The Six Stages of Unemployment: No. 3: Fear

There are some things you should be afraid of.
Jumping into a fire (except possibly to save a life), consuming poisons,  engaging in unwarranted fisticuffs, and trying to make sense of a conversation with someone who's drunk come to mind.
Should you be afraid when you no longer have a job?
Yeah!
Not having a job means your resources are limited in monetary and social terms. Not having a job means you have a reduced means of contributing to the world, at least in a conventional sense.
If you're NOT scared by those prospects, you're not paying attention.
What is the advantage to fear?
Fear helps us avoid reckless behavior in dangerous situations. That's good. It enhances our potential for survival.
However.
Fear also inhibits actions. Fear can immobilize.
As observed in past posts, lack of action is not a great path to take when engaged in a job search.
You need to be methodical and cautious, since your resources are at risk of being diminished or possibly depleted.
So you must accept the reality that this is a scary situation. But you can't let that stop you.
About seven years ago, I attended my first faculty in-service shortly after being hired at a new college.
During the "what did you do with your summer?" round-Robin, my new peers talked of travels, books coming out, family adventures, making films, applying for grants, and so much more.
At the time, my admiration was unbounded. I thought, "wow, these people are fearless."
While I still admire these people and their achievements, I no longer see them as fearless.
I've come to realize that they simply don't let their fears stop them.
When we are trying to replace a job, fear is not only natural, but inevitable. After all, getting the job in the first place was a big adventure, and it's easy to see having that position usurped as being powerless. Nothing generates fear quite like being without power, or seeing yourself as such.
But you must, as Yoda says, control your fear.
Act!
Take deliberate steps to change your situation. But while being deliberate and exercising reasonable cautions, don't let those cautions hinder you from taking new risks. Yes, the stakes are higher. But more to lose also means more to gain.
Next: Stage four, unless something happens between now and then.

The Six Stages of Unemployment: No. 1: Shock

Even when you see it coming, like Peter Parker, the original Hard Luck Kid, it's a shock to no longer have your job.
Jobs are a bit like relationships. We gripe about them nonstop, and when they end, we're more than a bit sad and often surprised.
Think about it. You're used to a set of conditions and have built significant parts of your life around them, even if you don't always care for them. And when they do stop, even if it's your idea, your sense of comfort with a part of your own life is taken away. And the longer you were at the job/relationship, the deeper the shock, even if it is coupled with the relief of something unpleasant ending, as is sometimes the case in such circumstances.
What do you do?
First and most important, start dating again.
Begin looking for work immediately. This process will be full of fits and starts. Asking for something that you recently took as a given in your life takes some adaptation on your part.
Also, know that even though it's crucial, accept that you may not be able to do this particular thing right away.
You've just been handed a pretty significant setback. Your whole life has just been reshaped. Its akin to being whacked upside the head with a two by four. Not everyone has the wherewithal to stand right up and run a marathon, which is what you must do in a job search.
The core message of all these posts is the same. You're going to feel bad about it. Not accepting that will extend the process and feel worse.
Dealing with the shock is the hardest.
Talk to your friends and family nonstop. You'll want to talk about things besides being out of work, just so they'll put up with you. Nobody wants to listen to a broken record forever. But the less time you spend out of your own head, the sooner you'll be better. This will also give you the advantage of perspective. When you have a big new problem, reminders of other peoples' problems will help you keep balance. These reminders will also help you remember that you still have something to offer, especially if you can be of help to someone else.
There's much more to say on this, but this will serve for now. I must get back to work on my cover letters!
Next: step two.

The Six Stages of Unemployment

Well, you don't have to hanged by the neck until dead to see your way through being out of work.
Fortunately!
But when you do lose your job, some things you don't anticipate will happen to you.
Your life will change in ways you don't expect, and at the time, probably don't want.

Much like Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's theory on dealing with death, I've broken the process down into six stages. Strangely, just as you adapt to being without work, so too you must go through a grieving process when you get work again. Some parts of the cycle will recur when you are once again employed! This is because your life is again changing in unexpected ways, and you have to acclimate to yet another way of living.

