Unemployed - A Memoir

The 10 American Industries That May Never Recover

2010-09-17T04:22:00.000-07:00

...surprisingly, manufacturing is not listed:

"It has become clear that jobs in some industries may never come back, or if they do it will take years or decades for a recovery.

"24/7 Wall St. examined the Bureau of Labor Statistics' "Employment Situation Summary," and a number of sources that show layoffs by company and sector. The weakness in these sectors will make it harder for the private industry, even aided by the government, to bring down total unemployment from 9.6% and replace the 8.3 million jobs lost during the recession. The losses in these industries have to be offset by growth in others before there can be any net increase in American employment."

See: The top 10 that may never come back.

Poverty...

2010-09-16T20:08:00.000-07:00

"The recession drove the number of poor Americans in 2009 to its highest total in half a century, yet several measures indicate the impact could well have been worse.

"While the Census Bureau's report Thursday on the economic conditions of U.S. households found that 3.8 million more people lived in poverty last year than in 2008, the agency and advocates for the poor say millions of others were sustained with the help of government programs.

"Advocates cite federal stimulus initiatives aimed at low-income earners and the extension of unemployment benefits, which alone are credited with helping keep 3.3 million people out of poverty."

The knee-jerk reaction is to blame the poor and punish same.

The poor were not in Congress when the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts were passed. The poor are still not in Congress as we allow those cuts that benefited the few to expire or extend them. The current Obama Administration will receive a brunt of the blame, even though they inherited the conditions (and in many cases, the flatulent wind) blown by the previous Cheney/Bush administration. Paul O'Neil and Alan Greenspan were quoted in "The Price of Loyalty" by Ron Suskind that they favored tax cuts with certain "triggers," i.e. business conditions that made sense to do tax cuts and everyone benefits...instead of the few.

"Deficits don't matter," I remember Cheney saying in the audio book by Suskind. "This is our due!"

We are all due for a reckoning with the reality of hydrogen-filled Hindenburg dirigibles - Keynesian or Friedman styled - fashioned in the 20th Century trying to operate [still] an economy in the 21st!

More at: NPR story on poverty rates in the US.

Redo That Voodoo

2010-07-16T21:41:00.001-07:00

By Paul Krugman, New York Times

Original Link here: Redo That Voodoo

Text below:

Republicans are feeling good about the midterms — so good that they’ve started saying what they really think. This week the party’s Senate leadership stopped pretending that it cares about deficits, stating explicitly that while we can’t afford to aid the unemployed or prevent mass layoffs of schoolteachers, cost is literally no object when it comes to tax cuts for the affluent.

And that’s one reason — there are others — why you should fear the consequences if the G.O.P. actually does as well in November as it hopes.

For a while, leading Republicans posed as stern foes of federal red ink. Two weeks ago, in the official G.O.P. response to President Obama’s weekly radio address, Senator Saxby Chambliss devoted his entire time to the evils of government debt, “one of the most dangerous threats confronting America today.” He went on, “At some point we have to say ‘enough is enough.’ ”

But this past Monday Jon Kyl of Arizona, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, was asked the obvious question: if deficits are so worrisome, what about the budgetary cost of extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, which the Obama administration wants to let expire but Republicans want to make permanent? What should replace $650 billion or more in lost revenue over the next decade?

His answer was breathtaking: “You do need to offset the cost of increased spending. And that’s what Republicans object to. But you should never have to offset the cost of a deliberate decision to reduce tax rates on Americans.” So $30 billion in aid to the unemployed is unaffordable, but 20 times that much in tax cuts for the rich doesn’t count.

The next day, Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, confirmed that Mr. Kyl was giving the official party line: “There’s no evidence whatsoever that the Bush tax cuts actually diminished revenue. They increased revenue, because of the vibrancy of these tax cuts in the economy. So I think what Senator Kyl was expressing was the view of virtually every Republican on that subject.”

Now there are many things one could call the Bush economy, an economy that, even before recession struck, was characterized by sluggish job growth and stagnant family incomes; “vibrant” isn’t one of them. But the real news here is the confirmation that Republicans remain committed to deep voodoo, the claim that cutting taxes actually increases revenues.

It’s not true, of course. Ronald Reagan said that his tax cuts would reduce deficits, then presided over a near-tripling of federal debt. When Bill Clinton raised taxes on top incomes, conservatives predicted economic disaster; what actually followed was an economic boom and a remarkable swing from budget deficit to surplus. Then the Bush tax cuts came along, helping turn that surplus into a persistent deficit, even before the crash.

But we’re talking about voodoo economics here, so perhaps it’s not surprising that belief in the magical powers of tax cuts is a zombie doctrine: no matter how many times you kill it with facts, it just keeps coming back. And despite repeated failure in practice, it is, more than ever, the official view of the G.O.P.

Why should this scare you? On paper, solving America’s long-run fiscal problems is eminently doable: stronger cost control for Medicare plus a moderate rise in taxes would get us most of the way there. And the perception that the deficit is manageable has helped keep U.S. borrowing costs low.

But if politicians who insist that the way to reduce deficits is to cut taxes, not raise them, start winning elections again, how much faith can anyone have that we’ll do what needs to be done? Yes, we can have a fiscal crisis. But if we do, it won’t be because we’ve spent too much trying to create jobs and help the unemployed. It will be because investors have looked at our politics and concluded, with justification, that we’ve turned into a banana republic.

Of course, flirting with crisis is arguably part of the plan. There has always been a sense in which voodoo economics was a cover story for the real doctrine, which was “starve the beast”: slash revenue with tax cuts, then demand spending cuts to close the resulting budget gap. The point is that starve the beast basically amounts to deliberately creating a fiscal crisis, in the belief that the crisis can be used to push through unpopular policies, like dismantling Social Security.

Anyway, we really should thank Senators Kyl and McConnell for their sudden outbursts of candor. They’ve now made it clear, in case anyone had doubts, that their previous posturing on the deficit was entirely hypocritical. If they really do have the kind of electoral win they’re expecting, they won’t try to reduce the deficit — they’ll try to make it explode by demanding even more budget-busting tax cuts.

Is This It?

2010-07-12T08:38:00.000-07:00

I have an entry in this blog (also the book "Unemployed: A Memoir") where I compare my situation at then 41 to "Logan's Run" in the Epilogue.

I thought frankly, I'd concluded the blog. At the time, I wasn't thinking about a book: because it's not a "sexy" subject - unemployment - it understandably does not sell well. That my screed would be answered by common sense and that the recession of the mid 2000s would lift. All would again be gainfully, fully employed. Fantasy.

So, is this it: Too Old for a Job, Too Young for Medicare or Social Security? The original article in the blog and book has moved from http://www.fortune.com/fortune/articles/0,15114,375941,00.html to Finished At Forty IN THE NEW ECONOMY, THE SKILLS THAT COME WITH AGE COUNT FOR LESS AND LESS. SUDDENLY, 40 IS STARTING TO LOOK AND FEEL OLD. This article appeared in 1999. It's eleven years old and still relevant today.

It's relevant because invariably, the under-40 crowd will reach what Logan did as a "sandman" in the SyFy Fantasy: the "age of renewal," which he and other sandmen tracked down runners, until Logan reached the age and became a runner himself.

Is this it?

Instead of a laser that zaps us into oblivion, we're to transfer wealth upward and like it. We are to take jobs that pay LESS than our worth and adjust our budgets. We are to take contract jobs and pay exorbitant taxes as a freelance worker. We're to have skills we've worked a lifetime to master, now to be disregarded. Programmers appear to be up and out at 35. Banks on Wall Street are to get a tax payer bailout, and we are to be silent while their mistakes and morass go unpunished. We face foreclosure on our symbols of the American Dream and bankruptcy that will affect our credit for years to come. And, we are to be silent.

Where are YOU in this?

I'd like to hear from you and post your comments to this blog. The email is:

reginaldlgoodwin@blogger.com

Please let me know if I can post your name. Otherwise, your comments will be anonymous. I will respect your privacy.

My plan is to compile a list and forward the same to my Senate and House Representatives. I'd suggest you do the same to yours. If they hear from ALL of us, they'll listen less to Wall Street and more to Main Street. This is not an advocate position of one political party over the other, this is not a slight against the current or former administration in the White House. I advocate the over-40 American worker, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native that find themselves in the conundrum of "overqualified," "too smart" and "if we had two positions to hire for, you'd be one of them." It makes you feel good in the short term, until you look at your current bills that a good paying, fully employed job would remedy.

I am an American. I cannot accept oblivion or the scrap heap. This cannot be "it."

I am naive enough to believe we live in a democracy.

FYI: Found this on Dice.com's Facebook page...

2010-07-07T12:21:00.000-07:00

Web Searches Companies Pay for on Potential Employee Candidates

In this era of needing Life Lock to protect our identities, we need to be cognizant of our online identities as well.

I'm in the market for a job, but the wrong information "interpreted" from a blog post (like this one) and if you look at the CNN video embed, some of the information could just be flat WRONG and not weigh in your favor.

Here's an outfit that says they'll protect you for around $15/month: Reputation Defender, aptly named.

I for one have taken to innocuous quotes from Robert Frost and Albert Einstein on my Facebook and Twitter account pager. Even that, I'd "self-sensor" just in case.

"Forewarned is forearmed," from: Robert Greene's A Notable Discovery of Coosnage (a.k.a. The Art of Conny-catching), 1592:

"forewarned, forearmed: burnt children dread the fire."

Job cuts in academia

2010-05-10T20:37:00.000-07:00

University of Texas Austin plans to trim jobs

Hate to say "I told you so."

I said this in Chapter 19: Open Letter to then President George W. Bush.

I said it again in a letter titled: Dear President Obama.

I'm not looking to bring the go-go nineties back. Heck, I'd just settle for some good old "common sense."

The larger class sizes will be offset by the smaller amount of students that can qualify to go to college, either academically or financially (parents or selves laid off).

Where does that leave us, America? Tea Bag parties are the least of our worries. We're sinking fast and fastening onto arguments that don't MEAN anything!

Kind of Like Television

2010-04-17T15:37:00.001-07:00

The person who said "those who can't do, teach," obviously has never done it nor appreciates it.

I title this blog post from a conversation I had with another teacher right before a placement hearing for an alternative learning center (we were both the teachers for the young man in question). She and her husband are expecting their first child.

"We're kind of like television," she said. "The kids either tune us in or tune us out."

Her statement reminded me of the book "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, by Neil Postman (deceased). His commentary centered around the advent of 24-hour news in the 1980s: CNN was the first such network that has since spawned others. Children that used to stay up to watch the "snow" on TV as stations signed off now have 24-hour entertainment, hundreds of cable channels to surf and an Internet to post information to Facebook, Myspace and Twitter (let's not forget blogger).

I see kids with phones that have apps I can only envy. Everyone can seem to afford an I-phone, yet no one seems to have the cash-on-hand for a TI-83 or 84 calculator. Taking a cell phone from a child is almost oxymoron when his mother was texting him at the time you confiscate it.

