Your Unemployed Daughter

photo credit: wallyg

It’s 2:30 on a rainy Friday, and YUD has accomplished the following:

1) Conducted an interview that she will write up for money.

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photo credit: Jeremy Brooks

Here’s an interesting piece, on Gawker today, about the fate of those print journalism types who haven’t been laid off. And while I don’t think it’s as dire as all that—things change, and people need (after their fair share of wallowing boozily, semi-conscious in private miseries) to hop on board and adapt or just go ahead and retire—it’s telling.

Who has it better? Maybe it’s actually us unemployeds.

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photo credit: richardmasoner
When I woke up this morning and shook the pinot grigio fog from my addled mind, I discovered this in my inbox, from former (fantastic) intern C. from a place of business that is no longer. (This fact is especially heartbreaking as the former headquarters of said Co. are right around the corner from my current freelance gig.) Times, they have changed.

I just moved to the city a month ago and have been completely knocked down from the complete disconnect from what I expected my life to be post-graduation and what it is right now.

I watched those stupid rom-com movies growing up, and while other girls were playing house, I played Magazine Dictator. While my friends were spending their summers traveling through Europe and passing out on beaches, I sat in cubicles with other interns and played the FuckMarryKill game in between punching out transcriptions and hed and dek options.

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photo credit: candrews

You know how when you were little, and you told your mom you felt bad, and she thought you were just faking to get out of going to school but she took you to the doctor and it turned out you had a strep throat, or pneumonia, or swine flu?

That’s kind of how this recent NYT report makes me feel. Vindicated. Sorry for self. In need of antibiotics.

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Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m generally not out to make enemies (it just happens, okay?). And I like a cool $100 in my little pink wallet as much as the next guy. But does this job description (posted today on Mediabistro, names removed to protect the “innocent”) seem – somehow – a little shady?

“TK.com is looking for inquisitive people to work on a freelance basis in booking and conducting video interviews with renown and recognizable individuals in the arts, business, academia, science, and politics — and then editing those interviews. You don’t need to know anything about video editing, however, because you won’t actually be touching any video! Essentially you’ll take the interview you did and identify up to 10 one-minute to three-minute segments that you think would make good stand-alone video clips. At this point a professional video editor takes over and edits the video according to your instructions.

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photo credit: bowbrick

In case you haven’t heard, there’s a media implosion going on. And by imploding, I mean deflating like a punctured helium balloon tearing through the sky on its last gas. Or maybe a meteor falling out of the sky. Get out of its way. It’ll hit you.

Now, if we were in a media explosion, I would have at least one of these jobs (companies will remain nameless to protect the innocent – me) that I’ve applied for in the last month. I would have at least been called. I know, I don’t always have the right experience. I don’t expect them all to call me. I’m not that egotistical. But you’d think more than one would have gotten in touch, no?

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Imagine this: Virtual shopping malls! Four-pound “notebook” computers! Bedtime stories from a [[insert ominous tones here]] … Peeee Ceeee???

We’ve come a long way, baby, from the “International Network of Computers,” as evidenced by this report from Tom Brokaw circa 1995 (thank you, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon). When addressed with concerns that people might lose their jobs on account of this newfangled technology, Bill Gates simply points out, “it does have a CD-Rom player.”

Hello, magazine industry 2009. If only someone had thought to charge for content back then.

Way nicer than Super Errol's

There is a glass-bottom boat rivalry here at the Rockhouse in Jamaica.

In one corner, we have Super Errol, a rather pudgy older man with a small boat that, even from the restaurant 20-some feet up, looks as though it could use a renovation. And in the other, Famous Vincent, whose boat is clearly superior – larger, better paint job, special high-quality glass – even the addition of a helpmate/partner named Elvira is touted on the side.

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Perfect for corgis and smaller golden retrievers

Maybe you’ve heard this already. A girl, recently unemployed in New York City, turns to dog-sitting to pay her rent. She’s checking in on a couple’s German Shepherd at their Tribeca apartment. But when she opens the front door, there is the dog, sprawled in the middle of the foyer, dead as a doornail.

Despite being paid (What do dogsitters make these days? Anyone know?) let’s say, $25 … no, $50 a day, this couple does live in Tribeca, our fearless and dedicated dogsitter takes it upon herself to immediately call and alert the animal’s owners (who are say, vacationing in St. Barths), that their pup has expired. The couple, demonstrating precisely why they don’t have children, assign their intrepid dogsitter the duty of disposing of the body.

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shoes, aka, WMDs

Perhaps the worst thing about getting fired (ahem, laid off!) is the other (employed) people thinking the event has been so devastating that you’ve taken to your couch in tears, or worse, aren’t getting out of bed at all … that you are self-medicating (whiskey? Klonopin? Cutting yourself with the sharp edges of your severance agreement?) among pizza boxes and your own human detritus … that, in fact, you’ve suffered something so near death that they can only look at you with lowered, basset hound eyes, pat you on the shoulder, and whisper “Sorry” in low tones when you face them in the bar. (Aside: How many of these people have bought me a drink? Priorities, puhleaze! If I needed a therapist, I’d pay one.)

The worst fear in these well-meaning but misguided souls’ minds is that you, dear Unemployed Personage, will NEVER fully recover your lost earning potential and that you just might take matters into your own hands and be done with it all. Bullshit! Their worst fear, actually, is that they’ll be next. That’s why they have that hangdog expression when you get near, are prone to hugs and cliches, and leave the party early claiming “work the next day” under their breath. The truth: They’re not so sure they want to be associated with the taint of the unemployed. They can smell you (so can I – just cause you’re not working doesn’t mean you don’t need a little reg soap & water, hon).

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