Laid-Off Workers Keep Up Appearances, Pretend To Be Employed
Earlier this week, the Washington Post shared the story of a man who tried hard to keep up appearances, and to carefully choreograph his routine so his friends and neighbors wouldn't think of him differently. Finally, he tired of the charade, and outed himself. As an unemployed person.
After he lost his job, Clinton Cole continued to wake up early, dress in a suit, and leave the house. Instead of going to the office, he spent the day in a park or public library. While his family knew about his situation, friends and neighbors didn't, and he wanted to keep up appearances.
"In this area, in the shadow of our nation's capital, so much is about appearances," said Cole, a carefully spoken man of medium height with thinning brown hair and tortoise-shell glasses, which he removes for photographs. "There was fear that other kids wouldn't play with your kids. You won't be invited to parties or be ostracized. Or that others would distance themselves from you because you might need help they won't be able to provide. All those thoughts race through your mind."
After about two months, Cole tired of the charade, and now he thinks that talking about it publicly could help him find employment and inspire others. He realized that those he once thought would shun him often reached out to help. Perhaps they saw a bit of themselves in his anxious eyes — just one severance check away from disaster.
The recession has hit college-educated workers hard, people who never imagined being on food stamps or even being unable to afford a summer vacation. The charade can be exhausting and sometimes expensive, and deprives people of job leads and other help the people in our lives can provide.
And only in America would someone think that they could "inspire" people by publicly admitting that they're out of a job.
Lying Low After a Layoff [Washington Post]
(Photo: swanksalot)
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Comments:
My brother's friend is in a bad spot too. His dad had to leave the state to find work, and now his mom is making him choose between finding an after school job within the week or making him move to a different city and drop out of high school to work.
What's sad is he's in the 11th grade and wants to finish so he can go to college.
I really don't understand how papers can publish that the worst is over. People are sleeping in their cars outside of where I work.
@gamabunta: Your brothers friends mother is a fool. Her kid is not a slave and she should not be relying on him to support her. This isn't Pakistan where you can just send your kid off to sew soccer balls.
@gamabunta: This might sound callus, but his mom cannot force him to drop out of school. It might engender bad feeling between him and his mom, but if she insists, he can call child services (I assume he is under 18). I believe they frown upon the whole 'forcing your child to drop out so they can get a job.' Also, if money is this tight already, and he wants to go to college, shouldn't he already have/be looking for a job? I realize they are hard to come by, but...
Is that serious or a joke? Why on earth would other families force their kids to stay away from his kids? Is unemployment contagious or something? Telling kids they have to dump friends whose father is laid off?
What if the wife was laid off, would the family be shunned as well - or is only when a man gets laid off that it's shameful?
I know a lot of laid off people with families, people who lost very high ranking jobs. I have NEVER kept my child from playing with their children, or stopped being friends with them myself. Maybe it's all in this guys head, because I've never heard of this phenomenon.
I think being the weird guy dressed in a suit hanging out in the park each day has more of an image issue than the guy on the block who was laid off.
@icantreplyright: You don't have to convince me that she's an idiot. The fact that neither parent went to college is why they're in this position to begin with. (Yes I know college educated adults are having trouble as well, but you get my point.)
@gamabunta: Sounds like a short term gain, and long term loss. As a high school student who drops out in the 11th grade will at best get a job as an unskilled laborer (Fast food, trash collector, janitor, construction worker (low man on the job)). If he graduates high school, he may be able to get a job as a skilled laborer (machine shop, carpenter etc.) but if he is able to finish school and graduate from college, his career possibilities are almost endless.
If the kid was going to a private school, I could see mom saying he had to go to a public school if they had fallen on hard times, but to drop out of school to get a job for $7.00 per hour just does not add up.
@gamabunta: Nice of her to try to destin him to the same life that is causing her such issues right now. No Diploma or GED and being under 18 makes it almost impossible to get a job right now anyways. Employers have a glut of people willing to do just about any work to keep a roof over their heads. So dropping out might not even gain anything. Please tell me the mother has a job.