"We're kind of like television": we can be tuned in or tuned out at will. It's never the child's fault if he/she fails. The teacher obviously didn't connect, control their class or wasn't "entertaining enough." I've personally gotten emails asking me to "bond" with the parent's child. (Even typing that was creepy.) The suggestion to another parent to take the cell phone from her child herself got this reply: "I just read what you said. It wouldn't have occurred to me to do that."

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United States Ranks 15th in Reading Literacy, 19th in Mathematical Literacy and 14th in Scientific Literacy, see: Who's No. 1? Finland, Japan and Korea, Says OECD.

So quietly, subtlety we've become a nation of entertainment addicts, I-phones with apps, games, texting and academic distractions. The development of young minds used to be simple before levels of video games were invented. Now we compete with them and with what the latest "reality show" is (I believe the kids are viewing "What Chili Wants" from TLC fame).

And if I'm not entertaining, be it Algebra 1, Pre Calculus or Math Lab, I am as TLC would have crooned: a "scrub."

Robert Reich: The Future of American Jobs

2010-04-12T19:37:00.000-07:00

Dell Cuts Jobs

2010-01-30T08:03:00.000-08:00

Dell Inc. acknowledged Thursday that it has cut jobs this week “at a number of Dell locations, including Central Texas”.

A brief commentary on education and outsourcing:

I am worried about what our school systems produce as far as high school graduates.

I find myself teaching Algebra 1 and Pre Calculus and frankly find the kids unmotivated to study and master the material.

There are a few bright spots, especially those that KNOW they want to major in the sciences or law enforcement.

The others are a product of a self-indulgent society that has made music down loadable, video games more addictive than reality and actually READING your text book and TRYING the examples therein.

India, China and other Asian countries consistently outpace us in time spent per day in school, time spent per week in school (Japan goes 6 days versus our 5), and time spent by students studying to master the material.

Our minimum wage: $7.25; China's: $0.25!

This is not in defense of outsourcing. But if we're going to change the tide, it's time we enlisted our youth in the fight before they determine their own uncertain futures...by apathy.

So, They Say...

2009-12-18T12:31:00.000-08:00

I'm not one to throw rocks: as I said, I have secured a job as a Math Teacher in Hutto, Texas.

I hope this is a sign that things are getting better.

The national unemployment rate improved to 10% last month as joblessness fell in 36 states and the District of Columbia, according to the Labor Department's survey on state unemployment. The rate rose in eight states and held steady in six.

"The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes." Aristotle

One less...

2009-12-08T20:01:00.000-08:00

Before this post, I posted a Black Voices article titled "Blacks With College Degrees Still Facing Great Hiring Challenges."

I just made myself one less by accepting a teaching job at Hutto High School. I'll go tomorrow at 7:15 in the morning to give my letter of eligibility from the alternative teacher's certification I've been pursuing from Texas Teachers. I am highly qualified to teach math and physics.

It feels good to say that.

It feels good to feel someone wants me for what I know and what I can bring to the table. Kind of like it used to feel to work for my previous high-tech employer.

Everyone I meet that's still at the company... don't like it, and wish they were doing something else.

It's stressful to be the survivors. To "hang on." To compromise life and health to keep the bottom-line healthy.

I want to prepare the next generation of engineers and scientist. My grandfather is a black-and-white photo on our family mantle. He's wearing a three-piece suit and a derby cocked to the side. I never met him. He died when my father was three-years-old. He was a teacher.

I've taught all of my life - martial arts, physics, poetry. I plan to bring all of that into play. My class will be, hopefully...wondrous.

From their vantage point, I hope my grandfather, grandmother and my parents are proud.

I am a teacher.

*****

What Teachers Make, or
Objection Overruled, or
If things don't work out, you can always go to law school

By Taylor Mali
www.taylormali.com

Original You Tube performance

He says the problem with teachers is, "What's a kid going to learn
from someone who decided his best option in life was to become a teacher?" (LAUGH)

He reminds the other dinner guests that it's true what they say about
teachers: Those who can do; those who can't, teach. (LAUGH)

I decide to bite my tongue instead of his
and resist the temptation to remind the other dinner guests
that it's also true what they say about lawyers.

Because we're eating: after all and this is polite company.

"I mean, you're a teacher, Taylor," he says.
"Be honest. What do you make?"

And I wish he hadn't done that
(asked me to be honest)
because, you see, I have a policy
about honesty and verbal smack downs:
if you ask for it, I have to let you have it.

You want to know: what I make?
I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could.
I can make a C plus feel like a Congressional Medal of Honor
and an A minus feel like a slap in the face.
How dare you waste my time with anything less than your very best?

I make kids sit through 40 minutes of study hall
in absolute silence.

No, you may not work in groups.
No, you may not ask a question.
Why won't I let you get a drink of water?
Because you're not thirsty, you're bored, that's why.

I make parents tremble in fear when I call home:
I hope I haven't called at a bad time;
I just wanted to talk to you about something Billy said today.
Billy said, "Leave the kid alone. I still cry sometimes, don't you?"
And it was the noblest act of courage I have ever seen.

I make parents see their children for who they are
and what they can be.

You want to know: what I make?
I make kids wonder,
I make them question.
I make them criticize.
I make them apologize… and mean it.

I make them write, write, write.
And then I make them read.

I make them spell definitely beautiful, definitely beautiful; definitely beautiful over and over and over again until they will never misspell either one of those words again.

I make them show all their work in math.
And hide it on their final drafts in English.
I make them understand that if you got this (brains)
then you follow this (heart) and if someone ever tries to judge you
by what you make, you give them this (“talk to”: the hand).

Let me break it down for you, so you know what I say is true:
I make a DIFFERENCE! What about you?

Black Voice Article: College Degrees and Hiring Challenges

2009-12-08T19:59:00.000-08:00

Blacks With College Degrees and Hiring Challenges-BV Article

Unemployment rate hits 10.2%

2009-11-06T11:25:00.000-08:00

"The only good news is the number of layoffs are dropping off, but those who are laid off still aren't finding jobs," said David Wyss, chief economist with Standard & Poor's.

There is a glut of people applying to substitute teach. Many districts have had to clamp down on requirements and now require you pass at least one Teacher's Certification exam to be considered for a temporary job.

It's good news that the number of lay offs have dropped off. The bad news is that they haven't stopped or reveresed, i.e. companies have not started hiring.

I completely sympathize with those that are left: you have "survivor's guilt" as you see empty cubicles where your friends used to reside. Their family photos, school banners, funny calendars from "Dilbert" or "The Far Side" packed neatly in pre fabbed boxes to cart out their personal effects.

I sympathize with those that are searching. I feel the strain on my relationship as you feel it on yours. Despite the fact that 72% of the lay offs have been with men and 40% of women have become the defacto head of household, that doesn't stem the arguments that ensue that don't help the despair, the depression that we all now feel. Your wife and mine are not trying to hear that.

The Dow is up, but we need a little "hope."

Economy grows in 3Q, signals end of recession

2009-10-29T06:25:00.001-07:00

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and members of Obama's economics team have warned that the nascent recovery won't be robust enough to prevent the unemployment rate — now at a 26-year high of 9.8 percent — from rising into next year. Economists say the jobless rate probably nudged up to 9.9 percent in October and will go as high as 10.5 percent around the middle of next year before declining gradually. The government is scheduled to release the October jobless rate report next week.

What The...?

2009-10-27T03:50:00.000-07:00

Gov't may say recession over but not job losses

A "Job Minus" Recovery?

2009-10-26T04:37:00.000-07:00

Experts see rebounding economy shedding jobs

Dear President Obama

2009-10-10T20:39:00.000-07:00

Dear President Obama,

First of all: congratulations on the Nobel Peace Prize. The naysayers have no command of facts or history: Desmond Tutu was awarded the prize for his opposition to Apartheid. It was a ten years before the practice was eliminated in South Africa. There were those that protested Martin Luther King getting the prize, even though he gave all of the money away to charities. Whether you won or lost, the naysayers and Neanderthals with access to talk radio audiences will not celebrate anything positive about you. Only “the ones we’ve been waiting for” will.

I’d like to discuss outsourcing and its affects.

I point to this article in the Wall Street Journal: “It Will Be Years Before the Jobs Return – and Many Never Will". In it, a statistician loses his $100,000 per year job outsourced to India. He’s probably pulled in spending, since his immediate future is a severance and an unemployment check that doesn’t begin to match what he used to make.

Kind of like me: Motorola got out of Austin, Texas and restructured as Freescale Semiconductor. The job I did was as a Product Engineer. That function I’m told is now in Tianjin, China. My replacement makes about 1/10 of what I used to make. I did not make as much as our statistician, but he and I have one thing in common: we’re not doing any spending as we used to.

Used to: Starbucks (no more); Comic Books (yeah, I’m a big kid); Amazon.com (if it ain’t cheap, free, or absolutely necessary, I’m probably not reading it); new cars (well, I just had to get some from a tote-your-note lot after a bad storm totaled my two ’96 vehicles – 2001 and 2002, hey I made it to the 21st Century at least); tickets to sporting events (watch ‘em on TV); flat screen TV (I’d rather eat); oh, and the biggie: tax revenues.

The United States is not getting in much these days. A large percentage of us are not making as much as they used to. So the taxable income is less than what the US previously took in for the 90s: when we had money; when we bought stuff.

I say in my book “Unemployed: A Memoir”: Chapter 19 – Open Letter (to your predecessor)

“I am not an accountant nor am I an economist. I do make these observations:

- “The University of Texas, Austin reports a decrease in the number of engineering undergraduate students. This trend is probably observable from other flagship and minor colleges and universities around the nation. Young people are not going to invest the time, (nor their parents the money) and considerable labor in the attainment of a science and engineering degree if there are no viable jobs to matriculate to after graduation.
- “As a former child of the ghetto, I can attest that if you provide the excitement of science and engineering training and the youth have the talent and time to grasp it, they will make positive, life-affirming choices that only betters American society.
- “Our universities will become revolving doors: foreign exchange students, welcome at all times, will matriculate and attain degrees, then go back to their host countries. If there are no jobs here, there is no need to stay. Diversity in the workplace will eventually devolve to pre 1965 levels.
- “If you continue outsourcing American professional and technical jobs, the next innovations will come from overseas. That cannot be good for our national security, since we will not be in proximity to protect any trade secrets.
- “If you continue outsourcing science, engineering, manufacturing and technician level jobs, the middle class will eventually shrink. There will be no "bootstrap self-lift" from poverty, into middle class and upper middle class: that can only be bridged by continuing education.
- “The American economy is based on the collection of an income tax, mostly from the middle class. Many government and military programs are financed by this method. If jobs are outsourced to India and China because the professionals there can do the same jobs for approximately $5,000.00 per year, we cannot gather a tax from them, as they are not citizens of this nation. (You wouldn't get much even if you could.)

