MY LAYOFF: SO MANY CHOICES,
SO MUCH TIME

BY C. RANDALL MURRAY

 

My trip down the unemployment highway began with regrets -- his and mine. I believe Jeff was sincere; his facial color (gray) and expression (grim) said he was, when he admitted, "There's no easy way to say this. We have to let you go." Fired. Well, "laid off" was the term dished out onto the mahogany conference table. But fired. No notice, no severance. After nearly thirty-five years in journalism, the past eleven as editorial-page editor and wine writer with the Boca Raton News, I was being sacrificed on the economic altar.

The News has been a sinking ship for years. Knight Ridder sold it in 1997 to Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc. Two years later CNH fire-saled it to the then publisher, Michael Martin. But under Martin's ownership it has been taking on water at a murderous pace. (In late July, after I left, the paper was sold yet again to a local lawyer and doctor.) When your revenues fall far short of covering expenses, when you are on a C.O.D. basis with virtually every supplier, when the calls come in February asking, "When are you planning to pay your November bills?" the math is simple. As much as I had anticipated this fall of the ax, it still ripped and sliced and caused pain. My stomach knotted. There's a theory that we are what we do. Suddenly, I had nothing to do. So who was I now? And whom would I become?

But tantrums and flaming e-mails to the incompetents who run the place would do no good. So I recorded a message on my office phone that said I was no longer employed there. Then I went home.

When my wife saw me sitting at my computer at 10 a.m. on a Friday in my favorite uniform, T-shirt, shorts, and no shoes, she frowned.
"Did you quit?" she asked.

No, I said, "I was fired." There was that word again.

My prospects did not seem all that good. I'm a fifty-six-year-old white male in an industry that thrives on diversity and on keeping salaries low by hiring young people. Plus, I am an editorialist, a specialized journalist, which reduces the availability of suitable jobs. At least we're not poor and do have a fairly substantial backstop to keep us going. But I'm gripped by the same sort of squirminess we all get in those dreams where we're walking pantsless in a crowd.

I began a fusillade of e-mails to friends, colleagues, and other editorial-page editors, looking for a lifeline. No lifeline, but lots of sympathy. I don't mean to be an ingrate, but I almost cringe at the thought of yet another "one door closes, another door opens" or "you know, they really did you a favor."

But I really have been buoyed by all the folks who've shared their horror stories about being slashed and burned, about business failures, about being cheated out of their share of the company, etc. I'm not out there alone with no pants. I'll just have to remember a sign I saw in a little deli on the way to the unemployment office: "Customer's attitude can influence the price."

Surprisingly, the Workforce Development Center, an umbrella facility offering myriad services to those seeking work, was full of efficient, pleasant, positive people. Within half an hour I had all the forms filled out and was heading in to a job counseling session. I'm now in the system, I thought, and I can hear the wheels grinding.

"Take a vacation," counseled the counselor. "Take two or three days off and do nothing; walk on the beach, sit by the pool, read books, whatever. Then get to work finding work."

Good advice for what is called "a dislocated worker." But I didn't take it. I got right to work networking. My PC was smokin'. Likewise the phone. Did I network? Does a bear piddle in the woods?

Fortunately the Career Center at the WDC offers job-seekers great resources -- long-distance phones, fax machines, copiers, computers with Internet access, daily newspapers. All free. And you know what made me feel really good? When they told me my former employer was paying for all that. Made me want to concentrate my job search, and my toll calls, on Australia.

I about gagged when I learned how big my unemployment check would be -- $275 a week. And the heartless bastards that govern all this decided they would make that chunk of change subject to federal income tax. Well, it's better than nothing. Jokingly I said to the career counselor who revealed that figure to me, "Okay, it'll cover the beer." Her eyebrows launched. Don't joke with state employees.

I have disregarded another piece of advice from the counselor: "Get out of the house." Sounds like Mencken: "Get out of the office." But my wife works -- a little extra these days -- so I'm not underfoot like some Boca retiree. I do use the Career Center for many long-distance calls and faxes, but I like yakking on the Net here at home.

I have read enough stories over the years to know what to do and what not to do when you get fired.

Don't mope around watching The Game Show Channel, wallow in anger and bitterness, think this is the end of the world, convince yourself your career (and your life) are in the toilet, go out and hock the family jewelry, kick the dog.
Do set a routine and get up at the same time you always did (unless you worked nights), let tons of folks know that you're available, think beyond the box of your previous life, pet the dog (it will lower your blood pressure).
After about ten days jobless, and hundreds of contacts, I said to my wife, "I have been thinking so far outside the box so often I'm scared." I am not a person to take wild chances or make drastic mid-course changes.

Said she, "I've been telling you to do that for years."
Said I, "But I've been comfortable."

I ain't comfortable now.

The networking has paid off. In the next two weeks four free-lance assignments dropped into my lap. Will they pay the rent? Not quite, but they will cover the beer, and then some.

A county commissioner generously took me to lunch -- yeah, I know who really paid for it -- and promised with a sincerity that moved me, "I'll help you however I can. You were always fair with me. What can I do?"

As I write, three weeks after the ax dropped, I am still pantsless. I'm not sure whether I will be able to stay in journalism, although I have three hooks in newspaper waters -- one of them actually has fish circling it. I've been offered a consulting job, a position as communications director with a regional nonprofit arts ensemble, a gig with a guy who runs an international marketing/p.r. company, plus two local government jobs. And I still have other interviews scrawled in my planner.

It's frightening, in a way, to be so free, to have so many different kinds of choices. Three weeks ago I was in a routine -- some might call it a rut. I was respected in the community for what I did, and I was repeatedly told by management, "You are valuable to us." Yeah, well.

Today, I'm a different critter. Although I embraced the ages-old description of the editorialist as "one who goes down to the battlefield daily and bayonets the wounded," I find myself almost giddily positive these days. I will win. I will wind up better. I will show those bastards they made a major mistake letting me go. And, you know, the surprising thing is I actually believe that.