@Julia789: Nope not a joke at all. I work in an affluent section of the city, and it is all about appearances. Being laid off is like you contracted a disease, kind of like those people who will stay away if you announce that you have cancer or something, they don't know what to say to you so they just avoid you.
My former boss works in this neighborhood and almost lost her husband a couple years ago, she found out who her friends really are. She still lives in the big house, but she is driving an old car and living more modest than she used to, and there are neighbors that just don't associate with them anymore, since they gave up their country club membership and stopped maintaining the facade.
@Julia789: People who are waaay to pretentious are superficial enough to do something like that. Living in a well cushioned bubble tends to do that.
@Julia789: It is perception. When you are unemployed, your self esteem is very low, in the unemployed's mind, I am sure they feel that everyone is judging them and wondering what they did wrong to get fired.
Men also feel like they are failing their family as for decades it has been the man's job to provide for his family. Today's world is changing that as more an more womed are entering the workforce, and are doing so at high levels (not simply a secretary or a seamstress). Many men are bothered when their wife makes more money than they do as they feel that they are not providing for their family. Stupid way to feel...yes, but that does not change the fact that it happens.
@Julia789: "...Why on earth would other families force their kids to stay away from his kids? Is unemployment contagious or something?"
uh yep, or so they think.
this is nothing new. Some of it stems from people being a bit more superstitious and afraid than you may have realized and another side is that we tend to define people by What They Do For A Living.
If they are Not Doing Anything, how do you define them?
How do you talk to them about anything without being awkward?
Better to just avoid them until this all blows over.
Keep the kids away so they don't know "something" is wrong.
I'm not saying it is right, I am saying it is a reaction that exists.
I gotta say the OP needs to grow a set and realize that what other people think of him is not what determines his worth. The fact that he has bought into the "keeping up with Jones" mentality may be why he is unemployed. be an independent thinker without worrying that others may dismiss your ideas. Yes men always are the easiest for a company to get rid of since they provide no value to a good leader.
@Julia789: You also need to factor in that this person lives in Washington DC where the largest employer is the U.S. Government that generally does not do layoffs, and if a particular department is, they can usually fine another department or office for the cut employee to work. When you look at the unemployment rate for Maryland and Virginia (where most "white collar" professionals that work in DC live, it is considerably lower than most other areas of the US. Therefore most professionals in DC have not lost their jobs.
Test
@baquwards: @bohemian: @Rachacha: @microcars:
I feel bad for the guy, he feels like he let his family down and I can imagine how he'd be depressed. However as a mother I just can't imagine telling my son "You can't play with Kevin, his father was laid off." Maybe it's different in government work than the financial industry. Where I am many many people have lost their jobs. We have pink slip parties and we all keep in touch, network, and try to help those who were laid off. I'm still very close friends with my co-workers who were unfortunately laid off. I just find it so heartless that people would avoid others because of losing their job! It's not like they were fired or involved in an Enron scandal.
I wish I didn't tell my family and friends that I was unemployed when laid off. The only ppl I should have told were my contacts in the industry.
The reason: Trite advice. A lot of vague crap, nothing ever helpful
"Have you tried..."
"I hear the internet has..."
"I saw a news story about a job that requires special training you don't have, maybe you should apply?"
The worse 3 weeks of my life.
Don't give "advice" to unemployed friends and family. If you have a lead. Give it to them. If you don't keep yer trap shut.
A real lead is someone you know is looking to hire someone. Not some article you read in the newspaper.
@baquwards: If they are only friends with you for appearances, they I guess they don't need friends like that. Money doesn't make you better than someone else. Screw THAT, I'll live my poor lifestyle and have friends that will drive across country to help me over that shit.
