Glorious midtown, 6:15 pm
This marks my second day in the NYC office of TK publishers, where I have a 3-week freelance copy editing assignment.
Yesterday not much was ready for me, and the blessed saint who hired me allowed me to go home early after a quick perusal of the word list and style guide. I thankfully agreed and departed by 3 to hit the gym and then nurse my wounds from Sunday night.
This is a perfectly respectable job post, really, minus the weird “will not accept employment applications by phone” tacked on at the end.
And the website itself, while thematically perhaps not my cup of tea, seems pretty reasonable as well. Full of content that I’m sure interests its readers. Nice images. Photo galleries, even! John Wayne pics!
Are you tired of not having a business card to give to all the men you meet in bars?
Embarrassed to have to say, “Oh, I’m actually … unemployed … um … check out my blog …” ?
TGMTU #17 © Derek Ivie
Yep, that’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. She does bear a certain resemblance to Keira Knightley, don’t you think?
Can you pick YUD out of this lineup?
She actually has a job today. And given her antics at Pete’s Tavern last night, she really, really wishes she didn’t.
How many wineglasses must be broken, I ask you?
I weep for the children. And then I excuse myself to puke in the ladies’ restroom.
photo credit: whosdadog
Last night YUD found herself at a going-away party (sob, sob) for her dear former EIC, who is returning to the South to take her rightful place among the gainfully employed as a high-powered career woman in busy lady suits.
Less than an hour after my arrival at the shindig – which took place at a Brooklyn bar with its own backyard and grilling facilities – arrived one of those torrential downpours that used to be confined to Florida’s coast and the Caribbean prior to the Great Dampening of NYC 2009. The skies opened, we took shelter indoors, the cheeseburgers were delayed.
Yet shortly after that, some alert (not too drunk yet) person pointed up at the sky and announced that there were not one but two rainbows! (Appropriate timing given today’s Gay Pride Parade.)
photo credit: Dark Botxy
We unemployed people are in a precarious position. On one hand, we’re free as the bees’ knees; without jobs to go to the next morning, we can party and dance on bars and drink and stay out late, sleep til 2 the next day, no problem, no worries. And some of us do.
We also desperately crave attention and conversations and people interactions, particularly if we are, say, former managing editors. And we do not get those things when we are home alone working on freelance item #7 or blogging all day. It is a vicious circle. Some might say we have become needy exhibitionists. That is the worst sort.
photo credit: Castaway in Wales
One among us has experienced that which we all fear – the dreaded UNEMPLOYMENT ORIENTATION. Read on for a glimmer of hope in these trying times. Come now. You have “nowhere to be in a hurry.”
I woke up bright and early (8:30 am) and headed on down to the Brooklyn “government center,” as I call it (it contains the IRS, Social Security, and Unemployment offices), expecting a simple affair.
From what I’d heard, your basic unemployment orientation consists of sitting around with a group of fellow unemployees listening to a government worker talk about how to apply for jobs. You present your résumé, and that’s that.
TGMTU#13 © Derek Ivie
TGMTU#10 © Derek Ivie
To those unemployed among us who may be concerned about their figures, note that the delightful Mrs. Ivie “uses ground turkey and Weight Watchers cheese to make it a little healthier.”
Getting us through unemployment, indeed! Now I’m hungry.
photo credit: bradleygee
Apologies, as this is a crude, cheap, and potentially smelly shot, but YUD can’t help herself. She’s come to enjoy, even partake in, a good poot joke now and again. It’s something that happened when she turned 33. She got gross. Sorry.