This was written in 2005 on the Internet and published in 2006. In 2009: the University of Texas at Austin is announcing cuts of some of its teaching staff: UT retools budget; job cuts loom. If this is affecting the Flagship University of the State of Texas, it is affecting others elsewhere.

Outsourcing as a practice has the tenet that it will in the long run save money. There will be no earnings if we are not spending or paying taxes in this nation. It is a moribund formula down a spiral of destruction, fueled by mantra and dogma. The reality is before our eyes everyday.

My proposal is simple: for companies that “save” money by the practice of outsourcing, TAX them at that same amount.

It will bring needed money into government coffers. It will make companies rethink the practice, as they should. Minorities have been the most affected by the practice in the United States, and ironically their jobs have gone to nations where so-called minorities are in the majority. The widening gap between rich and poor, to paraphrase W.E.B. Dubois stops at the color line: The gap between the rich and the poor widens. But again, those persons overseas don’t pay taxes here, they don’t buy product here.

If the companies refuse to change this myopic procedure of outsourcing, they will ultimately close their own doors due to this practice of selfish greed.

With sincere respect,

Reginald L. Goodwin
www.reggiegoodwin.com

Who Suffers Most in This Shaky Economy? Diversity, Inc. Article

2009-10-07T03:44:00.000-07:00

Who Suffers Most in This Shaky Economy?

The LONG Haul: I wish I had better news...

2009-10-06T06:17:00.000-07:00

It Will Be Years Before Lost Jobs Return -- and Many Never Will - Wall Street Journal Article

A Comment I Made on a LinkedIn.com Discussion...

2009-10-02T22:03:00.000-07:00

The recession will get better for companies first, since that seems to be the major focus of it (and the greed that channeled it in the first place). The jobs will lag - this is my "opinion" mind you - until 1st or 2nd quarter of 2010. Automation and the Internet have eliminated many jobs that used to happen over here. Technology that eliminates the human element in manufacturing has eliminated jobs in the automotive industry in the past. Globalization has shipped menial and technical jobs to countries where $8K/year places you squarely in "their" version of a middle class. We will have to decide what "education" is and what it is for. We will have to decide how our communities will look in the 21st Century for food consumption, commerce, politics and the meaning of "being human" itself.

My Resume

2009-10-01T06:57:00.000-07:00

Stress and Money

2009-10-01T04:12:00.000-07:00

Poll: Money worries world's greatest cause of stress

"A feast is made for laughter, And wine makes merry; But money answers everything." Ecclesiastes 10:19

Slim and Fine! A benefit we didn't think about...

2009-09-30T02:46:00.000-07:00

Study: Bad economy may be good for your health

I remember in the late '80s, since I didn't have health insurance, I took care to NOT get sick.

Update from Matt Steen: Unemployed Comics

2009-09-28T15:40:00.000-07:00

Hi Reggie,

I must apologize for not getting back to you sooner. I took a break from UnEmployed Comics for a couple of years to finish school, but I am currently in the process of redesigning both the website and the comic strip. I plan to relaunch in late October.

In the meantime, feel free to download any of my archived comics for your website. I've recently updated by site to include a "Jump to" comic feature that lets you search comics by date.

www.unemployedcomics.com

I'll also add you to my list of contacts that I'll be notifying when the re-launch happens.

Thanks for your support, and let me know if you have any questions.

Matt Steen
UnEmployed Comics
www.unemployedcomics.com

CNN Money States the Painfully Obvious...

2009-09-23T11:29:00.000-07:00

Minorities feel sharper recession pain - report

I resemble these remarks, except it lacks the levity of the original quote in my "real time."

America Out-of-Work: Is Double-Digit Unemployment Here to Stay?

2009-09-21T21:04:00.000-07:00

America Out of Work: Is Double-Digit Unemployment Here to Stay? - TIME

Ominous, yet appropriate date for the publication of this article (9/11). President Obama is going to have to deal with 9 - 11% unemployment (not counting UNDER employment) for some time in the first 4 years of his administration.

An excerpt from an interview of the philosopher, Grace Lee Boggs, PhD on DemocracyNow.org:

JUAN GONZALEZ: Much better as an ex-president than as a president (Carter). But I’d like to ask you about something you’ve written quite a lot about, the attempt you’ve been making in Detroit to change people’s relationships to the land and to their city through the urban gardening and farming movement in the cities. How is this part of the revolution you envision for the future for America?

GRACE LEE BOGGS: It’s critical; it’s not just a part. It’s pivotal, because Detroit, with the devastation of deindustrialization, gave us the space and place to begin anew. And we were forced to think very differently about what it means to be a human being and what it means to create a world that embraces and enlarges and expands us as human beings.

And we didn’t choose to be that. I mean, we were once the miracle, a sign of the international symbol of the miracles of industrialization. And then we became the international symbol of the devastation of deindustrialization. So we had to begin anew. And we looked at our vacant lots, and we saw them as an opportunity to begin growing our own food.

And as The Nation article says on the headline on democracy, I mean, growing your food is the beginning of growing democracy, a new kind of democracy that’s not dependent on lobbyists and on representative democracy, but begins to depend on the people from below, from the ground.

I grew up getting my vegetables from an urban garden in my backyard. I'm starting one in my suburb this fall.

Maybe the Farmer's Almanac had it right...

A Recession, or "Man-Cession" Casualty

2009-09-16T21:03:00.000-07:00

David Condon died broke and alone in a zipped-up tent on the banks of a South Carolina lake, his stomach empty and his lungs filling with fluid.

Feel GOOD Story!

2009-09-12T18:10:00.000-07:00

Blogging begins turnaround for homeless woman

I'm not homeless, but it's a testament to the power of the written word.

Man-Cession: Appropriate!

2009-09-03T15:00:00.000-07:00

Recession's big layoffs have hit men harder than women
Primary breadwinners battered in latest downturn, experts say.

Bored! Follow Me (and other Tweeting Annoyances)

2009-08-21T09:51:00.000-07:00

I had not been on Twitter for a day (so as not to need to go to a retreat for the "Internet Addicted"). I decided to get up from the keyboard and HAVE a life.

"Bored! Follow me..."

Over and over again: young women supposedly 23 - 25 years of age, SUPPOSEDLY very in need of sex somehow found my profile on Twitter irresistible. And, what is that profile?

47. Married. Part of the unemployed/underemployed. Poet. Recession activist.

I'm also from "east Winston," which doesn't mean much unless you're from there. It has name recognition in Winston-Salem, NC and North Carolina in general. It has the same impact as saying you're from Compton, California or 5th Ward Houston, Texas.

Ergo, though I am trained in all manner of physics and literature (my escape from an American reservation = 'hood = ghetto): I've lived among pimps, drug dealers and prostitutes (pre Internet). I know game when I see it.

I can arrive, for example at 23 by adding 10 to 13, hence: anyone can go to Wal-Mart and purchase a cheap web cam. It's effortless to set up a Pay Pal account to checking. However, I think your mom will get suspicious if you start rocking the same Prada she either gets an allowance from your dad or works for herself! Weaker minds will fall for this game and become a guest on the MSNBC special on pedophiles. No thank you.

So, I've spent most of the morning after mowing a lawn before my son's 17th birthday party blocking over 20 "Bored! Follow me..." persons. After three trips to their Twitter pages, it was easy to see what was up.

I saw briefly on cable that the bar and sex industry goes UP during economic downturns (so do our waste lines). During stressful times, people reach for their favorite drug of choice: food, liquor, illegal drugs and sex. Gone are the days before Hypertext Transfer Protocol when I and my teenage friends went to a neighbor's garage to literally raid a trashcan full of Playboy, Penthouse, Club, and Hustler magazines. You only need now to Google your passions; follow your Tweet.

In the spirit of full disclosure: I am a graduate of the Ministry Development Institute at New Light Church. I specifically minister in the oURLife Teen Ministry. I think my kids would be distressed and confused if they found me not practicing what I'm preaching.

A good exercise: get up from your keyboard and go outside. Go to the park where you remember (before Internet and web cam) your mother's took you to play. Ask yourselves if that's the future you want one day. Ask yourselves if YOU'D be OK with YOUR daughter's setting up a "hook up" web cam for $$$ page. As you are apt to know and have probably applied, the best defense any teenager can give a parent is the subjective abstract response: "Well, YOU did it!"

Young ladies: it's as much a trap for you as the one you're laying out. You will not be beautiful forever. The dreams you see after the park exercise can be stolen from you and become only dreams.

The sex slave trade is brutal. You are not independent; you are owned. Once your youth is lost, and it will fade in time, you'll be replaced by the next gullible victim.

I'm fully aware this declaration will LOSE me some followers. I will be blessed by the ones I maintain and ultimately gain.

1 Corinthians 13: "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become [as] sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have [the gift of] prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed [the poor], and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profits me nothing. Charity suffers long, [and] is kind; charity envies not; charity vaunts not itself, is not puffed up, Does not behave itself unseemly, seeks not her own, is not easily provoked, thinks no evil; Rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Charity never fails: but whether [there be] prophecies, they shall fail; whether [there be] tongues, they shall cease; whether [there be] knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abides faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these [is] charity (love)."

"To Whom It May Concern..."

2009-08-10T19:34:00.001-07:00

Boomer Job Search Blunders

Maybe the Bleeding Hasn't Quite Stopped, But the Wound Appears Somewhat Cauterized...

2009-08-07T06:55:00.000-07:00

Jobless rate down for first time in a year

2009-08-01T16:43:00.000-07:00

10 Jobs for the recession

Overqualified&Underpaid

Deferred Retirement

Can't get no satisfaction

Bureau of Labor Statistics

2009-07-27T04:33:00.000-07:00

Employment Situation Summary

Wall Street: Here comes the hard part

2009-07-27T04:12:00.000-07:00

Investors wade into the heaviest week of corporate reporting yet. Reports on GDP, housing, consumer confidence and manufacturing also due. Also see Warren Buffet: Bet on America, same page: "We have a system that unleashes human potential." (Buffet quote)

Bernanke: Economy to bounce back stronger

2009-07-27T04:05:00.000-07:00

At a town hall meeting in Kansas City, Mo., the Fed chairman said the recovery will take some time, but that lessons learned will benefit the nation.

Prayer

2009-07-23T07:46:00.000-07:00

For those whose faith has been challenged... as mine has.

Father, in the Name of Jesus: I thank you for Your Word. Your Word says in James 5:16 that we are to “confess [our] faults one for another, that [we] may be healed.” I confess my faults to You NOW: (confession here if necessary)_________. Your Word says “the effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” For Your Word says in 1 Peter 3:12 “Your eyes are on the righteous, and Your ears are open to our prayers.” Since I am the righteous, You are open to MY prayers!

