Jobs, Pride & Unemployment

Over the last couple of years I've heard or read a number of people complaining, "I want to work, but I just can't find a job." I can't tell you when I last heard or saw one of these complaints - this post has been a while in the making - but think I've had my fill of them.

I'm not going to deny that there are some people out there who are truly chronically unemployed against their desires. Certainly there are some people who genuinely want work and for whatever reason can't find an employer to hire them (usually they are told they are "overqualified" for the position). But I believe that there is a large segment of people who are using the "jobless" recovery and the general feeling of there being a lack of a job market as a crutch to cover for some basic laziness or hubris.

I know because I was there.

A couple of years back, just when the economy was really finishing its tanking, I was let go from the brokerage firm I was working for. I was entering what really was a pretty dead job market with a business admin degree (just like the thousands of others out there) and my only practical experience being in sales or aircraft load planning. To say that the prospects of getting a job doing anything other than sales was bleak would be an understatement. Plus the job I was laid off from paid very well.

In my mind, I believed that I was underpaid while I was working there. I still do. However, most of the people at the same labor grade as me were generally paid more (seniority) and, in general, they did not justify the wage they were being paid.

In the end the company was doing everyone a great disservice by overpaying. I believed that I was worth more because I was outperforming more highly paid employees. They believed that they were worth the amount they were getting paid, in many cases, despite relatively poor performance in both metrics and customer service. And in the end, the company couldn't afford to keep paying out the amount they were for what we did.

It's taken me a long time to come around to accepting that I too was overpaid, despite my performance. It takes a lot of soul searching and philosophizing to accept that without completely destroying your self-esteem.

Right after I joined the job hunter army in 2002, I spent the first two or three months of unemployment honestly believing that I could only accept a job that paid at least 90% of my previous salary. Understand, I was worth at least that. To accept less would be to sell myself short.

So for a couple of months, I collected unemployment, looked for jobs that were nearly impossible to find around here, and basically forgot about that whole figuring out how to make ends meet stuff. I kept figuring that I would be back raking in the big bucks again soon, so if a bill went a little past due, it was no big deal - I'd just make sure it was one of the first to get paid off when I got that new job.

By the middle of July, I was starting to get concerned, as were some of my creditors. The nice cushy job I was sure was coming just wasn't there. Three months and I hadn't even gotten so much as an offer. So I decided to lower my standard. I would take 75% of my pre-layoff salary, so long as I had benefits.

Three months later, the unemployment was running out and I still didn't have even a single offer of employment. I eventually ended up taking a job as office manager for a design firm owned by a friend of the family. I was making less than 50% of my previous salary - and had no benefits at all. But it let me stop the financial hemorrhaging and to at least maintain a status quo (which wasn't a real appealing prospect at the time. I was glad when the phone was turned off because it stopped the phone calls from the bill collectors, although it ticked a bunch of them off).

Less than 50% of my previous salary and a financial disaster. That was my price for irrational pride - pride that was induced by being overpaid in my previous job. The only thing that saved me from bankruptcy was that I had based my debt load on a ratio of no more than 40% of my salary. It meant that with my new job I could pay the bills, but stuff like getting food or gas or anything that might be fun was difficult. The only reason my website stuck around was because I ran a couple of sales and sold enough extra to cover the domain name and hosting expenses.

Once I took the job as office manager, I started to plan my new attack. I went in with the understanding that the job was going to be temporary until I found something better. But I started developing a plan to build resumé buzzword skills and threw myself into doing the best job I could.

And a little over a year later, after having begun a plan to get my debt under control, I began looking for another job again. The job market wasn't really much better, but I had a big advantage that was missing the first time 'round - I was employed.

What I started to discover was that, like my mother and father always used to tell me, employers really do put a big importance on a candidate being currently employed. Finding a job was still tough (it took almost five months from when I started looking before I found a new job), but there were more real opportunities. People actually started calling back. Interview requests started coming in. Things were looking somewhat up.

I began the application to employment process with my current employer way back in November. At the same time, I got an offer from the billiard's store to come sell pool tables, for several thousand a year more than what I was making. So I moved on and took that job. Along the way, I was also offered (and accepted) a part-time job working in the food service industry.

Come the end of February, my current employer finally got all the paperwork through, the "i"s were dotted, and the "t"s crossed and they made an offer, one that actually gets me up over 90% of my pre-2002 layoff salary again. But this time, I'm one of the lowest paid employees at this company and I know from history that they can afford to sustain this level of pay without it becoming an issue.

After two years, I'm finally back to what I assumed was rightfully mine two years ago. But this time, I have no illusions about being underpaid. To the contrary, I am grateful for what I have and am busting my ass to try to earn more.

But I also truly believe that I would not be in this position had I not taken the job that was "beneath" me back in late '02.

I believe that prospective employers look at current employment as a tacit endorsement of your employability. Someone else was willing to take a chance on you, so they feel more comfortable doing the same. If you're unemployed, it opens up the question of why. Why is this person sitting here, with no job? Why hasn't somebody else taken the initial risk in hiring him? Why? The "whys?" will kill an otherwise outstandingly qualified candidate.

I see these posts or overhear these people talking about how they've been looking for however long and they just can't seem to find anything. I listen to them and listen to the jobs that they describe as what they want. I get reminded of when I was unemployed and applied for the job as CEO of a small publicly traded company (I really did. I'm still waiting to hear back from them.).

I understand the want for a good job. That want drove me for nearly two years (it is satisfied now. Now I'm driven to want to excel in the job I have). But when you've been unemployed for six months to a year, it's time to change expectations.

The best things in life are earned. Good jobs don't just fall into your lap (the late '90s were an aberration in that regards). People say they can't find a job, yet they won't look at the ones that are out there.

People offering low paying jobs know that they're low paying. They don't expect that you're going to make a career of it. To a large extent, they expect you to use their job as a stepping stone to something better.

What a lot of people forget is that some income is better than no income. They sit there an complain about having no income, yet they won't accept the job at the store down the street that would get them some income - and more importantly that all important tacit approval needed when looking for a job.

It also destroys the appearance of being a prima donna. The person who accepts the low paying job and makes a plan to move up is a person who puts performance ahead of pride. The one who sits and bitches that they aren't being offered the perfect job, well why would you want to hire someone so arrogant, conceited, and full of themselves?

Swallowing your pride is difficult, I know. I have trouble with it almost all the time. But sometimes, pride can be your worst enemy.

I get so frustrated with hearing the "I can't find a job" refrain anymore because I believe that the person complaining isn't being honest. They can find a job, especially if they're here in Orlando where tourism service jobs abound, they just can't find the one that makes them all warm and fuzzy inside.

I don't want to hear the "I can't find a job" routine anymore. I don't believe it. If you want to be honest and tell me you can't find a job to your liking, that's fine. I'll listen because you're at least being honest.

But I was in that same position. But I found that once I was willing to do something I didn't want, I quickly ended up in a position where I am fending off the offers. Besides the job I currently have, I still work the occasional odd hour at the pool table store; I still occasionally work at the food service job; I routinely turn on my cell phone after work to find a message from a guy who wants me to come back into the brokerage industry and just yesterday, I had an insurance agency send me a letter asking me to apply. The jobs are out there.

It's just that sometimes you have to do something you don't want to, to get to something you want.