COVER -> RECOMMENDED DAILY REQUIREMENT
AS I LAY DYING - We all talk about living "from paycheck to paycheck" in academic terms. It's easier to look the other way as long as it doesn't happen to "me, personally." Then, when it does, and when the optimism we're all supposed to embrace as part of our national credo begins to flag, something dark and sinister hits home: "Oh shit! I'm a failure. I'm a statistic. My life is over."
That is where I am now. Having written a couple of articles for this Web magazine, and because I respect its candor and audacity, I've decided to write my own obituary here, Rod willing.
Three months ago, I was a senior manager at a high-tech firm in the Pacific Northwest who seemingly had the world as his oyster. Good salary, stock options, the whole shebang. Today, I'm an unemployed professional over the age of 45 ---- which means my job prospects are very low. I'm considered a "gray hair." It would shame some hot young programmer to work in the same department as me because it would reflect negatively on his skills to be on the same team with an "old dude."
That's the way it is in our industry. At 35 you're approaching "old dude" status. Guys like me better be CEOs or we're always in danger of being put out to pasture --- or sent off to the glue factory.
I did a calculation of my expenses this morning, mortgage, car payments, credit card payments, the health club, next year's taxes, other obligations, going on a COBRA insurance plan until I "transition" into a new job. At the end, I was sitting with my head in my hands. Numbers don't lie. It, my life, was over.
If I don't come up with some form of employment by the first of the year, I'm S.O.L., as we used to say. Everybody shuts down in about a month now, and then I have to wait until next year to if I'm to be hired. I've been trying to reckon all day how I tell this to my wife...
This is the stuff from which nightmares are made. Telling her I was "riffed" was bad enough. (Why do we pretend that riffed is a better word than fired?) Telling her that we're hanging from a very short rope promises to be Hell. She believed in me. She believed in the promise of working for a high-profile, high-tech firm. She swallowed the lies as avidly as I did. When the President came on television talking about "The Information Superhighway" and "high-skilled, high-paying jobs" leading to our unparalleled prosperity, we would nod our heads in agreement.
Sure, I'd read here at G21 about sites like "NetSlaves" talking about the high-tech shell game, but I'd just mutter, "Sour grapes."
So now I drink wine that tastes like vinegar.
Yeah, I know about some people facing hard times, we all say. But it won't happen to me! I'm better than that.
That's one of our myths I'll have to get over, too, that poverty is the result of a character flaw.... That if you are facing severe economic distress it's because you are a loser in a society full of winners.
I was a winner three months ago. Today I'm afraid to talk to my wife about our circumstances and how close we are to losing our home.
My daughter called from college the other night.
I didn't tell her. I couldn't. Not that way.
This is her first year and she's so excited and full of hope. I remembered what that is like, thinking that anything is possible, and I couldn't tell her that maybe there won't be a next year at Cal for her.
Al Gore's $10,000 tuition credit is sounding very good to me right now.
Lexie, my daughter, was talking about Halloween parties on campus, coming home for Thanksgiving, how she had some new recipes to try out on us.
I laughed and hoped that I sounded like usual. I told her the dog missed her and her mother and I did, too.
By the time she comes home for the holiday, I'll have told my wife. And then I'll tell her, too.
My job has a consulting firm that's supposed to work with "laid-off" workers like me to help us find new jobs. I got a call from one of their agents, a guy who sounded all of twenty-three, telling me that they would send me booklets to help me re-do my resume and that I could call them any time for leads or assistance. They're located in San Francisco. The guy said he had loads of contacts there in the San Francisco Bay Area.
I'm in Washington state. So is our home.
So, as I wrote in to G21 to propose this obituary, I asked if this was a story anyone would be interested in. Rod Amis wrote back: "We report from 'on the ground,' Bill. Just tell the truth."
The truth... I laughed when I read his e-mail.
The truth is that I'm the most afraid I have ever been in my life.
The truth is that I feel I have let my wife and child down and that I'm a failure. That William Faulkner title, "As I Lay Dying" seems to fit.
This could happen to you. Believe me.
Three months ago I wouldn't have believed it... but I KNOW it now.
This week's Poll: Is waiting for you.
RDR RECOMMENDED SITE OF THE DAY: You may have missed DOUGLAS MC DANIEL's "Blog" last week. Rod forced us to run a link to it again. Sheesh! MYTHVILLE.
