Joshua W. (name changed to protect privacy) used to make six figures from his books on surfing. He also worked for a few years as a newspaper reporter and he's taught middle school English. It's been a while since his last gig. Schools and newspapers aren't hiring, and now the savings are gone. In his late fifties, Joshua is married with several children, the youngest of whom is 18 months old. The family lives in a middle class residential neighborhood. Although his wife works full time, they can barely meet their monthly expenses. "There's no health insurance, so you have to play your relatives, call the one who cares about teeth and ask for help with dentist bills for the kids. I haven't gone to the dentist in four years. Our daughter loses things. Kids do that. This winter she lost a couple of coats. Two years ago, we would have just bought her a new one and moved on. Now we have to sit her down and say, 'you can't do that, we don't have the money to throw around, ' and give her consequences, and now our 12-year old daughter has to feel stressed out about being poor." Sometimes I think, you know, I came to Los Angeles to follow my bliss, to express myself, because my father spent his whole life in corporate America, grinding away in a grey suit, and we never saw him. I wasn't going to be like him. Now I wish maybe I had been more of a grey suit myself, gotten a real job. I followed my bliss off a cliff."
Posted by Christopher Davidson on 01/28/10Joshua W. (name changed to protect privacy) used to make six figures from his books on surfing. He also worked for a few years as a newspaper reporter and he's taught middle school English. It's been a while since his last gig. Schools and newspapers aren't hiring, and now the savings are gone. In his late fifties, Joshua is married with several children, the youngest of whom is 18 months old. The family lives in a middle class residential neighborhood. Although his wife works full time, they can barely meet their monthly expenses. "There's no health insurance, so you have to play your relatives, call the one who cares about teeth and ask for help with dentist bills for the kids. I haven't gone to the dentist in four years. Our daughter loses things. Kids do that. This winter she lost a couple of coats. Two years ago, we would have just bought her a new one and moved on. Now we have to sit her down and say, 'you can't do that, we don't have the money to throw around, ' and give her consequences, and now our 12-year old daughter has to feel stressed out about being poor." Sometimes I think, you know, I came to Los Angeles to follow my bliss, to express myself, because my father spent his whole life in corporate America, grinding away in a grey suit, and we never saw him. I wasn't going to be like him. Now I wish maybe I had been more of a grey suit myself, gotten a real job. I followed my bliss off a cliff."
Posted by Christopher Davidson on 01/28/10That depends on who you are and whom you know. It's rarely a good thing, but it isn't always a catastrophe either. The damage it can do to a life really has as much to do with other issues -- family ties, mental health, the strength of one's identity -- than it does with the simple lack of work and regular income.
David is a single man, 41, with no children, and he's been unemployed for two years; his aging mother in Boston sends him money regularly so he doesn't end up on the street. As a Harvard graduate, he can take some solace in the contacts he still has because of his professional and educational background, and he is not ready to abandon ship and go home to the East Coast because his heart is still set on a career in entertainment. On the one hand, he's bored and lonely, but on the other hand, he doesn't have to go anywhere the jobs are -- no family to support, after all. Besides, his mother can still take care of him.
John, who's 35, seems the most tranquil of all, perhaps because of his unruffled temperament, his capacity to laugh his way through a bad situation, or perhaps because he's married to a full-time working wife and has no children. They rent an affordable apartment in a well-off part of town. Since he recently finished law school, and made sure to set aside funds to carry him over between graduating from school and passing the bar, he's still optimistic about finding work and his only complaint is that he's bored and wishes he could contribute something to society.
Don, an ivy league graduate, lives by himself, frugally, and puts up a shingle as a "consultant" with his own publishing company. He has friends, access to a computer at his home, a college education. He's not scared of going back to school and getting an MBA -- in fact, it's something he always wanted to do before and never had the time.
The situation gets hairier for some one like Paula, whose husband left her and whose children may or may not decide to support her. She's not old enough to collect social security, nor is she young and wealthy enough to prance joyfully into a new career, or go back to school, or move out of state and start over. She thanks me profusely for listening to her and showing some compassion.
