The Unemployment Blues

I have all the required skills and experience they want and they still won’t hire me!

This past week I located a job posting for a Regional Sales Manager with a large greeting card company located here in my home town. The position was basically managing the part time people who service the greeting card racks in large big box accounts. It carried with it all the other expected management tasks, staffing, P&L, sales oversight, inventory control, etc. It was MY job.

For the past number of years I have been performing that exact type of management for my former employer. I would recruit, hire and train my part time and full time employees, schedule their activities, meet with the management of the accounts they serviced and perform the other day to day functions that come with overseeing a fairly large team of employees. I also know most of the management personnel in many of the very accounts the greeting card company services and am extremely well versed in the accounts policies and procedures. I have been recognized with awards in the past for my management skills and been involved with various district, regional and national training initiatives and other special projects.

I applied for the position online and then searched my network to see if I had any contacts within the organization. BINGO! I was directly linked to one of their national account managers and we recently exchanged emails regarding a question I had posed to my job seekers group. I immediately contacted him about the position, my qualifications and mentioned that I have 3 years of college but no degree.

He responded that he knew everybody in that area of the company and would pass my name around. I’m now starting to get excited! Maybe, oh maybe…

About two hours later my balloon was deflated. Even though I had everything this potential employer could ask for their policy was no degree, no job.

I now have the unemployment blues.

I like many people of my generation do not have a degree. The reasons are varied but most of us have since worked our way up at our companies by working hard and learning new skills. We have adapted to the constant changes in our industries, learned new technologies and in many cases survived years of constant downsizing. We now find ourselves unemployed. I my case my company was sold and we were all let go.

So, why didn’t I finish my degree?
I attended a small private music conservatory in Princeton, NJ with all of 400 students in the undergraduate and graduate programs. I was working on my Bachelor of Music Education Degree and was in the middle of the first semester of my senior year. While completing my senior teaching I experienced a medical issue and was unable to complete the semester. The entire semester was lost.

My family was far from being wealthy. We probably just fit into the bottom rung of being middle class. In the 1970’s there was not the same kind of assistance available to most people to fund an education as there is today. The school thought my parents made too much money to be eligible for the few grants they had available and the bank would not loan them money for my education since they thought they did not make enough money. We had scraped together enough money for my freshman year and figured we would go from there. My father died just before exam week my freshman year and we used the meager life insurance my mother received to get me through the next two and a half years.

The money was gone.

I moved in with friends in the Bronx, the three of us, two dogs and three cats in a one room flat. Gene had the bedroom since he was paying the rent. Ken slept on the couch and I used a sleeping bag on the floor each night. I found a job in the Freight Cashiers office of Hapaq-Lloyd, an international steamship agency. It was Hell and I needed out.

A friend visited and he had come upon a job working carnival games back in Ohio. Like me, he was trying to save enough money to go back to school in the fall. We took the jobs and off we went.

For the next five months I worked a balloon dart game on the Ohio carnival circuit. “Hit em and get em here, step right up. I have snakes for your date; I have teddy bears for your love affairs, why I even have alligators for your mother-in-law. Hey Red, you won one for the brunette last night, how bout winning one for the blonde tonight!” We slept on sleeping bags in the back of the trucks every night and worked from around noon till midnight but by the end of August we had both earned enough money to at least pay our tuitions.

I returned to school that fall, located a cheap place to live and found a full time job as a night security guard in Newark NJ making rounds to a complex of old industrial buildings down by the waterfront. The setting was very reminiscent of a scene out of The Godfather or any other gangster movie where they “off” someone and then dump the body into the river!

Part way into the semester I lost my job. It was my fault. I was sleeping! Imagine that! With trying to carry a full course load, commute over an hour each way on US1 and working 10 hours each night I feel asleep at the job! It didn’t take long for me to lose my housing as well.

So now I was a homeless college student in the middle of November in NJ living out of my car and having friends sneak me food from the cafeteria because I had no money and no job. The college was no help. They just couldn’t conceive the fact that I was homeless and threatened to expel me if I was caught sleeping in someone’s dorm room or accepting food from the cafeteria.

