Dan Nied realizes that, despite the hell that is being without a job, it's actually ... a good thing...
It’s been a month and a half since I’ve held a job and I’m realizing that this is the part where it gets pretty good.
I mean, After I got laid off in September I went through the depression of being a worthless pox on society. But then I realized that, dammit, I’m not gonna be unemployed forever, I had better make the most of it. Life gives you lemons, you get off your ass (or on it, in this case) and make that lemonade.
Sure, there isn’t much to do during the day when all my friends go to work, but, then again, I get up at 2 every afternoon so I only have a few hours to kill before other people are around to play with. That time is easily spent reading the sports section, checking out ESPN.com, showering, doing some unmentionable things and looking at job listings.
The money I’m saving is really unbelievable.I feel like Scrooge giving out Christmas bonuses. Six weeks into making no money I have spent only $300 of my severance package. I go through a tank a gas every three weeks. I had enough money to order four DVDs and still feel good about my financial situation (The DVDs, in case you were wondering were "Out of Sight", "A Few Good Men", "Blues Traveler Live from Red Rocks" and, my favorite, the "Teen Wolf/Teen Wolf Too" Double feature. Needless to say, I am jacked.)
Plus, My unemploymet just kicked in so I will be getting $250 per week for actually watching those DVDs. It almost pays for itself.
I’ve started a few new projects, mainly a sitcom script about my college friends (Juvenile? Contrived? Sure is, but hey, where’s YOUR sitcom script?)
Now my whole future is up in the air and it is a great feeling. Am I gonna move to California? New Mexico? New York? Central Pennsylvania? Maybe. Is my sitcom gonna get me signed by an agent? You never know. Do I have control of my future right now? Most definitely.
Sure, as I said there was a time, about two weeks into this non-adventure where everything came crashing down. My confidence was shot, I worried about car payments and I thought I was a failure. (My unemployment, just so you know, wasn’t due to poor performance but more because a mismanaged newspaper chain decided to turn my paper into a shopper, stripping the entire editorial staff. Even though they never gave the paper the means to survive a saturated market. No, I’m not bitter.)
But anyway, yeah things got to me early on. I have been out of college for a year and my first job taught me a hard lesson in reality. My cocksure suit of armor was dented. I was unsure about life and my profession. Did I still want to be a journalist? Was it worth the shit money and long hours just to be able to call myself a professional writer? It got so bad that I went to see "Radio" by myself and actually cried. (Not my proudest moment, but we all need a good cry now and again. I just happened to pick the sappiest movie possible. Why couldn’t it have been Beaches or Mystic Pizza? Then I could at least hold my head up high.)
But my depression faded and now I’m not burned out, as I most certainly would have been by this time had I still held my job. I was making $420 per week and putting in about 60 hours covering 10 high schools and about 60 prep teams by myself. I was dealing with angry mothers who didn’t realize that sometimes a golf score slips through the cracks. I was on life support, being kept alive by that one great story: the undefeated team, the gifted athlete with a Big 10 scholarship, the handicapped kid who ignores his inability and manages to play third string tackle. By now my resolve would have cracked and I probably would have slit my wrists with a butterknife.
But the butterknives are all in the drawer and, again, I feel like God’s gift to the written word. I am excited to cover a high school football game as a freelancer. I get pumped up by good quotes. My fire is back. And a paper just asked me to interview for a job.
All in all, being laid off may have been the greatest thing that has ever happened to me.
Exactly. I think being unemployed is really the profession of choice. I remember when I had a job and caught all caught up in the stress and shuffling of papers and phone calls. And I vowed that if only I had more time I'd work out more, I'd read more, and I'd be a better person. But now that I have my free time, I'm protective of it. Who's to say working out, reading, or even showering is really what we're supposed to do? I have actually trained by brain to zone out to places I've never been before while watching reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond. And did you know that the postal system is actually quite timely? Yep, they come between 3-3:15 everyday to my door. And hey, it's not like I don't have conversations with anyone. Telemarketers need someone to talk to, too. They've become friends now. I just wait for Visa to call to meet someone new. See, now I don't even have to pay for phone dating service! Such an advantage that I never even knew of while I had to drag myself out of bed, shower, and be all peppy all day at a job. Now, I set the pace, I hold the remote, and life is looking good.