I thank You Father, that through the sacrifice of Your Son Jesus Christ, You count me as the righteous and a joint-heir with Christ. I speak life into the lives of _________, _________, _________, _________, __________, (etc.) and any fraternity brother, any brother in Christ, any sister in Christ, anyone that has recently lost a job due to this economic downturn.

Lord, for THEIR sake: I ask that you move swiftly on their situation. That if employment is their desire, they find it in the Name of Jesus; if entrepreneurial success is their desire, that they find it in the Name of Jesus.

Lord, for MY sake: I accept the ministry to the unemployed You’ve given me. Your Word says in Job 42:10 – 11 that You turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends and that You gave him TWICE as much as he had before: every man gave him a piece of money; every man gave him an earring of gold; that YOU blessed his latter end greater than before: Job had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen and 1,000 female beasts of burden.

Father in the Name of Jesus: I have been a captive since (MM/DD/YYYY)____________. I command my year of Jubilee NOW, and my freedom NOW! I thank You for deliverance from a place that stressed my heart and health, and did not fit with my life’s values. I thank You for your provision throughout these many, many months (and years). I/my family, am/is exhausted and need to see Your mighty works! I/We boldly pray for my/our TWICE as much: that as Job, my/our latter end is greater than my/our beginning when the devil began afflicting me/us. Father, You know he sees where my/our destiny lies, and he is afraid of me/us reaching it. Give me/us YOUR strength to withstand the temptations that he brings so that I may fulfill my assignment on this earth in Jesus’ Name! I/We AM/ARE Abraham’s Seed. As such, ministering Angels are put to flight by the words of my mouth that speak in agreement with the Word of God. I/We thank God for this FACT in Jesus’ Name. Amen!

Austin unemployment jumps, region has first job loss

2009-07-17T09:54:00.000-07:00

See: The region’s unemployment rate jumped to 7.1 percent, from 6.2 percent in May, the Texas Workforce Commission reported.

The comments to this article (above) are to the contrary of the following statement:

I think its too early to blame President Obama and too late to continue to blame President Bush. This is our economy now.

The scary reality: Paulson, Geithner, hell Greenspan don't have a CLUE as to how this will all play out.

Our personal savings rates as a nation started going south around the late 1980s, U.S. Department of Commerce: Bureau of Economic Analysis: Personal Savings Rate. We went up to 8% in April of '92, and hit 1.6% the last year of '99. I resemble this remark: we were AWASH in money and saving NOTHING. The US Savings Rate was -0.2% in October of 2001 (after 9/11), -2.7% August of 2005 and currently at 6.9% as of April this year.

WHEN we climb out of this, I for one will be a little more paranoid and SAVE for the next eventual recession.

Overqualified Rear's its Ugly Head...

2009-07-11T14:33:00.000-07:00

In Chapter 9 of the blog/book "On Becoming":

"I'm sorry, sir. We rejected your resume on the basis of... you are overqualified."

I say, "I've been out of work for two years. YOU called ME. What is your definition of over qualification?"

"You're overqualified, sir, because of your years of experience."

"Just what does that mean?"

"Well, the position requires 6 - 10 years of total work experience... you have more."

"So, are you saying I'm overqualified, or that I'm too old?" I've been working since I was sixteen years old. That's either 22, or 26 years. If they tabulate from my age at graduation, that’s 28 - 32 years.

"You're overqualified, sir, because of your years of experience."

"I see. Thank you."

See: USA Today Article: Scientist Shortage? Maybe Not. The heading midway down the article "Older and Overqualified" says it all.

Also: "BLS found that 29,000 electrical engineers were out of work from April to June."

CNBC articles

2009-07-03T07:40:00.000-07:00

The Rising Mountain of Debt May Be Our Next Crisis

We're in the middle of a crash: Author Nassim Taleb

Boom, Bust & Blame: A Timeline of the Financial Meltdown

Cuddle Parties? They have a web site: www.CuddleParty.com You KNOW some "hook ups" are going down!

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes...

2009-07-02T19:49:00.000-07:00

...Who Watches the Watchmen?

(Last page of the comic novel, "The Watchmen," from Juvenal, Satires VI, 347, used during the Tower Commission Report in 1987)

See: Meltdown 101: Unemployment by the Numbers

The markets were pummeled by the news that unemployment was its highest in 26 years: 9.5 percent.

From the article:

"How bad is the current recession? Here's one measure: the United States now has fewer jobs than it did nine years ago, even though the work force - the number of people either working or looking for work - has grown by 12.5 million people since then.

"It's the first time since the Great Depression that a recession has wiped out all the jobs created during the previous business cycle, according to Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank."

I'll let you read the rest at the link above, but some thoughts as to how we're in this mess:

1. Fewer jobs: from a techie standpoint, a lot of that has to do with automation and the Internet. Remember "The Jetsons"? George's job at Spacely's Sprockets was to "push the button": he seemed the only employee needed. Jobs that had to be done in the US can now be done overseas in cheaper labor markets, results delivered in hypertext transfer protocol. (I don't support this, I'm just trying to wrap my mind around it and offer an explanation.)

2. Also, births. That is, those in 1983 - 1990 or so, those kids are now 18 - 25 and looking for something to do.

3. Lifers. I was one of them. And because the lifers are happy doing their part, their "cog" in the great wheel of industry, even though their talents and skill sets may have in many cases atrophied, they don't up and quit and start businesses: they pad their 401k and wait, hopefully for retirement (instead of layoffs = the elephant graveyard).

4. Nine years ago, we weren't as bad off as we are now. The election cycle for 2000 started with a surplus that got spent into a deficit rather quickly.

5. 9/11. Enough said.

6. War in Iraq. A "billion dollars a month" (an estimate I've heard on the news). Hm: March 2003 - July 2009 = 76 months X 1,000,000,000 = 76,000,000,000 of significant deficit reduction.

Our "Brave New World" is here, and we were not at all ready for the rapid changes that would mean. Automation may save "The Big Three" and put out green Hybrid vehicles, but a robot may be able to do what Uncle Billy used to do to put his family through school, making a upper middle class wage without a degree.

The old school sci fi flicks had us all with ENORMOUS heads and small bodies, that was obviously countered and documented in The Assault on Reason and Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free. We obviously are the diametric opposite: small brains and large, grossly out-of-shape bodies.

At this point: the only advice I can offer is to read, read, READ and be ready at a moment's notice to DO something else! I had to learn that lesson the hard way, as many of you are now experiencing the lament of jobs and security that will probably never come back, until we discover Warp Drive.

Niel Postman commented on where we are (from the "boob tube" perspective) in his insightful book: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. When it takes the National Enquirer to bust John Edwards having an affair, we're at a place where only bloggers scoop the news on the street, because we're not driven by the market, ratings or stock valuations. We are the very expression of democracy, which is a contact sport, not a jingo, market-driven slogan-fest of litmus tests of how "right" or "left" one is. That doesn't come up on my monthly grocery budget, my bills, my mortgage. I've changed and rearranged things in anticipation of less for the time being, ready to evolve into something on the horizon that will be different than any economy we've ever known... for the better.

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes...Who Watches the Watchmen? WE do!

States without budgets as key deadline passes

2009-07-01T17:37:00.000-07:00

See: States without budgets as key deadline passes

For Those "Suddenly Unemployed"...

2009-07-01T16:46:00.000-07:00

See: SuddenlyUnemployed.com. I've already commented on 2 threads. It's a great help to find others going through what you are.

A Jobless Recovery, it is...

2009-06-25T06:02:00.000-07:00

Jobless claims up in setback for recovery

"Ranks of Discouraged Workers and Others Marginally Attached to the Labor Force Rise During Recession,"
Issues in Labor Statistics

Ahem: I guess deficits do matter...

2009-06-24T20:26:00.000-07:00

How Projected Surpluses Became Deficits - Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

National Debt Hits a 50-year High

Self-Help and Religion

2009-06-14T13:52:00.000-07:00

See: Downsized, a "Chicken Soup for the Soul" article.

At the bottom of the Amazon.com page for "Unemployed: A Memoir" is a thread of conversation titled: "Are there any self-help books not containing religion"?" It is matter-of-fact the FIRST discussion thread.

I posted this on June 11, 2009:

"In 'Unemployed: A Memoir,' I quote passages from the Bible, and the Bhagavad Gita, by J. Robert Oppenheimer: 'If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one. I am become Death, the shatterer of worlds.' He was speaking of the 1st atomic bomb testing; I was speaking of my employment prospects with an HR rep.

"I tried not to write an overtly religious book. Christianity is a part of my culture as an African American, so I could not tell my story without telling a little about the community of support around me, frustrations and triumphs reaching out to it for strength and comfort.

"Agnostic, Atheist, Theist: we each have support and friends around us that get us through this economic night. At least for all our sakes, I hope so. www.reggiegoodwin.com."

With that being said: I just completed the graduation requirements for New Light Church'sMinistry Development Institute. I am trained to do weddings, funerals, hospital visits and ministerial counseling. I find myself not only counseling people that have recently been unemployed, but praying for them. My list grows long. That may not be your reaction. It is mine.

After a life of a multitude of sins, many of which I thoroughly enjoyed participating in, my penance is to give of myself to others.

As I've stated: Christianity is a part of my culture as an African American, many of its heroes fervent in the faith (some, which I admire for other qualities, were at their own admittance, not). It has not always been a fervent part of my personal moral code as life, career, status and income tend to dominate when you think you've "made it," and devotion many times is sacrificed on the altar of "bedside Baptists."

I actually don't consider "Unemployed" a self-help book. It is a "commiserate book": I hoped by sharing my fears, pains, anger, frustration that you know "your not the only one" going through this.

I've included more "help" in the form of the "Directory of Related Links"; "Jobs Fair Calendar"; "Outsourced Americans Blog" (you're reading here). The "Unemployed Comics" by Matt Steen, "Dilbert" by Scott Adams is so you can laugh! I added a Twitter page. I'm tweeting. So there!

I started this journey in 2003; some of you just got on the wagon with me.

You may not self-publish a book, manage a blog, interview guest on an Internet talk show, or build a web site: but at least you'll know if I'm typing, I'm making it.

If you're reading, you're making it too!

The "Budget Bucket"

2009-06-08T07:05:00.000-07:00

See related article: Hate budgeting? Try these spending strategies

Chrysler Dealership Closings: Map your state...

2009-06-05T09:50:00.000-07:00

An interactive map of whose getting shut down.

I have a personal stake in this: I just bought a 2002 Dodge Durango and my wife a 2001 Dodge Stratus after a massive hailstorm totaled both our cars! We were definitely cheering for the big 3!

A Recession Activist

2009-05-31T11:12:00.000-07:00

It is my goal as a Recession Activist to put myself out of a "job" (that is, being such an activist).

Why?

When the recession is over, that means my services will no longer be needed. Everyone that can be gainfully employed will [be]. The economy will pick up with people buying and businesses selling.

A lot of times, I read and reread what I've posted. As I did at the beginning of this blog-to-book, I ask myself, "will this prevent me from being hired?"

