Your Unemployed Daughter

Moms rock. Even when you’re a bratty teenaged girl and they won’t let you borrow that appliqued sweatshirt with the puffy moon and stars and you just about think it’s the end of your world because now how in heavens will TK notice you?—moms rock.

Because only a mom would do you the favor of telling you that you can’t borrow that heinous creation. Only a mom would keep that sweatshirt all to herself, no matter how much you beg and plead, because that’s how much you mean to her.

Moms are all-knowing (‘member the time she sniffed out the bathtub vodka on your breath when you came home from your first makeout party?), all-powerful (she could ground you with her eyes, punish your brother for smoking pot in the garage, vacuum the living room, and never even leave the kitchen), and, it turns out, totally awesome career placement specialists.

Take the tale of our favorite London correspondent YUP, who loves his mom as much (more!) than he loves his own tattoos.

“I come home last Friday, talk to the landlady and told her I lost my job
She says don’t confront me. An’ so I best have my rent by next Friday
An’ next Friday come, I didn’t have the rent an’ out the door I went.”
—John Lee Hooker, “House Rent Boogie”

Fortunately for me, that day never came; I never got put out on the street by my lady. Since moving to London from Sydney in September, I have been in the unemployment line. Unfortunately, it is a very popular place to be—all over the globe.

Last week I got a job. Not just any job, but the one I wanted in a direction that I wanted to take my career. I will be an account manager at a digital marketing agency.

So why am I feeling a bit sad as I type? Because I don’t get to continue to write on YUD anymore, that’s why!

[[YUP-Sure you can! Unemployment is a state of mind, man! Own it!]]

Have a listen to this song before reading the rest of this story. No, really…you need to listen to it.

That’s right B.B.: Mothers don’t jive…

…at least not when it comes to their sons. I’m no mama’s boy, but I sure felt like one last week: My mommy just got me a job.

Yes, Yuddites, it is true. I had to rely on my mom (once again) to save my ass. Time and time again throughout my life Mom (I call her “Ma”) has been there to support me. There may have been moments when I pressed my luck and tested her patience, but Ma always did right by me.

Living in London, I usually call home to the States every other week. You can bet the last dollar from your unemployment checks that my job search always came up in conversation. Parents never stop worrying about their kids (unless you are a cold-hearted, irresponsible set of dumb asses like Balloon Boy’s two winners).

I knew only their best interests were on display, but as an unemployed person, the worst question to have to answer is: “How’s the job search going?”

Oh, we try and make ourselves feel good about it with half-assed responses about “great interviews” and “real potential with that one,” but it is all a load of shit. No job is nooo job.

The last time I spoke with my parents, my mom didn’t ask me how the job search was, but she did ask me why I hadn’t used one of the contacts she gave me—a friend who is a senior VP of HR for the company that would eventually hire me.

To be honest, I had looked at the helping hand as my mom just trying to be nice. Shit, if the Taliban were looking to hire, she’d pass along my resume. But finally I relented and decided to get in touch with her contact.

The woman I spoke with in the U.S. passed off my resume to her counterpart here in London. After a few emails and phone conversations I found myself neck-deep in a series of interviews. At the end of the final interview, the person asked, “How do you know the HR contact back in the States?”

I thought I noticed a bit of a smirk crawl across his face when he asked me that question (did he know?).

Wow. Here it was, right in front of me: a Moment of Truth. I figured that if I was going to work with this guy, I might as well tell him how I arrived in his office. Why not, right? “The truth is easier,” as my old pal Hunter S. Thompson used to say.

We talked about this before, Yuddites. In an interview, if you can’t be yourself, if you can’t speak your mind, if you can’t give them the “true you”…what the hell are you doing there in the first place?

So I told him, just like this: “my mommy.”

I filled him in on the rest of the story about how the HR person and my mom were friends. We both had a good laugh over it. He even called me a “momma’s boy.” Humility is cool.

So what is the moral to this tale? Never underestimate a contact or lead. At any given time, sparks can strike where you least expect them to.

Oh yeah, there is another lesson: Mother does knows best.

Good luck, Yuddites!

p.s. I found it very ironic, if not scary, when I saw this recent story on the Huff Post.

Thank you YUP! How did I miss that?