Sign of the times

Sign of the times
Originally uploaded by BrieB

My cube, as of yesterday. Depressing, huh?

Three more days....

My last day at my job is Friday and already, anxiety is beginning to creep in. I’ve applied for four jobs already (and haven’t heard anything – surprise!) and am waiting with bated breath to hear something about writing freelance for my boss. I talked with her about freelancing briefly on Friday and a bit yesterday, but nothing’s definite yet, which is just slightly stressing me out. I highly doubt the freelance work would be enough to live on, but with unemployment benefits and severance, it should help me stretch out what little money I have. Plus, it would keep me writing for the web, which is always good for the ol’ resume and portfolio. I’ve thought about branching out into freelance writing for other companies, but I need to research how to actually do it. I think I’d be good at it (and I really think I’d enjoy it) and I already have a number of clips (numerous movie reviews and feature articles), plus a freelance writing job on my resume,  so it’s not like I’m starting from scratch. Of course, whether there’s freelance work out there is another story, given the rotten economy. Nevertheless, it’s worth at least checking out while I’m unemployed.

I’m trying to take care of a bunch of other odds and ends before the severance and benefits end. First up is a doctor’s visit to get prescription refills. Next is a haircut so I look half decent when I start interviewing. (It probably wouldn’t hurt to get something new to wear, too. My work wardrobe is seriously lacking, due to my company’s relaxed dress code. Read: jeans and ballet flats everyday.) I also need to take my cat to the vet and start thinking about what I’m going to do when the lease on my apartment is up in June. I’m paying too much for too big of a space and will definitely need to move somewhere cheaper and smaller. Right now, I’m in a two-bedroom, two-bathroom place that runs $800 per month, plus utilities. I don’t even use half the space, so I’m basically flushing money down the crapper every month. Even before I lost my job, I was considering moving, but now that I’m not going to have a full-time income, moving is imperative. My biggest fear is that at some point, if I can’t get hired, I’ll be looking at moving back in with my parents. I’m not even really considering this an option – it’s more of a worst case scenario. I’ve returned home twice as an adult, thanks to failed live-in relationships, one of which was headed towards marriage when things were good. Moving back home at the ages of 25 and 28 was really hard, and I’m going to be on the wrong side of 30 this summer, so living with the `rents is just unthinkable.  Just…no. No thanks. No way. I’m used to be independent and doing things on my own, and I want to keep it that way.

So, there’s three days left before I really enter the wild, scary jungles of unemployment. The weather here has been fabulous (sunny with temps in the mid-70s), which has taken some of the edge off. Of course, the next few days are supposed to be cooler and cloudy, with a chance of the infamous Oregon rain. We’ll see if my mood matches the weather. Personally, I’m holding out for more sun...in every sense.

Oh hai, pink slip!

It's been two days since I lost my job. It was something I thought might happen at some point, but not this soon. 

For the past year and a half, I've been working as a writer/editor for an entertainment company. Most of my writing was about movies. I wrote a lot of movie reviews (probably more than 100) and wrote about the Oscars, Kate Winslet, etc. I also wrote marketing copy for my company's four websites. It was a job in line with my interests and talents, and while not everyday was fun, I was more or less content in the job. If nothing else, it gave me the money to lease an apartment on my own for the first time while keeping up with my car payment, keeping my cats fed, and all that. The problem was, I wasn't saving anything. I was in over my head with the apartment. (I took the lease over from an old roommate in December 2008, which doubled my rent. None of my other bills disappeared.) This worried me because I knew sooner or later an unexpected expense would pop up and I'd have difficulty paying for it. I didn't think that unexpected expense would be unemployment.

My parents and a couple of friends say that I'm lucky, in a sense. I get to work until April 10 and after that, I get a few weeks of severance pay before the unemployment insurance kicks in. But I'm still very, very worried. I got my April rent taken care of and May shouldn't be a problem, but after that, things look bleak if I don't find a job. And I know I'm going to have trouble -- everyone is. But Oregon is an especially hard place to be unemployed, with an unemployment rate of 10.8%. This has always been a rough place to look for work. When I graduated from college in 2002, it took me six months to find something, and when I did, it didn't offer benefits. In 2004, I lost my job after being hospitalized for a week. I found something within a month, but then I was let go again, and I spent the next five months looking for a job and not finding anything. I wound up going back to school for a second Bachelor's degree. (Never finished it.) A few months later, my then-boyfriend heard of an editorial assistant position where he worked. I interviewed and got the job, which later blossomed into the job I just lost. 

I've spent almost three years with the company and my job has gone through a lot of transitions. First, I was an assistant and only worked part-time as  a contractor. When the boyfriend and I moved to L.A., I began freelancing for the company. When I moved back to Portland when the relationship ended, my old co-worker asked me to come back. I started off mainly as an assistant, but then the editor got fired and I took over. At least until I got laid off.

I'm still dealing with the shock of this. I Googled "job loss" and "layoffs" and a few sites suggested that reacting to a job loss is much like reacting to the death of a loved one. Meaning, there's shock, anger, denial, bargaining, etc. It sounds corny, but yes, I feel like I lost a loved one. My emotions are similar to the ones I experienced when my grandma died a couple of years ago. You think something (or someone) will be around forever and you're content with this assumption. Then the job or loved one is gone and you're left trying to figure out what the fuck happened and how you can move on. And that's not even taking practicalities into consideration, like keeping yourself fed and making sure the power stays on. Before when I was unemployed, I was either living at home or with a boyfriend, so I had a safety net. 

This time, I don't. And it scares the hell out of me.