Consider this:

1. I am a self-taught web master, volunteering for my high school's basketball booster club. See: www.cpbasketball.org. What I learned there, I applied here.

2. I did this all with Microsoft Publisher, and will teach myself Dream Weaver once I purchase it.

3. I am teaching myself Cascading Style Sheets, XML and Java.

4. I am getting certified as a high school Math/Physics and Technology teacher. I feel our kids have the potential to be the best students on the planet earth, and I am not willing to concede intellectual supremacy nor our technical edge to other countries.

5. I will pursue a Masters in Science Education and eventually a PhD in Experimental Physics.

I don't at all consider myself a "radical."

Rather, given an adverse situation, I tried to work out some benefit. Given lemons, I've worked to make lemonade.

I've lost both parents now, and on reflection I feel blessed to have known both of them and the "toys" they blessed me with. I "played" with erector sets, chemistry sets, a microscope, a telescope, electrical and electronics kits and a drafting board. I majored in Engineering Physics at North Carolina A&T State University.

However, I had one friend that was executed on death row for killing his wife. I have another classmate on death row for killing his mother due to his addiction to Crack Cocaine. My circumstances could have taken me down dark corridors. For everyone that listened to my parents - my childhood best friends (my "brothers") included: we have never seen the inside of a prison as an inmate, nor want to. We have families and children. We each served our country in all major branches of the service other than the Coast Guard. We are the positive black males that don't make the news at all.

As I've stated without shame or evasion: I grew up in an urban ghetto, that's still to this day an urban ghetto. In my youth, I was exposed to the opportunity to use drugs from drug dealers and peers, saw pimps and prostitutes, stabbings, shootings, and heard of one death over a card game one block over from my childhood home. The fortune in question? A nickel!

This month, I am working to assure that home go in the hands of a Pastor that has a ministry to the inner city, and not a "real estate investor/slumlord" that gives the house over to Section 8. He's also an ex cop: in my neighborhood, it's good to have the Holy Spirit and a GLOC 9 mm!

I'm not bragging when I say I have an incredible story. I could have despaired as many I've read about all over the US and the world that used this downturn to commit suicide, killing themselves and their families. See: Financial Crisis May Worsen Mental Health Woes; German Billionaire Kills Himself; Murder-Suicide Snuffs out Family of 7.

This is not being callous with regards to the previous tragedies listed. As Nietzsche stated: "that which does not kill you, makes you stronger." For this storm, I feel stronger, blessed and obligated to bless others with what I've learned.

I end this essay with the following quote from Tom Dispatch. I don't agree with everything on the site, as you shouldn't agree with everything I say. I think that the height of a democratic society is the vigorous questioning of authority, even if we agree with or benefit from the decision (s) thereof. It is that intellectual rigor that allows us to function as a democratic republic, and avoid the temptations of an authoritarian fascist state:

It's sobering to consider just how many Americans can't sort out propaganda (or simply fiction) from fact in the media madness that passes for our "information age." It's no less sobering to consider a corollary possibility: that we get the society we deserve; that, in fact, our youth in college today are being prepared, as Tom Dispatch regular William Astore (who has taught at both the Air Force Academy and the Pennsylvania College of Technology) suggests, to enter a world in desperate shape, but not to challenge it. Tom

Selling Education, Manufacturing Technocrats, Torturing Souls: The Tyranny of Being Practical By William Astore

2009-05-29T04:02:00.000-07:00

See: Tomgram: William Astore, Educating Ourselves to Oblivion

Then, What Are We?

2009-05-28T12:15:00.000-07:00

I previously posted a link to The Corporation in the entry for the "Second 100 Days."

We can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it's not an on-coming train. The recession should end this summer (another jobless one) and we should see some relief as jobs - corporation jobs - start thawing 4Q2009 or 1Q2010.

I looked up the definition of pyschopath, because I had the nagging notion: if corporations are "psychopathic" as the documentary states, then what are we?

I remember getting cups, shirts, shoes, jackets and T-shirts from my former corporation - the one that laid me off in 2003 and started this blog. I remember one instance realizing I had NOT bought a single stitch of clothing for myself in quite a while. I was a walking advertisement, and just as happy to tell people in the mall, passers by "I work at..."

When I got laid off, I looked for something LIKE what I had, same pay, same type of cubicle, same hassles, same 60 - 70 hours per week.

One such instance: I received (I'm dating myself) 120 pages in a single day! Exasperated, I went into my manager's office: "Which ones are priority?" I asked. His answer: "All of them!" I of course asked what if I choose the wrong one? His answer in Dilbert-esque "pointy-haired boss" fashion: "It would be your fault, then!"

I was also threatened with my job on a Friday afternoon that had me working until 9:30 PM to get a ROM code to a mask shop. Mind you, the IT guy and I had never processed a ROM code for a DSP part before. It didn't matter: if I failed to get the order processed, it would be "my fault" again.

Seemed I never had money even though I made good money. I spent it as soon as the raise was approved. The vacation, the new gadget, the gizmo was what I kept online orders and shipping companies tasked to get those orders to me - quite busy. I haven't tasked them in some time and the economy slowed because of it. No spare money - MY FAULT again.

So, what are we?

My best guess is that we all suffer from Stockholm Syndrome. I'd be curious to your thoughts on my analysis.

Unemployed seek training for green-collar jobs-MSNBC

2009-05-28T05:21:00.000-07:00

See: Unemployed seek training for green-collar jobs - ‘I think the opportunities in this field are going to be huge’

Employers hiring the Class of 2009: CNN.com/Living

2009-05-27T08:34:00.000-07:00

See: Who's Hiring the Class of 2009.

Unemployed Trailer

2009-05-25T21:23:00.000-07:00

Oh, Brother: How Unemployed Art Thou?

2009-05-25T18:39:00.000-07:00

O Brother How Unemployed Art Thou? from steve proffitt on Vimeo.

Children and the Recession-CBSNEWS

2009-05-25T05:40:00.000-07:00

Mildred Dean Goodwin: Eulogy

2009-05-16T04:54:00.000-07:00

Little Boy
© 10 May 2009, Reginald L. Goodwin (the last Mother's Day Poem)

the little boy
with cherub face
in blue & ozone tiger suit
seemed as intent on flirting
for my attention
as he is

crawling;
standing (with support);
cooing
& teething on the airport seats
as his parents and I await

our Southwest Flight to Orlando (gate 8).

"Brandon!" his mother commands,
his father stands and gently
juggles him to & fro in
the air to giggles and smiles...

It is Mother's Day,
and, like Mr. Spock in the newly
rebooted Star Trek™ flick...

I've lost mine.

I find myself spying more babies
in an ironic, opposite scotoma:

realizing once
four decades ago
on segregated buses in a different America

in my mother's arms,

such
was
I.

************

The Gift of Faith

Foundational Text: 1 Corinthians 12:4, 9 “There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit…To another faith by the same Spirit…”

Hello, Saints. My name is Reggie Goodwin, my wife Cassandra and my sister, Mamie Douglas, relatives and friends. I bring you greetings in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ from New Light Christian Center Church, Bishop I.V. and Dr. Bridget Hilliard Pastors and Pastor Ed Reynolds, on site Pastor of the Austin location.

Thank you Galilee Baptist Church for assisting in raising me and for hosting this home going and thank you, Pastor Scovens; your ministerial and supportive staff for officiating.

You knew her as Mildred Dean Goodwin: Deaconess and Sunday School Teacher; devoted wife and mother. I knew her as Ma. Which, she never liked: it went from mommy to mom to mamma to just ma. She preferred mommy: I wasn’t going to call her mommy as a teenager. My mother gave my sister and the family the Gift of Faith.

Troop 685

You may have also known her along with Mrs. Carter as one of the founding den mothers of Cub Scout Troop 685, now Boy Scout Troop 685. I unfortunately was their problem child most nights: I bored easily and could remember many a night receiving a disciplinary spanking from the Deaconess personally.

The Prophet

I remember: she’d looked delighted at a group of kids in white karate uniforms at a local YMCA studio. She looked at me, five years in age at the time and said: “You should be in karate.” I replied as five-year-olds are apt to: “No, I’m not.” Well, I’ve been in karate 30 years now. I teach at the YMCA. She was right again.

Rolling Pins

A rolling pin is what you used to make the crust for pies “back in the day.” You kneaded the dough and rolled it flat with the pin. It’s usually a piece of solid wood with two wooden handles.

I was fifteen. I’d grown taller than Deaconess Goodwin and I had hair on my face and chin. She called me with her sweet, little voice and I shouted back (disrespectfully): “What?”… I don’t remember anything after that!

The next day, I woke up with a big Fred Flintstone-sized knot on my head. She sent me to school. CPS never called. My answer to any future summons was “yes ma’am!” And, quickly!

The Wall

I was in JROTC at Atkins High School. We’d met the Cadet Colonel and Brigade Commander: he was the highest ranking cadet in the Winston-Salem School System, ribbons all over his chest, really impressive guy. He’d conducted an inspection and review of our group and was shooting the breeze with us. I asked him as a matter of conversation: “How would someone get to your rank?” At the time, I wasn’t asking for me. His reply was unkind: “Your kind will never rise to this rank!” Your kind… I reported this to both of my parents over the dinner table. My father was angry. My mother shook her fist in the air and stated: “You tell that booger-bootch that you can do ANYTHING you set your mind to. With God on your side, I believe you can do it.” As a point of definition: my mother did not curse – under most circumstances – so, booger-bootch in her dictionary was a really ugly person!

The next day at school, I confronted the Cadet Colonel with a question: “Can you read?” He replied, “of course I can.” Without thinking about the consequences of my next statement, I said: “In three years, I’ll be wearing your rank!” He of course, doubted me. In three years, I was Cadet Colonel of Winston-Salem, Forsyth County Schools, my S4 on Staff, Cadet Lieutenant Colonel Milton Murray.

You see, ma paraphrased Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” My mother had taught me the Gift of Faith: the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen. I use this as my motto in challenging times such as these. I hope what I’ve relayed to you blesses you as well.

I have a poem and exhortation I’d like to read. It was written by a classmate from NC A&T State University, Vickie Nowlin: I’d been best man in her and Leon Nowlin’s wedding:

To Our Darling Mildred

How sweet the life of one so true
Mother Mildred your work is done and your reward is due
How blessed we were to have you dear
your courageous spirit, soft words, and corrections feared

Lofty words and poetic phrases don't seem to flow as easily now
for Mom you know all the emotions knotted up inside ...of course somehow
I love you, miss you, need you, even more today....I wasn't prepared for how quickly Mr. Empty and Lonely visited my way....

I'm trying to be strong and prepare the words that are befitting you...I'm proud. To have called you mother....but God's Child is now home in her royal court now. Take a bow for you've done well and you taught us the way. We won't forget all of your wisdom, your guidance, and the strong hands that didn't let us stray.