I guess there just came a point where all of the events of the prior year overwhelmed me and I took any job I could. As they say, desperate situations require desperate actions and that was basically the end of my college education.

Now, I don’t tell you all of this for you to feel sorry for me or to ask for pity and I know some of you will question why I haven’t gone back to school since then. I’ll just have to cover that another day. If these events hadn’t occurred, I probably would have never meet my wife of almost 32 years or made friends with all the wonderful people who have so greatly enriched my life. I wouldn’t have the loving support system from the church I serve as Director of Music Ministries and probably wouldn’t be living in Cleveland writing a blog. It is what it is and I can’t change the past.

But, if you are reading this and just happen to be someone who runs a company or hires people, please remember that those of us who do not have degrees are not useless or unqualified. We are just that large group of people who have accepted the past and moved on. We are survivors. Many of us probably have more character, stamina and self-motivation than many people with degrees. We have had to work harder to move up in the companies we’ve worked for. We have had to prove that we too can do the job. Just give us all a chance.

Well, it’s a beautiful Friday morning, the sun is out and the water lilies are blooming in the pond. The bills are paid and we have a roof over our heads and food to eat so…Life is Good!

Tinkle, tinkle, crash....

Well, I thought this would be a daily blog, but yesterday was so packed with activities that I was too exhausted to sit down last night and create an entry. After church my wife Karen and I attended the last day of the Great Lakes Medieval Faire. The weather was perfect for an August afternoon in the woods watching jousting, eating, drinking and generally having a good time. We stayed till closing and joined in an extended pub sing chatting with friends and joining in toasts. It was a great experience and we look forward to it every year. We arrived home late, scrounged up something for dinner and then it was time to watch Design Star on HGTV. (Yes, we are addicted to this show) I immediately followed this with sleep!

So, today's topic is "Tinkle, tinkle, crash..." Since I decided to title my blog "Did I just really see that" I thought I should at least have one entry that relates to the title. The following story is true and happened quite a few years ago in the Buffalo NY area. I don't remember the exact location but I think it was in Amherst.

Back in the 1980's I was a District Manager with my former employer. I covered the west side of Cleveland, Elyria and Sandusky markets, Erie Pa, part of the southern tier of NY and the Buffalo/Niagra Falls area. We not only shipped and serviced music, video and computer software, but books under the name National Book Distributors. There was a chain of stores called Hills that had acquired most of the Gold Circle chain properties when they went out of business. As the District Manager I was responsible for setting up all our product lines in these recently acquired locations.

I had been in the store earlier in the week, confirmed the exact location of our fixtures with the store set-up manager and my team had assembled all of our fixtures. Unlike most modern fixtures in big box retailers, these fixtures were made out of particle board and all bolted together to create on long 20' run. They stood about 7' tall and had a lit canopy on top that hung out over the product to illuminate it and there was a slot on the front for a translucent category sign such as "Romance" or "Fiction". There was only one problem with them - they were top heavy. As long as you didn't move them they were fine.

Well, I returned to the store to start the process of placing product on the fixtures and arrived to the set-up manager informing me that he needed to move the fixtures. He had screwed up! His spacing between aisles was off and he needed to move the entire run of fixtures over about one foot. I informed him that the only way to accomplish that was to first remove all of the lit canopies from the fixtures since they tended to tip over rather easily. He insisted that his crew could just slide them over as they needed to do it NOW.

Well, here goes... Yes, you may have guessed it....

I stood back after claiming no responsibility for the impending consequences as his team all sat on the floor spaced about two feet apart, placed their feet against the bottom of the fixtures and on the count of three all pushed.

The fixtures moved about 3-4 inches, rocked back and forth and then in one fleeting instant the entire run fell over away from his crew. I stood and watched it fall, in slow motion, as it hit the next 20 foot run of book/software fixtures which then rocked for a second and fell over as well.
They in turn toppled over onto the next aisle of the stores gondolas, which of course, fell over as well.

Guess what was on the store's gondolas? Glassware. Cups, drinking glasses, wine glasses, dinnerware, vases, cookie jars, etc.