I did this when I got laid off a few years ago. I feel a bit silly saying this, but I was still living with my parents and was embarrassed so badly about having been laid off from the shitty job I had that I never told them and pretended to get up and get ready to go to work. Maybe this guy's reaction seems a little extreme, but I was so discouraged about my job prospects that I had no idea when I might get more work, and I just didn't want to admit that I had nothing to do. I know how he feels.
@dragonfire81: One of the biggest reasons people end up unemployed is poor management of most companies. Then, even though management is failing, the workers get the axe, because management gets to decide where to cut.
@gamabunta: What's his mom doing? Does she have 3 jobs already? Does dad have 3 jobs already? If not, she should shut up and go to work. Maybe she should go flip burgers on the graveyard shift instead of ruining her son's future.
Does she have any other kids or did she sell them on eBay?
@Julia789: Why on earth would other families force their kids to stay away from his kids? Is unemployment contagious or something? Telling kids they have to dump friends whose father is laid off?
Well, the other parents could preemptively tell their kids to stay away because they could be worried that the unemployed family's kids will be looking for handouts. It could even be unintentional, such as staying for dinner or a seemingly innocuous sleepover. As others above me pointed out, paranoia would run rampant, and they'd be treated like they have a disease. Easier to avoid the problem all together.
@Verucalise-WelcomeBethany:
ITA.
This could be a character-building experience for the entire family. With friends like that, who needs enemies? Real friends would be emotionally supportive of you during a trying time. If someone is friends with you only because of your status, screw them.
I'm not speaking from experience, but I don't think I'd ever "pretend" to go to work just so my neighbors and (so-called) friends wouldn't know I waa laid off.
Of course, my friends wouldn't look down at me for being laid off in the first place. This guy needs some new freinds.
@AcceleratedDragon: +1. 3 weeks? That's like a vacation. Try 4 months. You can't talk to family or friends anymore without hearing it. "How's the job search?" is a popular one, and "Do you have any interviews coming up?". They are well intentioned but they just remind you that you're job search is going badly. I've gotten plenty of suggestions for a new career, some make sense, others are really oddball from some article they read in the paper, for a job that I've never done and never had any interest in, and probably don't have the skills for. But hey, some company somewhere is hiring for it (and probably filled all the slots before the article was even printed!).
Sounds like Michael Douglas in one of my favorite movies, "Falling Down"... hopefully he won't finish the role!
@AcceleratedDragon: I know exactly what you are talking about. A frightening number of people just got permanent jobs by luck, and have no idea what it's like to even apply for a job.
I didn't pretend I was working. I would dress in business attire in the morning just to go to a coffee shop or to gas up my car. Not because I wanted people to think I was employed, but it helped maintain my sanity. It can be a huge blow to get up in the morning knowing you don't have a job to go to. You have the same routine for years and then suddenly nothing.
And the longer you are unemployed the more you feel like a failure.. I used to read those postings of 'I have applied to 300 positions and nothing yet' and thought 'that would never be me', well it can become any of us..
Then you become underemployed, just to not be unemployed anymore.. but it's a good learning experience, that you are not your job or your stuff, that's the thing I have taken out of this.. a killing of my ego.. and that's not all bad :-)
@dragonfire81: Agreed. Unemployment can also be a great conversation starter with your friends. I like to ask random people I meet what they do for a living, just so I can tell them I'm unemployed.
@funkright: I tried the blanket application approach for a while. It's useless. You can apply to 1,000 listings with your resume and not get one phone call. I don't even think anyone reads them most of the time. You need to find 2-3 listings a week and focus only on them. Send letters, drop by their office, call them on the phone, ask for interviews. I never got interviews or phone calls until I started being more aggressive. Even if they are offended or say no, you're no worse off - they wouldn't have called you anyway.
I hear you. When I was laid off from a job some years ago, I had family members telling me I should apply for jobs I was totally unqualified for just because I might "get lucky" and land the job anyway. I work in a field where there are often a hundred or more applicants for a single opening and many people are overqualified for the jobs they have. I'm pretty sure applying for a position I don't even meet the minimum qualifications for is a waste of my time.