Thank you today, tomorrow and a million times more...we will continue our journey in time with your cherished memories that we adore
Though sad...We will meet again one day on that peaceful shore..we will celebrate that we made it and enjoy eternal life with Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ forever more..I love you

Exhortation: 1 Thessalonians 4:13 – 18

“But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that you sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so those also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive [and] remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive [and] remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” Amen

Mildred Dean Goodwin

2009-05-07T21:00:00.000-07:00

Sunrise: September 15, 1925

Sunset: May 7, 2009, 11:16 PM EST

I'll be flying out this weekend to NC.

I'm calling the church office tomorrow with the funeral arrangements.

Oddly: when my father died, I worried about my mom. She really loved Robert Harrison Goodwin - got him his first job just out the US Navy (just meeting him) - and I was especially sad for her around holidays, he made the Thanksgiving turkey; the Christmas ham: as do I now.

If love alone could have healed him from cancer, she gave more than I could ever imagine. Being an LVN, I imagine she thought she could "fix" him. When he died, she "lost her purpose," and that was evident with every passing day. It's been a slow deterioration without him.

I visited her this summer, working for a small firm that allowed me to telecommute. Each day I went, I was blessed by the fact in her advanced stage of Alzheimer's, she recognized me. Conversations were simple: she'd grasp my right hand with both of hers and pat and kiss it saying "my baby." I would acknowledge her that as usual, she was right.

She was hanging in there from a previous urinary tract infection that had her with a temperature above 100 degrees, according to my sister, but Hospice had not released her, and obvious at this point, had no need to. Death released her from pain and loneliness. Even though she's my older sister, I'm protective of her and where she is emotionally in this.

This blog started with the death of my job on the four year anniversary of my father's death. He died exactly 12 days past my 37th birthday at the age of 74: I was half his age.

Earlier, I mentioned her falling. If you have any loved ones that are senior, please get them companion services. She was on her back for an estimated 10 hours before I had my best friend - works for the Police Department - dispatch a car. She'd fallen out of the tub the night before. My sister couldn't reach her and called me. She never fully recovered from the fear of falling and lost the ability without much practice. She was in a nursing home from that point on.

Now, two days from Mother's Day, Mildred is gone. So is my childhood.

As I spoke at my father's funeral, I will speak at hers. I hope I can give it eloquence.

Consider...

2009-05-07T09:31:00.000-07:00

I recall being the recipient of unsolicited phone calls, the satisfaction of disappointing the sales rep on the phone, “I’d gotten over,” “I’d triumphed,” “I’d not been duped,” by “the system.”

Now: I am that disembodied voice calling in the cyber wilderness.

If you’ve received a call from me, you’re a “new mover,” which in the corporate sense means you have a pulse and you “moved.” That’s your fault, not mine. Register with www.donotcall.gov and the calls stop. We use a software system, Gryphon, that screens registrants and we cannot legally call you to solicit business.

Call night is blood sport: it is not for the squeamish. You test your mettle with every phone call. Despite the positive spin on the scripted spiel, someone uses you to vent their frustrations at: life, their employment, their lover, their children, their neighbor and feel vindicated by the fact I did not set an appointment with them.

Consider: making your living like this. Consider that if I don’t make an appointment, I don’t have the chance to sell, therefore I don’t get paid. Commission-only can be lucrative if you’ve goaled for such a career, you have a natural “gift of gab,” and you’re likeable.

Consider: the person behind the spiel had a junior chemistry set, a microscope, a telescope, an erector set, a tool set, an electronics kit and a drafting kit all when my neighborhood was deteriorating with the drug war that was never designed to be won; an intact nuclear family surrounded by broken homes. I was one of the blessed ones that read Peanuts and Shakespeare, whose heroes were Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Medger Evers, Einstein, Asimov, Gamow, Cousteau and Sagan.

Consider: better ways to say you’re not interested than to take your bad day out on the disembodied person trying only to make a living after his living was conveniently shipped overseas.

Consider. Reciprocity is almost a universal law (like gravity).

The Second 100 Days

2009-05-01T11:09:00.000-07:00

If I'm reading this table correctly, the total number of registered voters is 201,073.

If I take $850,000,000,000.00 and divide it by 201,073 registered voters, I get $4,227,320.43.

I THINK we could each single-handedly stimulate the economy with that!

Now: Chrysler and GM will announce plans to file Chapter 7 Bankruptcy. I thought we were "bailing them out" to avoid that. Citigroup asked permission to give "bonuses": for what? I thought (in a rational universe) you got a bonus for performance! They also got a "bailout."

See: The Corporation. It's a documentary based on a book by the same name that now seems so appropriate that we are dealing with corporate pathological mentalities.

Don't get me wrong. I voted for Obama, and I'm likely to vote for him in 2012, defying Mayan calendars and the field of "new Republicans" that seem to repeat the same old ideas that got us into this mess. Therefore, I have a right to announce when I'm disappointed in the tenor of this "change."

A book I think we all need to read: "The Gods That Failed: How Blind Faith in Markets Has Cost Us Our Future"

A conversation with Warren Adler

2009-04-30T17:09:00.000-07:00

Warren Adler is the author of "The War of the Roses." This is a discussion we had in Myspace.com/UnemployedAMenoir:

Saturday, February 28, 2009

I'm No Coward Mr. Holder
Speaking frankly, I’m totally confused why Eric Holder,
the new Attorney General of the United States called me a coward.
Perhaps I am taking it too personally, since he accused the whole
nation of being cowards.

Apparently, his accusation stems from
some idea he has that there has not been enough truthful dialogue on
the matter of race. This goes to the heart of my confusion. What am I
supposed to say in such a dialogue? That racial discrimination is
awful, that the blacks are descendants of slaves, a disgusting
phenomenon that was abolished by the Emancipation Proclamation
more than a century and a half ago? That America has done its darndest
to correct the horrors of bigotry that stemmed from that enslavement
era by passing civil rights legislation that guaranteed equal treatment
under the law for everyone, whatever their race? That we should be
vigilant in the protection of those rights?

Am I supposed to
say we haven’t done enough to right the balance after passing numerous
laws to give a leg up to help level the playing field in education,
housing and whatever? I had, as did most Americans, no objections to
offer our help to those of different races that were the victims of
discrimination. Are there still problems? Yes. Has Mr. Holder suggested
any solutions? If he has, we haven’t heard any.

Indeed, most of
us were quite courageous in breaking down discrimination barriers in
the face of often intransigent opposition by those who continued to
espouse outmoded and wrongheaded ideas on bigotry and discrimination.
To tell you the truth, I am rather proud of giving my assent to all
these anti-discrimination measures.

So what lines do I use in
this dialogue? Do I respond to any questions raised in this so-called
dialogue or say simply that “I agree?” The Reverend King
had it right. A man should be judged by the quality of his character
and not the color of his skin. What decent American doesn’t believe
that, Mr. Attorney General? Just ask your boss.

Better yet,
look in the mirror and ask yourself. What kind of a dialogue would you
have with yourself? What would you ask someone like yourself on the top
of his game? Was your skin color a hindrance? Does the sobriquet
“coward” also apply to you?

To tell you the truth, I don’t believe for one minute I’m a coward and I am rather pissed off at your inference.

I’ve also believed that the goal of our society, as Dr. King posited
should be color blindness. That’s why I hired one of the first black
salesman in the radio business in Baltimore to sell time on the station
I once owned in that town. I didn’t care about breaking barriers. I
just thought he would sell like hell. I hired black people in my
advertising business on the basis of competence not the color of their
skin or to make some kind of a statement. I wouldn’t even use a racial
designation as a reference point if the Attorney General hadn’t brought
it up.

When my wife ran her magazine in Washington, the
Washington Dossier, in the seventies and eighties, she reveled in the
magazine coverage of the fabulous and successful black community that
has been part of Washington society for more than a hundred years. She
particularly enjoyed covering the great Jack and Jill organization and the black Chirological Society events in the Shoreham ballroom. You know what I mean, Mr. Attorney General.

We never felt the slightest bit of cowardice in our association with
those groups. In fact, we felt it an honor to be invited to their
events, enjoying the company of many in the group with whom we had long
lasting relationships. For us, race wasn’t even an issue. It wasn’t
even part of the social dialogue.

Yes, Mr. Holder, as you must
know there was a vibrant group of black achievers, of which you are the
beneficiary, who had found ways to succeed by showing their courage and
ingenuity in the face of once crushing odds. And they did it before the
civil rights laws changed the game and opened the gates of opportunity
even further. In the end, its talent, imagination, focus and hard work,
not race, that makes the difference between failure and success in
America. Just ask Barack.

Look around you Mr. Attorney General.
Not every white person makes it up the greasy pole of American success.
And not every black person, but plenty do, and you can bet your biddy
that there will be more and more people of every hue coming up roses in
future America. And why not?

We compete in this country.
Sometimes guys and gals who don’t deserve it get the prize, but on
balance the good, smart, hard working, innovative, imaginative and
focused guys and gals win. Sure it’s a tough fight. As time goes on
there will be less and less reason to handicap the odds. We’re getting
a lot closer to an even race than we were a decade or so ago. Not
because we are cowards, Mr. Attorney General. Because we are brave.

I’m willing to bet you’re a decent sort of guy, smart, savvy,
experienced and when all is said and done probably qualified to run the
justice department.

May I suggest that you simply add this
gaffe about America being a nation of cowards to your collection of
Hail Mary Passes and get yourself a new copy of Roget’s.

My reply:

I agree with both of you: let me clarify.

To use your description of Attorney General Holder, you are a "decent sort of guy," [obviously] "smart, savvy, experienced." I agree you personally are not a coward.
Consider the following employment statistics for February 2009:

White:

Unemployment rate...................... 7.3

White Males, 20 and over:

Unemployment rate...................... 7.4

White Females, 20 and over:

Unemployment rate...................... 6.1

Both Sexes, 16 through 19

Unemployment rate...................... 19.1

Black:

Unemployment rate...................... 13.4

Black Males, 20 and over:

Unemployment rate...................... 14.9

Black Females, 20 and over:

Unemployment rate...................... 9.9

Both Sexes, 16 through 19

Unemployment rate...................... 38.8

Ref: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t02.htm

I believe you personally are not a coward and a stalwart of equal rights in the work place. I took Attorney Holder's comment as better stated: "we have a system that's broken and to not address it is cowardly."

That takes the personal affront out of the statement. We don't think in "sound bites" and what comes out of our mouths gets regurgitated by the media without much analysis or frankly, commentary.

I live the above statistics. Where the country now finds itself I have lived since August 26, 2003. I have blogged about it and self-published a memoir on it. It doesn't sell well because it's not a "sexy" topic: self-help and romance dominate the literary marketplace.

