About YUD
You haven’t seen her in a while. (But oh, you will soon. And now when you call, she’s always home!)
In case you don’t remember, she’s the shortest one in the family and has never been able to tan the way her brother can, something that may change with her exponentially increased free time and the coming summer months.
She isn’t the skinniest and she’s not the tallest, but she tries to get to the gym regularly, especially now that she has all this free time, so you have to give her points for effort.
The one thing you could really say about her, besides reveling to your friends over her very small apartment in a none-too-clean area of Manhattan was, Boy, does she work hard!
That’s all over now.
Your Unemployed Daughter used to be the managing editor of a magazine sold in your neighborhood supermarket, and the managing editor/assistant managing editor/copy chief of a magazine sold at Barnes and Noble, and, at one low point, the copy editor of a magazine that was never sold but instead given away to those who shopped at a certain high-end department store.
In the aforementioned supermarket, you would pull copies out to share the masthead (and her name) with neighboring line-standers, who would nod appreciatively and think of their own gainfully employed magazine industry children.
Alas, in any weltanzeitgeihungenlieber* there are victims, and there is sacrifice.
Now your unemployed daughter sits by day in her oppressively tiny apartment in a none-too-clean but totes trendy area of Manhattan, hunched over her several-years-old laptop, praying it hasn’t been too adversely affected by the water spilt on it over the weekend. She cracks her wrists to avoid carpal tunnel and researches homeopathic remedies to swine flu. She sends her resume out tirelessly to contacts she has known over the years during her upward climb, and she is rejected equally tirelessly, with kind gestures and gently crafted emails.
She throws up her hands in disgust, plots retaliation against past employers via media gossip sites, and pours herself a drink. Until tomorrow, she will drown her sorrows and wonder, Where have all the magazine editors gone?
*”Time of Great Change”
UPDATE: Your unemployed daughter filed for unemployment on May 18, 2008. On May 27, she’ll submit her first claim!
Gather ye Strand books while ye may
i have an idea — what if you got a group of contributors for your site — seven of them — and called them the 7 YUP’s. You can have people apply to you — so you get to have that feeling of people wanting to work FOR you – while you look for people who you want to work FOR. Just an idea, but I think it’s a brilliant one.
I’d like to apply, please.
Don’t forget — 7 YUP is caffeine free. Never had it, never will.
Damn — you already have a contributor. and the “YUD” doesn’t really work with YUP…. oh forget i even said anything.
i love it! and you are welcome to contribute whenever you like!
Thank you for your enjoyable posts! It is so inspiring that you are able to stay positive in this situation.
I have a quick question. I am a journalism student at Columbia University studying digital media. We are looking to share the story of someone on unemployment benefits for a multimedia story. May I possibly ask you for an interview? Please let me know!
Hey! I too am unemployed, and started a blog (seems to be inevitable these days…). Sorry to hear about your unemployment, though I still enjoyed reading about it:) If you’d like to read some of my stories about business school/horrible job interviews, check this out: http://unemployedmba.tumblr.com/.