Tag Archive for 'unemployment'
Sad news from the Associated Press newsrooms around the country – Gawker is reporting that almost all of the company’s editorial assistants were let go in a round of mass layoffs yesterday. One tipster told them:
I was one of the editorial assistants let go. I was told it was a business decision to let go nearly all editorial assistants. Some in cities of regional desks will be reassigned to handle EA workload there.
That’s sad to hear – not only for the people who got laid off and lost their livelihoods, but for the remaining employees, who will probably have really intense combo jobs to deal with. And I’m willing to bet that the people with said combo jobs probably won’t be getting raises or title changes to compensate them for all the additional work they’re doing.
All in all, I feel sad for all those people – the employed and the unemployed. Save the editorial assistants!
Bee Shaffer, the daughter of Vogue editrice/notorious boss Anna Wintour, is just like a regular person! She may get to join Mom in the front rows of fashion shows, but she took a less predictable route by studying theater at Columbia University. Now that Bee is out of school, she’s applying for jobs – and, oddly, hasn’t had much luck. Yes, it turns out that the recession affects even the daughters of legendary magazine editors. According to the New York Daily News:
The 22-year-old former Teen Vogue contributing editor went on a staggering 24 interviews since graduating from Columbia in May – all of them unsuccessful.
Part of me wants to be all bitter and “well, I sent out easily 200 resumes without getting a single interview, so suck it up already,” but part of me is also like “man, if it’s hard for this girl, imagine how bad it is for everyone else.” I think it’s safe to say that no one likes the job search process, especially when it’s your first job. Going on dozens of interviews and not having any of them pan out is embarrassing and disheartening. [I think Post Grad covered that fairly well.] Repeated job rejection getting to be a universal human experience, and that’s pretty depressing.
So, good luck, Bee, and I admire that you’re choosing a career other than the one where it would be super easy for you.
When you get laid off, it’s really tempting to lie around on the couch, watch Law and Order reruns, and feel sorry for yourself. I think it’s fine to do that for a little while, but at some point you’re going to have to get off the recliner. Whether you’re looking for a job right away or have decided to enjoy some funemployment for awhile, there are a couple of things you should consider doing in order to a) keep yourself active and alert, and b) have some stuff to talk about when interviewers ask you about that gap on your resume.
- Volunteer. I know it sounds crazy to encourage you to work for free while you’re struggling to find a new paying gig, but volunteering even a couple of hours a week – whether at an animal shelter, a nature preserve, or a soup kitchen – will give you something to think about every time you start wallowing in self-pity. Plus, it’s a good way to meet new people and possibly consider a different career path.
- Consider temping or doing an internship in another field. If you’ve always secretly dreamed about pursuing that career in the music industry but never had the guts to do it, now’s your chance. You might learn that it’s not the gig for you but have some fun in the meantime, or you might figure out a way to leverage the skills you already have into your new dream job.
- Bond with other unemployed people. The last thing you need to do is sit around the house all day being depressed. If you have other unemployed friends, try to meet up once or twice a week. You can serve as each others’ support systems during new job searches or just catch cheap afternoon matinees or scour the town for a good happy hour.
The US News & World Report is obviously trying to get on my bad side today. First they start off by announcing that the recession – or, “he-cession,” is affecting male “breadwinners” more than any other group. The depression and unhappiness that men face after being laid off isn’t just the result of losing their jobs, though – it’s the fault of their wives. Thankfully, the article has some “helpful” tips for those women who are totally harshing their husbands’ buzzes:
- Support him. Forget about the fact that your job might have become more stressful or that you might be worried about losing it as well – just make sure your man is happy!
- Offer “physical support.” In case you can’t read between the lines, this means “have sex.”
- Encourage him. Even though you want to be a responsible adult and talk about what your options are regarding unemployment checks or trimming the family budget, if you ask about it you will be “prying.” So just devote more time to reassuring your husband that he’s wonderful and special.
You can read the full barftastic article here.