I helped increase the unemployment numbers by applying for unemployment insurance in the State of Texas. I am working for a security company selling protection systems - a far cry from working for Motorola as a Yield Enhancement Engineer on exciting new technology like: Logitek Mouse; Blue Tooth Wireless Technology; Cellular Phone Wireless Technology. I have a degree in Engineering Physics from North Carolina A&T State University - an HBCU. I served my country in the United States Air Force as a Communications/Computer Systems Officer. As I am apt to say when pressed, if my lifestyle had not changed, "we would not be having this pleasant conversation."

Please explore the following link and the essay I wrote on a poetry/essay blog I keep up with:

http://griotpoet.blogspot.com/2009/02/quote-by-dickens-and-thoughts-on-joint.html

Best regards and deepest respect,

Reginald L. Goodwin

www.reggiegoodwin.com

"The soul that is within me, no man can degrade." Frederick Douglass

Posted by Reginald on Monday, March 16, 2009 - 1:17 PM

Mr. Adler's reply:

Thank you for your comment, Reginald!

Posted by Warren_Adler on Saturday, March 28, 2009 - 9:26 PM

100 days

2009-04-29T21:42:00.000-07:00

I celebrated the first 100 days of Obama's presidency in the living room of my mother-in-law, who is recovering from pneumonia.

She admitted her generation worried about "the system," AKA "the man" as it related to the generation following hers - mine and my wife's, her daughter.

Like me, I know a lot of African Americans with Bachelors, Masters and PhD's in science and engineering that... can't find work. I know of at least one driving the airport's "Super Shuttle" and myself selling security alarm systems. I find the business cutthroat and brutal: you are dueling with competitors and customers comparing you to competitors. I find solace in working equations in quantum mechanics and calculus and look forward to a career in academia (hence on my profile, "Education" as my soon-to-be occupation).

Yet, I meet people I used to work with at my former company (of the "other" persuasion), the one that laid me off August 26, 2003 that have never experienced a lay off, have received raises and bonuses - probably for laying off people - that have never seen a dip in their wages, have never gone on food stamps, have never found creative after creative way to pay their mortgages and aren't reduced to blogging their angst for the world wide web to see.

Our optimism is supposedly "up" because we have a black president. Other than the prophesy of Tupac and Public Enemy CDs, I am nonplussed at the absurdity of the soundbite.

Don't get me wrong: I cheered when the man made it. I called - or tried to call - friends and celebrate over cellphone calls as I celebrated at the Obama party I attended.

I quote Frederick Douglass in "Memoir": "The soul that is within me, no man can degrade." It was a means of building up my inner man and straightening my backbone. I've been in the battle a long time, longer than most of you. It's my own personal mantra. If it helps, borrow it.

Yet, I cannot ignore Douglass' quote on power:

"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."

Let's not quietly submit or endure: "The soul that is within you, no ONE can degrade." Peace.

The University of Texas at Austin Provides Resources For Unemployed Alumni and Employers Seeking to Hire

2009-04-23T05:36:00.000-07:00

AUSTIN, Texas — AccessUT, a restricted Web site at The University of Texas at Austin, is becoming a powerful tool in helping unemployed alumni find their next job during a sagging national economy.

The AccessUT Web site, is an online job and internship database within the university's Hire Texas Web site that allows students and alumni to view postings from employers searching for their next hire, said Matthew Berndt, director of career services in the university's College of Communication. He said Hire Texas, also provides employers a free, centralized place to post professional, career-related job and internship opportunities for students and alumni.

Berndt said AccessUT requires job seekers to use an assigned Electronic Identification (EID) to access the system. Those who do not know their EID may contact the Registrar's Office at the university (512-475-7656) to claim a UT EID and temporary password.

Unemployed - A Memoir: Reviews

2006-04-05T10:06:00.000-07:00

Inner Circle Publishing (www.innercirclepublishing.com) is currently awaiting the cover for the book version of this blog (or "blook," which the popular, modern colloquialism).

These are the reviews that will appear in the book. Please support the book: the cure for unemployment is full employment = meaningful work + fulfillment. As I ask of you, I will try to repay to my fellows in humankind. With that attitude, there will be less wars and more resources for all.

Reginald L. Goodwin
Author of "Unemployed: A Memoir"

*****

Unemployed: A Memoir
Review by Ron Horne

A poet once told me that the most powerful poems often have one of the following two characteristics; the poem either tells a truth few, if any, have ever considered before or the poem tells a truth that everyone knows deep inside themselves but no one dares speak. Many major social reforms of the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s were the culmination of truths long suffered silently. More and more people, writers, musicians, and preachers, among others, spoke that truth, each turning the wheel of change one degree at a time until the inertia of public dissent kept it rolling perpetually.

Contrary to his reference to Sisyphus, Reggie Goodwin’s Unemployed: A Memoir may be the balance of the stone turned one degree beyond the hill’s peak. Goodwin does more than put his finger on the pulse of many downsized, outsourced, unemployed people; he slips it through the skin and into the bloodstream. Besides dealing with the obvious pitfalls of a family man, proud and accomplished, educated, talented and creative being both unemployed and unemployable, he delves into both the expectations imposed by the myth of loyalty between company/industry and employee, as well as the sinister dispense of hope by the droplet that the myth, like unicorns, are real and just around the corner.

Goodwin gives equal portions of raw anger, frustration, and despair, logical and scientific consideration, and personal, spiritual, as well as universal, discovery, enrichment, redemption, and growth. Goodwin’s work is a trip on an earthquake crumpled road only to be repaved by strength found through adversity, with enough left over to build anon-ramp to the scenic route in the lives of others. In Unemployed: A Memoir, Reggie Goodwin erects a signpost to many displaced, disillusioned victims of corporate game theory: hope, joy, and creative living, all pure and plentiful, rest within.

Ron Horne & Dr. Sheila Siobhan, Co-Directors
Texas Youth Word Collective
u21slam@yahoo.com
www.txywc.org
(512)632-5033

*****

Review for Unemployed - A Memoir:

In the beginning, the blog seems to be too harsh and reads like a person who is very bitter. The reader can feel the honesty which draws you to continue through this seemly brutal journal.

Next, the blog moves into a vivid description of a person's dreams and vision for living in America. It's as if the painter's brush touches your eyes to view a masterpiece.

Thanks!
-CC Stinson
CCSquared Productions
P.O. Box 6236
Round Rock, TX 78683
512.740.6860
5127406860@mobile.mycingular.com
www.CCSquared.com

*****

This is a work of passionate poetic prose that connects with our desire to be independent, self-sustaining earners in a time of ever-looming lay-offs. So many of us fear the instability of downsizing corporations and are concerned to the point of anxiety as the options to pick ourselves back up dwindle with age. Here we see the consummate bread-winner, first lose his job and then question his self-worth before teaching himself to triumph over both.

visit www.taalamacey.com today!!

*****

Reggie.

Once I sat down to read your blog, I could not stop. Here are my thoughts/comments:

I just finished reading the entire blog and it was beautifully written. I've always known you to be an intelligent and extremely talented wordsmith and reading Unemployed - A Memoir seals that knowledge. There is a reason you are one of the most talented and respected poets in Austin, Texas. These "spiritual bread crumbs" are needed in today's world. Thank you for sharing.

"I've been on a two-year journey. I've documented the pains I've felt, the self-doubt, the despair, and the hopes. This is a process, long, complicated." You wrote this in the chapter entitled Surrender, and I feel this is the theme that truly underlies your memoir.

From "Great Games of Cat and Mouse" to "Epilogue", I was pulled into world interlaced with poetry, poignant and pivotal life moments, prolific premonitions and a journey on "Horizon Road" to F.I.N.E (Fired up, Inspired, Naturally talented, and Ecstatic)

I was especially moved by the account of your father's illness and visiting him in his last days and your undying devotion to him pulled at my heartstrings. “I saw the strong will that kept me from experimenting with the drugs that savaged my community become weak and... frightened." Your dedication to family and the continued support of your wife is wonderful. The Heathcliff Huxtable and Mr. Mom chapters showed a side of the black family that is often overlooked in society.

Your chronicle from the corporate world to living free and in the confines of talent is real and tragic yet beautiful. I found myself reading certain passages over again and the Biblical references were well placed. The chapter on Faith was eye opening and clearly displays your extraordinary grasp at physics.

I applaud you especially for the mention of the Sun Poet that took her life. It is so true that people suffer in isolation to the point where they feel going on here in this realm is useless. It's a sad testament to not really knowing what a person goes through inside. Depression and suicide is a topic that is not touched on as it should be. So many people suffer in silence and find it hard to escape the glass cage.

All in all, I thank you for including me on this project; wish you the best with Inner Circle (Chad and Prince are wonderful sources of guidance and information)

Be blessed and keep in touch.
Clarissa LeVonne Bolding

*as you did with my book, feel free to use any of these comments if you chose. u may cite me as Clarissa L. Bolding, poet/author of Life is a Song Worth Singing (Inner Circle Publishing: www.innercirclepublishing.com)

Chapter 20 - Epilogue

2005-09-13T12:30:00.000-07:00

Chapter 20 – Epilogue

I chose this chapter to summarize my journey.

What I’ve left are “spiritual bread crumbs.”

In my post on http://griotpoet.blogspot.com 19 November 2004, I left this sad news:

In memoriam: This is from a friend and fellow poet, Ron Horne about the passage of a light in poetry, Ana Rose, also known as Phoenix. This touched me because we don't talk about depression. I'm old enough to remember Donnie Hathaway (R&B singer, Roberta Flack duets) and his similar demise.

We don't as a culture like to talk about depression or suicide. It's unfortunate that many creative types like Donnie Hathaway, Curt Cobain (Nirvana) and Phoenix feel that they have no hope when their words have given people so many memories; so much to live for.

A reminder: give your flowers to your friends in THIS life!

My Brothers and Sisters in Poetry-

The news filtered up to me here in Austin that a Sun Poet, Ana Rose, aka Phoenix, took her life on Friday, leaping from the roof of an office building in San Antonio. Phoenix was a young woman, 30 years old or so, bright, bubbling, full of life and always out supporting both poets and musicians. She could be found at poetry venues and band gigs throughout San Antonio as well as on the road. She was a kind and caring spirit.

In her wake are the common questions: why did she do it, who knew she was that desperate, if I had only known, if I only had . . . . There are probably many things many of us could have done, but without really knowing her strife, there is little any one could have done . . . However, as members of a very unique family, the family of poetry and verse, we could have spoken to her, and others like her, both directly and through our art, to let her know that we have ALL been in desperate situations and that there is ALWAYS someone to turn to, even if only for a moment. The closeness and support we have in the poetry community is tighter than some people have in their biological families. We have the unique ability to reach out through our art to touch those around us, to let them know that as bad as it may seem, the beauty of what we do can bring something positive to their lives.