Gregg, too, may need to work hard on self-soothing techniques. His family has, in the past, depended on him to win at least part of the bread, but right now, all the wheat fields are harvested and the bakery shelves are empty. He takes refuge is endless political debates on Facebook with distant opponents who can't punish him for being stressed and grumpy. Grey-haired, in his late fifties, with a six year old daughter in public school -- he's not the kind of guy who can flit in and out of jobs hoping that something will work out. And yet, he's lucky: his wife works full time in a job with a school district, and for them the biggest problem is managing the payments on their big new house, purchased only weeks before he was laid off . He's able to spend time with his daughter when his wife is at work. He has a million free-lance projects in the pipeline, and corresponds regularly with potential employers or colleagues; he works every day on a web-based retail business that may or may not take off, and he doesn't get discouraged.
Stay tuned, as I search out other jobless folks who have less family support, less money saved, less education --- and if you know some one who's been hit really hard by the jobs crisis, let me know. For the latest depressing data on unemployment, see the link below from the LA Times, but if you want to cheer yourself up, the good news is that CA received some stimulus money for job creation as well.
Posted by Christopher Davidson on 01/24/10Hello readers!
Right now, I'm dealing with a difficult situation because I'm getting carpal tunnel syndrome. Finally, seven years of spending 15 hours on the computer every day has caught up with me. I did buy some speech recognition software but I use a Mac and the software isn't nearly as good as the ones for Windows. My biggest problem is that I can no longer apply for administrative jobs, since they require lots of typing. It's a big blow because I'm not sure what other jobs I qualify for. If you want, you are free to talk about my carpal tunnel in your article. But the reason I've been on the internet so much is that I'm pretty isolated because of my depression and lack of a car.
I keep forgetting about food stamps. I'll a investigate it this week. I think I still have the info you gave me. If not, I'll ask you for it again.
I did recently make $200 doing some consulting work for a guy I know who is working on a website for a toy company. He has new technology that he wants to use on it, but I'm skeptical about it. In its current incarnation it seems like a gimmick. I think I may have told you, I get pretty angry seeing internet companies that have funding and don't know what they are doing with their websites. The guy who gave me the assignment is kind of a friend but I don't know him well. He told me to do a critique of the website. I spent probably 20 hours on it and wrote nine single-spaced pages. He said it was 'terrific' but I'm still extremely skeptical that he'll implement any of my ideas. He just had me rewrite the site's FAQ (and didn't pay me anything) and his writing was pretty cheesy. I suppose I can't complain because it's the first money I've earned of any kind in two years and he may have more assignments for me. But I really should be getting more than $200 for my work. I wish there were other websites looking for similar consulting but I have no idea how to get those jobs.
I know that lots of kids right out of Harvard get jobs as "consultants" and I never understand what kind of consulting they can do right out of college. If I knew of some consulting firms that do website assessments, I would contact them but I have no idea if there are any in LA.
I think I also told you that in October I came up with some funny IPhone app ideas for a guy who started a company to make funny apps. I hadn't corresponded with him since October and yesterday I sent him another email and he responded, saying he'll send me an NDA and look at my ideas. I will let you know if anything happens.
Here are the November 2009 figures on unemployment in Los Angeles, from the EDD.
180,000 jobs were lost in Los Angeles between January and October 2009, but at least some federal stimulus money will help Angelenos find information about the work that is still available.
One company is having a job fair in late January.
Lots of people blogging about unemployment; check out the links!
Posted by Christopher Davidson on 01/20/10Greetings,
First and foremost, I would like to thank you for this opportunity. It seem as if you try to talk to one about these things you get no compassion.
I am a Administrative Assistant. In finance
Last job was as a Human Resources Administrator/Payroll Administrator
I was there for nine months
I fought for my Unemployment, I lost/Thank God for my two adult children.
It has been very painful for me that all of a sudden I have no one around me. EVEN MY MAN (THAT I HAVE LIVED WITH FOR 10 YRS. AND WE HAVE A 5YR OLD SON. HAVE CHANGED). I guess that's life.
Even family members are no longer around.
I am planning to attend school to change careers, maybe Real Estate.
1. How long have you been unemployed or looking for work?
-------I have been looking for a job since I moved from Berkeley to Downey
in June. I have never had a problem in the past with finding a job and now
2. What is your field of expertise?
-------I mainly worked in retail and customer service before going back to school in 2002. Since my children were getting ready to move out of the
3. How old are you? (trying to get a demographic picture of who is
-------44, a young 44, lol. white, female, single...
4. What have you been doing with your time (since you are not working?)
Looking for work! I literally sit at the computer for hours and
5. What methods are you using to look for work?
-------I still ask just about everyone I come across-stores,
6. What have been the most difficult -- and most rewarding -- aspects of
The most rewarding, hmmmm... I guess being able to talk/email with
7. What are your short, medium, long-term plans in regards to the world
-------Short plans--take any job offered because I am broke! Medium
Long plans--to find a position in which I am truly making a difference in
Posted by Christopher Davidson on 01/11/10
I took on this project because of my own experiences with unemployment, which have caused psychological hardship not just for me, but also for my family. There are ripple effects. At one point soon after I was laid off, I was having nightmares, waking up every morning in a haze of irritation and fatigue. I snapped at my daughter while we were getting her ready for school, and she started crying, and left in a bad mood. My wife demanded that I seek some kind of professional help. I began attending a support group, then decided to take up hobbies -- singing, learning Hebrew on Sunday mornings, circuit training. We got through a bad patch. But what happens to marriages that are already fragile, to families that were just managing to make ends meet on their incomes before the breadwinner got laid off? What of people like Shawn, an acquaintance of mine with only a high school degree, who worked faithfully for a decade or more at a small manufacturing company that went bankrupt, and has a wife, two twin sons and a young sister-in-law to support? The unemployment benefits only cover half his former salary; his skills aren't in as much demand as they were when he first began working. Moreover, it's a private subject, painful, not easy to talk about with friends and neighbors for risk of seeming weak and needy, and yet, the most effective way of finding work by far is through networking with acquaintances -- coming out into the open about one's job hunt and asking others to keep an eye out.
What a mess!
The three most recent posts are quotes from the interviews I recently conducted. I also updated my Dec 31 post with an interesting set of observations from L.A.-area career counselor Jennifer Rosky, of www.CareerProgressions.net. If you know any one in the Los Angeles area who is unemployed, or underemployed, and would appreciate being interviewed for this article, please let me know by commenting on this blog post or sending me an email at cdmitridavidson@gmail.com.
Posted by Christopher Davidson on 01/08/10
GREG M, 58, FATHER OF 6 YEAR OLD:
"Well, if this website idea doesn't fly and my unemployment doesn't get extended then I'll just have to wait until my mother dies.."
Posted by Christopher Davidson on 01/08/10D John G., 35-YEAR OLD LAWYER & MBA
"I'm lucky my wife is working, but it would be nice to contribute something to society!
Posted by Christopher Davidson on 01/08/10Quote from Don H, 40, editor and writer, unemployed since Dec 2008.
"I'm not a total idiot! I went to an Ivy League school! I've managed employees. All I'm asking is for a little face time."
Posted by Christopher Davidson on 01/08/10So, if the LA Times has it right, Christmas shopping is inching back up, and it's been a good year for investors after all -- all that value recovered -- , and housing prices have even levelled off. So why am I not shouting with joy?
Consider "Jessica," a veteran career counselor and business owner. Over this past year of endless sorrows, she's helped 52 professionals find new jobs paying over $100,000 a year, so you'd think she of all people would be optimistic. Here's her take on the job-hunting situation: "You've got to be careful with people who are unemployed; some of them are so needy that they suck you dry. I've seen marriages fall apart before my eyes. One of my clients used to be a world traveller and wealthy housewife-- after her husband lost his job they had to sell everything they owned, then they split up, and now she's living in a granny apartment in back of her mother's bungalow."
I've conducted in-depth interviews with eight unemployed people in the L.A. area in the six weeks since this pitch was first posted. Media coverage of the economy has been cautiously optimistic. The unemployment figures have stopped growing; health care reform is closer to passing, and the Obama administration has sketched out a policy for the war in Afghanistan. And yet, there are still more than 200,000 unemployed people in the city of Los Angeles, and in December, laid-off workers in this city, particularly in service and construction industries, filed more than 7300 new claims.
Posted by Christopher Davidson on 01/01/10
The jobs crisis needs more publicity. Obama has announced a Jobs summit in December, which is essential, but Congress, local and state governments, business leaders and opinion makers need to understand the magnitude of the jobs crisis and what it's doing to American families. Help me publicize the plight of the unemployed; they're not getting the attention they deserve.
Posted by Christopher Davidson on 11/12/09
