in this city, so I was unemployed only a month, then it was back to work, vacation over.

Or unfortunately.

See, I'm not kidding when I say I envy you the position you're in--unable to access the easy road back to the land of the regular paycheck. Being forced to turn to other roads you otherwise would not take. I believe if you're not getting job offers in your field after, I don't know, some reasonable length of time, some number of interviews, then you probably don't have the right combination of things that you bring to the table to successfully compete with whomever else is out there getting those jobs. Continued effort and failure will only frustrate you more. Take a break. Change direction.

Scary part is over--lost the job, can't get another one, oh hell, I'm broke, oh shit!

Now comes the exciting part! You have nothing to lose! You get to start over and point yourself in any direction that makes your willy wiggle. You are not limited to opportunities listed in certain search keywords on Monster.com. You're not married to your resume.

If I had been unable to get my job back this spring after maybe two months (maybe three) of interviewing, I would have flushed my technical resume and pointed myself at editing/writing full time. I would have reduced my standard of living down to dirt-poor college student levels--no spending, no cable TV, no luxuries, no free time, no travel, etc. and altered my budget in various ways, such as renting out my spare bedrooms, selling my sports car and getting a clunker, canceling my cell phone, taking a low-pay PT job, etc. Maybe I would have even defaulted on some credit card debt or filed bankruptcy.

You're wondering why it was "unfortunate" that this didn't happen? Because I would have been a full time editor and writer. I would have found new, exciting literary opportunities and projects that I can't pursue now because of my regular job. I would have made new contacts in the literary and publishing world. I would have finished my novel--and being broke would have been a hell of an incentive to get that sucker sold! By this time next year, I bet you I'd be a little less broke. And even less the year after that.

As much as I want those things, would it be worth consciously sacrificing what I have now to be broke? Well...no....I'm so fond of spoiling myself and having money is much more fun than not having money...I would only have the opportunity to do this with my life if I had no choice, nothing to lose, nothing to give up in order to get it.

Or--you know, another thing I've always wanted to do is open a bookstore. Maybe that's what I would have done. Throw my every resource into opening a store, and then work my ass off to sell books!

But, you see, I'm tied to the safety net of a chubby paycheck. I will never get to try something new. I'll never find out whether the heart of a natural born bookseller/shopkeeper beats in my chest...gods help me, I'll probably never even finish the damn novel because my financial survival doesn't depend on it.

So ask yourself--what would you do if you could? And then figure out a way to do it because--you could!

I leave you with a true story:

There was a young man who learned to juggle in high school because he correctly saw this as a way to impress chicks. Soon all the girlies wanted him to teach them how to juggle, and lots of fellows did too. Juggling became such a habit for him that he carried juggling items around with him (bean bags, balls, whatever) and juggled just about any time his hands were idle. In college, he'd pass the time waiting for the professor to arrive in class by juggling.

Well, it would tend to draw attention, wouldn't it? So quite often the professor would find his students all clustered around the juggler in the back of the room as he showed the basic moves--this is how you do it, it's real easy once you get the rhythm.

Not wanting his informal juggling lessons to disrupt his classes, he typed up the basic juggling lesson, drew some crude illustrations, made copies, and began handing them to those who approached him about learning his clever skill.

The rest of the story should seem obvious by now. Soon, demand for his little instruction manual made him pause to consider...is there a basic "how to juggle" manual out there in print? Because he was finding that just about everybody "always wanted to learn to do that!"

So, yeah, he polished up his little booklet, researched the market enough to realize that he'd have to add something more to it in order to charge an amount that would be profitable, and he packaged the book, Juggling for the Complete Klutz, together with a set of three beanbags so that people would have everything they'd need to get started (assuming they had two hands).

The company became Klutz, and they offer hundreds of clever books, activities, and crafts, sold in stores but especially marketed through schools in book fairs and catalogs.

In our home, we have at least ten Klutz products, including Juggling for the Complete Klutz, which I bought for myself. (No, damn it, I have not mastered the skill yet--that's probably something else I'd have had time to do if I'd stayed unemployed!)

So what have you got? If the corporate world keeps saying "no thank you" to what you bring, what else you got, and who can you offer it to? You have something someone wants. You're funny? Hmm, I wonder how hard it would be to break into stand-up comedy...might not be as hard as you think, and wouldn't it be exciting to try? Got a sexy voice? I bet you'd get a kick out of doing voice overs and radio spots. Are you really good at teaching aerobics class or yoga? What if you could turn that into--opening your own gym and tanning salon? Put a spin on it, make it clever, unique. What have you got?