I don’t know how it took me so long to discover this song, but I really love the Emiliana Torrini song “Unemployed in Summertime.” The idea of the song is pretty similar to the sentiment on this blog as of late – if you’re young and single (i.e. not supporting a spouse and/or kids), sometimes unemployment can end up being a blessing. I was let go in February and, while I have less money than I did before, I’ve used the last few months to learn a lot about myself and my career goals as well as to appreciate little things like taking a walk in the middle of the afternoon. Anyway, even if you’re employed, you’ll really like Emiliana and her lovely voice:
Jessica Ward was laid off from her job in the Seattle area last December. Like many of us who have been laid off recently, she was initially angry and hurt. But within a few months she came to realize that getting laid off was one of the best things ever to happen to her. Being unemployed gave her the motivation to start a business she’d been thinking about but never acted on, spend some quality time with her kids, and rethink her notion of what a successful career was. Jessica then wrote an open letter to her former boss, which appeared in BusinessWeek, thanking him for laying her off. Among other things, she writes:
We thought this layoff would be a crushing financial blow and opted to hand-make all of our Christmas gifts. They were a huge hit with our family and friends and we spent several wonderful days together as a family creating them. We didn’t at all miss the experience of circling the mall for hours looking for a parking spot. The kids didn’t sit on Santa’s lap at Macy’s but we did run into him at a neighborhood ice hockey game and snapped a photo. I’ll mail you one.
We wrote out our household budget for the first time ever, and we stuck to it. I wrote a business plan to start my business, and my husband encouraged me to restart the freelance writing career that I’d put on hold six years ago when I got married. Now I work only part-time for myself and I write part time. I never commute. My wonderful kids are thriving. And as for that student loan payment I wasn’t sure I could make in December? I paid the balance of the loan off in full in February, three years ahead of schedule.
Thanks to several factors – such as the shitty economy, rising unemployment, and the popularity of the vanity internship – it’s now as competitive to get an unpaid job as it is to get a paid one. And, of course, some workplaces are more competitive than others. If you want to intern for The Huffington Post, though, it’s going to cost you. $13,000, to be specific.
The popular website – which Gawker once nicknamed “livejournal for celebrities” – is already known for not paying their writers, setting a free-content trend throughout web media that upset many journalists. Now, they’ve managed to go one step further by asking an employee to pay them for the privilege. Granted, the internship is for charity, but the whole things makes me kind of squeamish.
So far, ten people have bid on the internship. The proceeds from the auction go to the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights.
Did you lose your health insurance coverage along with your job? Well, have no fear – pharmaceutical giant Pfizer wants you to keep taking their meds. They’re offering their 70 most prescribed meds for free if you have been laid off. To qualify, you have to have been laid off since January 1 and have been on the medicine for at least three months before that. You can get the free meds for up to a year. That way they can help out customers and make sure people remain loyal to the brand. Those drugs include:
- Viagra
- Lyrica (fibromyalgia)
- Lipitor (cholesterol)
- Celebrex (pain)
For more info or to figure out if you’re eligible, check out Pfizer’s website.
As its newsstand sales plummet and the entire magazine industry is in freefall, Vogue magazine has had to do things it never would have done in the past. Instead of only write about luxury and expensive things and people who are ten times more beautiful and fabulous than you’ll ever be, they have to occasionally look like they’re in touch with the regular folk. That’s why on the cover of the May issue there’s a headline that would be right at home on any magazine in your grocery store aisle – “You’re Fired! Surviving and Thriving After the Pink Slip.” However, because this is Vogue, the story isn’t about a working class person who got laid off and is struggling to make ends meet. Instead, it’s a first person essay by longtime Village Voice fashion writer Lynn Yaeger (pictured at left), who was laid off last year. While I think Yaeger is a good writer and her firing from the Voice was upsetting, I have a really hard time a) identifying with her, and b) not rolling my eyes continually during her article. If Yaeger wrote her piece [which is not available online, or I'd link to it] in bullet points, here’s what she’d advise you to do in your own layoff situation:
