Landing On Your Feet Readjusting To Your Time Away From The Job And Looking For A New One Are Both Delicate Struggles Of Being Unemployed

You know you’re really unemployed that first bleak Monday morning in January when your wife goes off to her job, the cat curls up under the bed covers, and there’s absolutely no sound in the house but that of anxiety calling.

“You’re not earning a living,” it complains. “You better get serious about finding work. Every hour that goes by is time lost.”

I was luckier than most. When my boss, Congressman Larry LaRocco, was defeated on Nov. 8, I had seven weeks before the paychecks stopped. Still, when the holidays were over and that first bleak morning came, I had no job. Everyone else went off to work. Everyone else, it seemed, had a job. I felt very much alone.

Although I had been working hard at finding work - calling my many contacts, sending out resumes, watching the ads, talking to friends, visiting employers - I had come up empty. And now I couldn’t pretend I was still employed, or that it was the holidays. It was, in fact, the beginning of true unemployment. It was very hard.

An excerpt from my diary for that day: “This marks the first full week of unemployment,” I wrote on Jan. 9, “not a happy time, although it’s clear that it’s what you make of it. Loosed from the security of the day-to-day job, I find myself sometimes sailing, sometimes foundering in a sea of possibilities. I’ll admit to being kind of scared, kind of excited, kind of lost.”

Which is why Richard Nelson Bolles’ job-hunting best-seller “What Color is Your Parachute?” has been such a friend to me. Friend as in companion - imparting wisdom, offering tips, providing consolation and demanding nothing in return. Updated each year to incorporate new economic nuances as well as readers’ advice, Bolles writes with humor, compassion and empathy. Other books can provide the how-to’s. Bolles, like a wise uncle, lays a verbal arm around your shoulder and points the way.

Bolles began writing his “practical manual for job-hunters and career changers” in 1970. His thesis then and now is that the traditional methods of finding work - resumes, unemployment ads and employment agencies - are not enough. A more sensible approach, he argues, is to use every alternative at your command. Determine your skills, figure out where you want to use them, and then go after that type of work in person. And count on a long haul. The average job hunt lasts eight to 23 weeks.

He sums it up this way: “The essence of successful job-hunting is having alternatives: Alternative avenues of job-hunting. Alternative ways of describing what you do. Alternative ways of approaching employers. Alternative leads to jobs. Alternative ‘target’ organizations that you’re going after …”

It’s pretty sensible advice Bolles dishes out, much of it culled over the years from the feedback of thousands who’ve read his book: Don’t rely on want ads; talk to people you know; make family, friends and acquaintances your job-search eyes and ears. Don’t waste a lot of time firing resumes into the blue. Figure out where you’d really like to work - whether they have openings or not - and wangle an interview with the person who has the power to hire you. Approach job-hunting as the work it is. Spend six hours a day in a disciplined schedule. The more you work at it, job experts say, the faster you will find work.

In “Guerrilla Tactics in the Job Market,” Tom Jackson pictures the job search this way:

No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No Yes.

The more quickly you work through the “no’s,” the sooner you arrive at “yes.” But in the end, as you suspected all along, Bolles says, the one who cares the most about finding work, the one who will put in the most time and effort, the only one who can find you a job is … you.

Unemployment is America’s dirty little secret. We’re a society of workers, builders, doers. Our national motto, our parents’ mantra: “Hard work is its own reward.” So we sympathize with those out of work, while we secretly hope it isn’t contagious. We like to think that we would never have to go through all that. Not to ruin your working day, but statistics say otherwise.

Jobs in the U.S. last an average of 4.2 years.

The number of job searches in one’s life likely will be eight.

The number of careers for an average person will be three.

At least one of five U.S. workers will be unemployed this year.

In Spokane during December, 10,200 people were out of work - 5.3 percent of the work force.

In Idaho during December, 38,300 people were out of work - 6.4 percent of the work force.

In Washington during December, 168,500 people were out of work - 6.2 percent of the work force. And, of course, these figures don’t include those who’ve given up and dropped off the states’ charts.

People used to ask how I could live with the uncertainty of a job dependent on a two-year election cycle. I answered that at least I knew my uncertainty dates: Election Day in even-numbered years. That’s more than most can say.

In other businesses, a new manager, a new president, a new CEO is possible any day. “Downsizing,” “reinventing,” “automation” are the watchwords of the ‘90s.

Where is job security anymore? Not at IBM, US West, MorrisonKnudsen or, certainly, Boeing. The days of 25-year retirements are gone with the gold watch. Workers today should be broadening their skills, paying attention to a constantly changing market and preparing themselves for the next life.

My job as a congressional aide was not dissimilar to my time as city editor of The Idaho Statesman: constant pressure from all sides, long hours, short deadlines and the challenging demands of keeping a dozen balls juggled at once. Transitioning from that full-tilt, gogo job style to one of solitary selfdiscipline was difficult.

The true secret in coping with unemployment lies not with jobhunting tactics but with selfdiscovery. Unemployment can be incredibly depressing. Not only do we face obvious financial pressures, more importantly we face loss of selfconfidence. For most of us, the job defines who we are. Check out today’s obituaries. Most of them refer to the deceased as “a retired office manager,” “a retired rancher” or “a devoted mother and homemaker” (legitimate jobs, too). Without a job, we face a crisis of identity. One of the great challenges and opportunities of unemployment is to redefine ourselves in terms of our own self-worth, not in terms of job description.

Unemployment is depressing, Bolles says, because it marks the end of an era. More than likely, it goes on way too long, and, worst of all, it leaves us feeling powerless. Despite all our phone calls, contacts, resumes, cover letters and best efforts, when unemployment drags from days to weeks and even months, it’s debilitating.

As Bolles says: “It goes on and on, and nothing we do seems to make any difference. We begin to feel absolutely powerless. That’s depressing. Very depressing.”

There are many tips for dealing with depression - get plenty of rest, use friends and relatives for support, exercise, volunteer, take classes, etc.

For me, the best advice has been to work on attitude. “We always have power,” Bolles says, “the power to change how we view a situation, and thus to alter that situation.”

In other words, view the unemployment glass as half full. If, as they say, we have only the present to control, then focusing determinedly, persistently on today is the only sensible thing to do.

Work at job-hunting in a systematic, scheduled and disciplined way each day. But, beyond that, work at enjoying unemployment. That’s right, take pleasure from your predicament. Why not? Welcome the coming of spring. Take time for long walks. Stop and talk with strangers. Write old friends. Play with your kids. Start that long-put-off novel.

Soon enough, you’ll be employed again and back in that rat race. Take the time now, while you have it, to slow down and enjoy. Why not?

Finally, view unemployment as an opportunity not only to do some of those things that you never had time for, but to do the work laid out in “Parachute” and discover what you’re about and where you really want to go. Then this unwanted, dreaded and generally reviled downtime can become a rewarding, productive and even valued timeout in your life. And maybe you can look back and feel like you cheated the unemployment bogeyman. That would be good work, indeed.

MEMO: Tom Knappenberger is a free-lance writer living in Boise. He has been district representative for former Congressman Larry LaRocco, D-Idaho, and city editor of The Idaho Statesman in Boise.