Actually, it happens quite a bit in Japan. Check out this film about the concept:
@bohemian: I knew a lot of parents growing up where they refused to fill out financial aid forms and actively discouraged their kids going to college because: high school was good enough for them, are they trying to be better than their parents, they'll become snotty, etc.
@henrygates: The problem I have with calling prospective employers is that they may get offended, but you can't act as if they would have never called in the first place - I applied to a position that I knew I probably wasn't going to get a call for, even though I really liked it. But the employer ended up calling anyway because it had another position open up and had determined that my resume fit that better. If I had called and been more aggressive and that had scared them off, they would have never called me back for any reason.
@ARP: That's so sad. How can parents be so blind as to see that they need to give their children more opportunity than they had. You work as hard as you can so your kids can have a life better than you did, and have the means to travel and experience life in a better way than you did. How in the world can anyone think that having more opportunity is not a good thing?
@Moiraine: If he's under 18 and he's working full time, someone else can call child services - I think in some states, if you employ someone under 18 full time, you could get into trouble because legally, that person should be in school.
He's probably working on the weekends. High school can be quite demanding, especially you have ambitions past junior college. If he's working on the weekends, that money could be going toward a college fund, and his mother wants him to quit school to work full-time to support the family.
This is one of those cases in which you need to recognize that your family no longer looks out for your interests as well as their own.
@pecan 3.14159265 (now with star power): They can very easily be blinded by economics.
Rent is coming up and is $500. You have $400 in the bank. Either your kid gets a job to help pay the rent, or you get evicted.
If that means he stops this school stuff, that's what it means.
I'm not defending it. I'm just saying it's hard to be a couch quarterback when it comes to living in poverty.
@pecan 3.14159265 (now with star power): It's worse than that. A generation ago you could have made a pretty decent living with just a high school degree. Today, college is mandatory for anything but manual labor or retail.
My thinking is that if friends and neighbors would treat you that way, then they have serious issues. I wouldn't want to have anything to do with people like that. I certainly would not spend my day trying to fool them.
As much as he can lose out on potential job leads by not sharing the information with people that he knows, he also could have gained some by following that routine and finding other worthwhile activities to pursue in those hours as well. Best case would have been to do both, to inform the people that he knows, and by keeping up a routine of going out and "exploring."
@pecan 3.14159265 (now with star power):
I think it looks sort of desperate to call after you have already submitted your resume, but I can't see how a call would hurt BEFOREHAND. If you call before to "express interest in the position" and perhaps ask them if online submission is their preferred method of application. Maybe they will say no, send it to my e-mail and you will have a better idea of how the office treats its online posting requests.
For some businesses and organizations, online postings are just a bureaucratic formality and jobs are already filled by the time they get posted.
@henrygates: 8 months. It really did get to the point where I wished people wouldn't ask how things were going. It wasn't so much the well intentioned but misguided suggestions, just the constant reminder that I was unemployed and having almost no luck.
@henrygates: i love trying to explain my field a bazillion times and that just because it says "counseling" doesn't mean i can do all sorts of counseling. My degree is MENTAL HEALTH counseling (with a specialization in forensics). No I can't become a guidance counselor. NO I can't become a drug/alcohol counselor in most places as I don't have that credential. No I can't become a financial counselor....and the list goes on and on and on.
And then people just latch onto forensics, and think I can become an analyst. THAT'S FORENSIC SCIENCE PEOPLE!
I am glad I found SOMETHING (unless something falls through), but the organization really doesn't have growth opportunities for mental health counselors, just social workers. I am hoping the experience as a "support staff" will help me find a job at a site that does supervision so I can be licensed in mental health counseling.
It's sad to me that to a lot of folks have that perception that unemployed person = failure.
There are plenty of reasons people end up unemployed and it's stupid to think of someone different because they lose their job. We're all in this together folks. You laugh at the unemployed guy, but you might wind up in his shoes tomorrow.