Dr. Kubler-Ross, late in life

The six cycles I've identified are
1. Shock
2. Rejection
3. Fear
4. Immobilization
5. Desperation
6. Resignation
This is much like Dr. Kubler-Ross's five steps of dealing with death, but it has some distinctions. Also like that cycle, you may not experience these things in that order. But odds are you will experience them all.
That makes sense, because when you have your job removed from your life, someone has died- the person you were when doing that job in those circumstances no longer exists.
The important thing about this is to not be a brave soldier.
Wallow in it. Not forever, but long enough to deal.
Unless you have the will of a machine, you're going to feel bad whether you acknowledge it or not. The sooner you get it over with, the sooner you can get back to the work of your life.
Also, bear in mind that some of that work does not stop when your job is taken away!
In the next couple weeks, I'll explore each of these steps.
If you disagree with my take on this, have at it! A job search, like democracy or life itself, is a work in progress, not a place for easy answers!

Disproportional curves

jumping though hoops indeed!

Some random thoughts on the frustrations of the job search process:
1. The less skilled the job, the longer the application. I recently filled out a 25 page application and a 100 item questionnaire for a retail job. I guess they want to be sure you're not going to steal some trinket, or that you're savvy enough to give the required answer to the questions.
Silly.
But we do it anyway.
The corollary of this is the paradox of a credit check as a condition of employment. If you're potentially working with sensitive material or with funds, this makes a measure of sense. But when people are out of work, their credit invariably takes a hit, since their revenue stream becomes inconsistent. So if your credit rating goes down because  you're out of work, and it adversely effects your potential to be hired, you can't get a job because you need one. Several states have done away with this unreasonable practice, and others are working on it.
2. Does it strike anyone else as odd that there's a disproportionate curve to having work? If you have work, it's usually easier to get more. As my friend Connie Moore noted, people don't necessarily want to hire you because you're the best for the job. Many people want to hire you to prevent someone else from hiring you. It's a strange kind of one-up-manship. It's not necessarily that they want your skills so much as they want someone else to not have your skills. If you doubt that, next time you're employed, tell your supervisor that you've had another offer. Odds are they'll match it.
Your skills haven't changed. Your value to the organization hasn't changed. The only difference in your skills is that someone else wants them.
3. Conversely, once you are not working, it's much harder to start again. Depending on your skill set and the marketplace, it's almost always easier to change jobs than it is to get a new one when you don't have one.
4. The phrase "not working" has pejorative connotations. It can be read as not functioning, or broken. When someone doesn't have a job, presuming the individual remains sufficiently motivated to keep their hand in in their chosen profession, their skills are just as valid. Let's lose the stigma associated with joblessness, shall we?
Proper terminology can be our friend. I recall the old Emo Phillips joke: "I lost my job. Well, I didn't actually lose it. I know where it is. But I go there and there's this other guy doing it!"
5 By the same token, it's crucial to respect potential employers, not just because they might be able to grant you a means to a livelihood, but because they're also human beings, and they have their own set of problems and crises that transcend the send CV - interview - thank you note - month later follow up that is now de rigeur in the job search dance.

What if I fail?

"It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well have not lived at all, in which case, you fail by default."

J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement from Harvard Magazine on Vimeo.
A couple nights ago, I was sitting with a friend, giving a lovely bottle of wine a mercy killing, slow, easy and inevitable.
As is the way of such nights, we talked of hopes, frustrations and fears. Always fears.
So many fears revolve around my temporarily stalled career.
As anyone who is out of work will tell you, your professional life may be on hold, but the rest of your life strolls along, oblivious to the problems posed by the former.
We  talked of strategies, possibilities, and how this circumstance can strip you down to your core self, as Ms. Rowling addresses here. She also directly addresses the very real problem of a creative individual trying to endure in a world that does not always value creativity.
That's a bit of a conceit. What do creative people do? In essence, as Laura Dern's character said in an episode of the great series The West Wing, we try to get people's attention and hold that attention as long as we can. While we have their attention, we try to tell them the truth.
And if we're skilled AND lucky, we are given coin for our efforts.
Imagine the audacity. I did what I wanted and expected to profit from it! As though life was to be enjoyed, not dutifully trudged through! 
So a truth and some coin.
If we do not phrase that truth in a fashion palatable to the buyer, whether through our lack of control of our craft or their disinterest in our wares, we don't make a sale. We don't make a sale, we need that most blessed and cursed of things: the day job.
You know, the one you're not supposed to quit to be an artist. Or a writer. Or a musician.
Funny, nobody tells an aspiring architect, lawyer or doctor not to quit their day job. The presumption is that those professions are paths to success. But creativity as a path to success is at best a worry, at worst a shame for the loved ones of those who navigate that path.
A creative life has numerous rewards.  It also has the potential for crashing failure.
Back to Ms. Rowling. Fear of failure can be a motivator.