The sound was horrendous and it seemed that it went on forever! First the crashing sound of the lit canopies with their fluorescent bulbs breaking, the splintering of particle board followed by the sound of breaking glass. And breaking glass, and breaking glass. For the next five minutes you would hear tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, crash as items slowly slid or rolled to the edge of the shelves that were no longer horizontal only to join the growing pile of debris on the floor!

Did I just REALLY see that?

I decided that maybe it was a good time to take lunch.

Ultimately we salvaged what we could of our fixtures, ordered replacement parts and the store did open on time. I took home some of the unusable lit canopies and they worked great in my garage for years.

Well, that's my story for today. I could go on about lessons learned or preach about "Gee, I warned you not to..." but I won't. Life is Good.

So here we go....

Day one. I decided that it was time to keep moving forward with learning new technology and new ways of communicating to more people. I'm sure that I will very quickly become a wizard at all the options for creating this blog. I hope to share my thoughts about many topics in the coming months. Some will be funny, some sad, some deep and some will hopefully make you say "What was he thinking?" I will try to protect the names of the innocent until proven guilty. I will avoid legal actions against me by not mentioning specific stores or products if I decide to slam their products or services since I really can't afford legal fees at the moment. I promise to try not to be to corny - I'll leave that to some of my friends. Please feel free to comment. I won't hold it against you, so here we go....

It's Saturday, the sun is shining and life is good. Emo, our dog, is asleep in bed as usual having had his breakfast and the remains of my wife's yogurt cup. We are attending a picnic this afternoon and will be re-uniting with friends we haven't seen for quite awhile. The appetizer is ready so there will be no last minute trauma over that and car is all gassed up for the trip cross county. We have our Green Cards. (for anyone not from the Cleveland area, you HAVE to have a green card to cross the Cuyahoga River,) It should be a really great time.

So, last night I actually had a good nights sleep. It seems that the past few weeks I have sat up in bed in the middle of the night with my mind going a million miles an hour wondering if I will ever find a new job. I was talking with a friend last night about the trials and tribulations of being unemployed. The deep fear that you'll end up saying "Would you like fries with that?" or "Welcome to Wal-Mart". We talked about how we have so many skills that we have developed and nutured through the years but it seems like they are all the wrong skills. We talked about how you can have everything an employer is looking for but you were not able to attend college or unable to finish. (more on this later) We also talked about how the process of finding a job has changed so drastically in the past few years since we both had long tenures with our former employer.

We then started a discussion about the good things that happen when you find yourself unemployed. There is a sense of freedom and tranquility that can occur from no longer having to worry about performing tasks that you really hated. There is a release of tensions from having survived years of constant downsizing and the worry that comes from being in that situation. Then there is the reconnecting with people.

We all have friends and acquaintances that we have lost touch with for one reason or another and since all the job seeker groups and counselors are saying that finding a job is all about networking, networking, networking, I have been reaching out to everyone that I can. It has been a truly rewarding experience.

Then there is meeting new people. I have been attending meetings for two job seeker groups and have started attending networking events. This can be both an uplifting and humbling experience. I have met people who have started, run and sold their own companies. I have met others who speak multiple languages or are fluent in 5 or 6 computer languages while I still struggle with English. I have met people with PhD's in their specialty and former CEO's,CFO's,etc. And I have meet people who have offered their help. I have recieved job leads though none have worked out yet and a few leads I am working on. I have new friends.

Well, I probably should stop rambling on but think I will leave you with one story. I spoke with a gentleman on Wednesday night at a networking event. He had worked for many years for GM and then decided that he should move on. He acquired a position with a company in Canton Oh as an engineer four years ago. Just after moving and starting his position his wife was diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer. She fought for three and a half years before passing on. He had taken the last three months of her life off from work to be with her and help her. After her death he returned to work and three weeks later they let him go.

I was almost moved to tears as he told me his story. I can't begin to imagine the pain he is feeling and the challenge he faces in picking his life back up and moving forward. I am in awe of his strength and courage. And I will pray for him.

So, as I move forward with my day I can only say that for me Life Is Good.