So what if I fail?
What actually happens when we fail?
Well, depends on what we're trying to do.
If we're trying to thrive in the world and fail at that, we risk our health, our relationships, and our personal stability. This can have an adverse effect on those who care about us, to say the least. They can be as confused and upset by your circumstances as you are.
As a case in point, within the course of three days, I had the same close friend tell me she feared I was clinically depressed and then that that she feared I was oblivious to my situation, a contradiction I would have found amusing if it wasn't so irritating.
But unless you really have your home taken from you or fall prey to a malady that does you permanent harm, these conditions are all temporary.
The work of life is balance. The tight-wire of being unemployed or underemployed is more precarious than some, but it can be walked, however gingerly.
The challenge for those of us with a burn to create is twofold. Work for someone else while you work for  yourself. It takes twice the drive of someone who only wants a job and time off to spend with loved ones (mind, I'm not sure such people exist- few if any are that apathetic, that they fit the sad model of the opening Rowling quote).
If you are smart, talented, driven and lucky, not necessarily in that order, you may be able to replace the part of the equation that says "work for someone else" with "surivive on your creative work."
That world has a very different set of rules. More on them later.
For now, don't worry about failing.
You will fail. We all will.
And this is good.
Once you have survived that, in the words of Alan Moore, there's nothing left to threaten with.
You are free.

Temp on!

So about this job I had last weekend....
It was a 2-day temp job, answering phones, fielding walk-in questions, compiling survey results and generally minding the store at a motorcycle show.
Fun people, good working conditions, if anything, I could have stood having more to do.
Still, I filled the terms of my contract and then some.
Made a couple quick bucks- not a fortune, by any means, but it does help!
Now about temping.

Anthology based on the concept of a superhero temp agency

Temping is having someone else sell your services and take a cut for their efforts. The employer contacts the agency, who in turn provides the labor (you) from a pool. It can be a very good deal for all concerned. The entity for which the work is done has minimal employer responsibilities, the employee makes some money and so does the employer.
And in rare cases, like that of my niece, working for the agency itself can become a career!
As an old girlfriend of mine once noted, temp agencies are de facto pimps.
That's a bit harsh, but there's a measure of truth in it.
But at its best, temping is advantageous to the employee too.
It allows you to try a job on for size. It gives you time to assess your place in the work world in general, and in the structure in which you are placed specifically.
In short, temping can be a transitional device for getting back into the work force.
Temping can serve a great many other functions.
When I was working as a temp at an insurance company one summer, I met a woman who worked as an archeological illustrator. There were only a couple dozen people in the world in her profession. She'd go on digs and draw the findings, making notes and a different kind of record than one could get through photography or handling the artifacts in question, the latter not always being practical.  During the off season, she picked a place she'd never lived before, or on rare occasion, one she knew and liked, and temp till the season for digs started up again and she was called to another nation to dig (though she sometimes got digs in the US).
This unorthodox example offers another possibility of temping. It affords an employee the opportunity for a very different life.
We're not all meant for the business world, and the labor classes are slowly getting easier to thrive in, but not there yet (more on that in another post). It's good to have a structure available that recognizes that.
It's like clothes shopping. How can you know if it fits if you don't try it on first?
Temping isn't really a career, it's a hundred related careers.
The down side is that temps don't always have work for you.
Then again, these days, who does?
As always, it's a question of choosing a path and walking it till you find another that suits you!

Keep on Working!

This is work, but it's also a joy.
But then, most work is, in one way or another.
Bear with me.
I'm jobless at the moment. But I still have plenty of work to do.
I'm far from alone in these things these days.
Yet most advice I get, from professionals or acquaintances, despite being very well intentioned, drives me up the wall. there's things about this situation that you don't fully get unless that's where you are.
So rather than fume about it, I've decided to try to come to terms with the situation and my response to it.
This blog is an ongoing record of my attempt to understand and thrive in a world that's always eluded me (by choice, design, or a combination of the two) - the world of business and money. I'm no stranger to various kinds of work, but parts of that world... hmm...
Two or three times a week, circumstances permitting, I will post thoughts and updates. I'd like to see something pragmatic on these issues. Most books or professionals in the field address the situation of unemployment and underemployment in a way that seems to miss something. So I'd like to offer more of an insider's view.
Sometimes it will be philosophical, sometimes sad, sometimes exuberant. These are tough times, and hard to understand. I'll post strategies and results, and invite my readers to do the same.
I'll try to make it worth reading, and fun to read. It will be honest writing, but nobody likes a sad chick, so I'll keep it balanced.
I'll leave this opening salvo with a song I've always loved. It's on point, but I'm really nowhere near as morose as the song suggests!