It pains me to know this young life was lost in despair. None of us are mind readers so there is only so much we can do. But let’s try to remind each other as often as we can that every time a day ends, on the next day new life begins. With that, I present two poems in honor of the Phoenix; may her spirit arise in all of us. I send this to you in the hope that between all of us, wherever we are, we don’t let another bird of paradise get away:

FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX

They say that every Phoenix rises
But when life provides no compromises
It should come as no surprise
That a Phoenix is nothing more . . . than a sparrow
Seeking crumbs on narrow streets
Flying from the tip of tall buildings
To the hard concrete
Succumb to defeat
Rather than suffer the constant struggle

The battle of tug of war
Is just a metaphor
Where there can only be one winner
The kind and compassionate
Are the perpetually condemned sinners
Heartache the blood thinner
That turns cool breezes into artic winds
Causes a young life to rescind
Her covenant with her glory
To hear she took her life
Tore me and all that knew her apart
Didn’t she know that the community of art
And love covet her departure?
Because now only the angels will know
Why the Phoenix flew away

Ron Horne

I KNEW HER AS ROSE

She came to be known as Phoenix
But I first knew her as Rose
And little did I know
That she was in the throes
Of a struggle with life and death

So on that humid August night
As we all skinny dipped
How could I know that in her mind
The scales would tip
And she would slip
Down a slope
That at its depth lacked the hope
She needed to keep going

How could I know that
As she placed her tiny hand in mine
The cosmic design
Had a disturbing fate in place
Where she paced back and forth
Between the door to existence
And the door to extinction
To learn that she found not distinction
Between the two

Leaves me to ponder
My own bouts with suicidal ideation
Those times where I lamented whether
My own creation was a mistake
Ready to preclude another candle
Impaling my birthday cake
Break the cycle of constant misery
That seemed to plague me daily
Yes, if it weren’t for poetry
I would have missed the gallantry
Of my son’s well and hard fought triumphs
I would have forgotten the fact that it is enough
To be loved without necessarily being the beloved
That the joy of life is toughing it out
Long enough to see the BIG picture

So, as the regret flows
The fire in me grows
To spend life on my tip toes
Reaching for the light that glows
She came to be know as Phoenix
But to me, she was a perennial Rose

Ron Horne

*****

Thanks, Ron.

So, my motivation was more self-preservation than literary acclaim. I left “spiritual bread crumbs” to others that otherwise would not have e-mailed, called, stopped me in hallways or contacted me in anyway.

It is sad that in a world of over six billion people, we can feel we’re all alone. We can feel isolated and aloof. That is when the mind plays tricks on you; the “fiery darts of the enemy” plants the seeds of your own destruction with justifiable reasons to accomplish the sordid deed.

I hope this frankness; this open honesty has helped others in similar situations. Blogging has helped me get through this phase of my life. Perhaps your method is painting. Perhaps you method is sculpture or poetry. It does not matter. Leave "spiritual bread crumbs"; let people that know you know how you’re feeling. Get in touch with your feelings through a therapist or clergy. Get angry, express it and get over it. Get out and live life again! Isolation is the road to destruction. You do matter!

*****

Now, my apologies… I feel a need to apologize for forgiveness, and to forgive.

I’ve been reading a fascinating book called “Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality,” by Donald Miller (www.bluelikejazz.com). The back cover reads: “I never liked jazz because jazz music doesn’t resolve. But sometimes you have to watch someone love something before you can love it yourself… I used to not like God because God didn’t resolve. But that was before any of this happened…” He also has a statement in the front cover that grabbed me: “In America, the first generation out of slavery invented jazz music. It is a free-form expression. It comes from the soul, and it is true.”

Jazz. Euphemism for sex, it is an original art form from the Mississippi delta and New Orleans (sadly, now underwater). It is jambalaya, crawdads and etouffée. Like spoken word poetry, it does not traditionally follow a pattern. To the chagrin of classical musical artists, it does not resolve. Neither does the mystery of life on the edge of ruin. It puts the formula “now faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen” into perspective.

My first apology: to the subjects of my article “My Encounter With Black Republicans,” published in The Creative Pulse of Austin Magazine.

Dear Sirs:

Though I did not receive any monetary gain for the article, I did receive a level of satisfaction at the typing of it. I made you look like buffoons and idiots. I apologize for being as woefully guilty of the ignorance you demonstrated.

Though one of you is from America and the other from Nigeria, you are entitled to your political opinions, as am I. The argument between us only started with my identifying myself as a poet. That labeled me (from the African American gentleman) as a “Bush Hater,” which was to suggest that every poet is.

You’ll be happy to know that my republican poet friends were not too happy at your broad brush. Many of them thought you hadn’t been republican long enough to have such strong opinions. Others expressed themselves in language that I’d prefer not to repeat in this blog. (Just look at anything Mark Twain said or wrote when he was mad. His and their comments are laced with most colorful metaphors!)

For the record: I am a pragmatist, neither republican, democrat, green, libertarian or reform party. Radically and metaphorically, I am the whip in the hand of Christ as he chased the moneychangers out of the temple, hence my engagement with you since I detest dogma over spirit and truth. I choose the candidates I vote for from the information I can research and I’m given. I also choose them based on my conscience and how I live with the decisions I make, as do you.

And my sincerest apologies for calling you black republicans. The Nigerian gentleman does not have citizenship, so this last election is one of many he did not voice his opinion in, nor can he. The African American gentleman’s father seems to be a staunch democrat from comments I’ve heard about him. I doubt he challenges his father’s beliefs because he has a vested interest in their continued relationship as father and son. He is blessed to still have his in this life.

I was extremely angry with you both drawing my wife into the argument culminated. I did something irrational and dangerous at the dinner party: I deployed my “Night Stalker,” but you didn’t seem to notice. I’ll explain.

The Night Stalker is a model of knives sold by Cold Steel ®. I carried it in my pocket as I usually do. It’s within the Texas legal limit of 4”, non-serrated for personal protection. It can stand up to two hundred pounds of pressure on its hinge joint, and I am an expert with it. However, you did not threaten me physically. As a martial artist, I must feel myself under threat of assault with intent to harm before I can use any amount of force. And with twenty-seven years of martial arts experience, no amount of clever arguments could have halted a massacre. It makes me shudder to think about it!

However, you intentionally involved my wife in your diatribe. I’ve raised two wonderful sons with her that, despite my current financial state still respect me and love me as father and husband. My anger seethed from this emotional attachment. Also, I never have nor will I ever say anything negative about your wives to either of you.

I was also angry because I’d just started this journey (you might be reading about here) as an outsourced American. I was disoriented. I was hurt. I was angry with a company and industry I’d given so much time to, so much talent to, so much energy to jettisoning me like so much garbage! People who looked like me and attacked with such impunity, such a freedom I know you would not exercise at your respective workplaces. Also, I’m not the kind to strike a man when he’s down… as you did me.

For that, I forgive you.

*****

My second apology: to the company and industry that laid me off, rejected my resumes and got my hopes up with dangled carrots.

To Whom It May Concern:

First of all, the semiconductor industry started with the invention of the transistor, or “trans resistor” from the genius of William Shockley (see: junction transistor, Shockley Diode Equation, 1952). Of course, this could not have begun without the amplified vacuum tube (Lee de Forest, 1912); ENIAC: the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (1943, one BIG mother). Jack Kilby pioneered a method of stacking different types of semiconductors together in 1958 giving us the precursor to our modern processing recipe steps. Jean Hoerni invented the planar transistor in 1959. Also that year, Robert Noyce innovated from connecting wires to “conduction channels” patterned on wafers with photolithography and etched into the underlying Aluminum (some copper and gold for conduction) metal layer. Robert Noyce was a cofounder of Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel.

I said William Shockley for a reason: he was known for a mercurial management style and his unscientific beliefs in Eugenics, i.e. his racial superiority and my culture’s racial inferiority.

There was a spirit of that evident when I worked in the industry, largely because of the effort made to define diversity, a subset of Affirmative Action that soon included every group that ever felt discriminated against, soon to include Llama and Malamute Lovers. It was also evident in my promotion cycles (or, lack thereof); the papers I published that received no recognition of technical excellence; the differential treatment of one coworker who was frankly, a constant "screw up" that was tolerated; another who on the first night shift at my former employer announced to everyone on the production floor his wife was a "b----": they promoted him to management.

It is thanks to the science of Genetics, the Human Genome Diversity project found genetic commonalities with some Anglo Americans and Australian aborigines. As they searched countless strands of DNA, they could find nothing that called one person or group “superior” or the other “inferior.” They did find we all have a common genetic ancestor on the continent of Africa. We’re all “soul brothers” at the root, I’m afraid.

I said all that to say this: think about what you want to produce in the outcome of the global marketplace. Is it that easy to shift professional jobs overseas? What about using your resources to build up the infrastructure of the inner cities and pull from a talent pool that 1) doesn’t look like you; 2) are from a different culture? Shipping our jobs overseas only allows you to pull from a talent pool that 1) doesn’t look like you; 2) are from a different culture and 3) do not pay income taxes here. All you’ll have is a revolving door of talent going to our universities and leaving for home. What about the students here that want to make a professional living, BUY the products that they’re responsible for producing and support the nation with their income taxes paid? What about the middle class? For that matter, who’s going to replace the professors at the colleges when they get too old to teach and retire? Remember, what you do to one American will eventually be done to you.

For that, I forgive you.

*****

My third apology: to the headhunters and HR managers that dangled carrots.

I use the metaphor “dangled carrots” again for a reason.

You are the first line of contact with any corporation I’ve ever worked for or ever applied to.

I remember when you were “Personnel” before you became “Human Resource Management.” As I define each word through Webster:

Human: a: having human form or attributes b: susceptible to or representative of the sympathies and frailties of human nature

Resource: 1 a: a source of supply or support: an available means -- usually used in plural b: a natural source of wealth or revenue -- often used in plural, an ability to meet and handle a situation

Management: 1 : the act or art of managing : the conducting or supervising of something (as a business), 2 : judicious use of means to accomplish an end
3 : the collective body of those who manage or direct an enterprise

You therefore, fall under rules of engagement that put you in particularly delicate situations. When all is well with the economy, rejection only means, “move on to the next opportunity.” When it is not, the subjects you contact are “susceptible to or representative of the sympathies and frailties of human nature.” Hence, my rants, which I sincerely doubt are new to you at all.

There must be a win-win engagement strategy for future attempts at sourcing a talent pool. There must be some method of suggesting if not now, how can we present ourselves better in the future? It would eliminate a waste of precious time for both parties involved.

I’ve heard that my resume presents too much “life experience” (we can’t say I’m old) that you’re not apt to look at or pay for. So, are we at the HR equivalent of “Logan’s Run”? (See: “Finished At Forty,” http://www.fortune.com/fortune/articles/0,15114,375941,00.html) Are we putting the American worker out to pasture because companies don’t want to pay for their experience? What then is the motivation to get the experience, to matriculate to your companies, to work at all? These are things you have to think long and hard about.

Don’t allow bureaucracy to tie your hands. As with hurricane Katrina, the time to think about what to do should not be in the hindsight of the storm that blew through.

For that, I forgive you.

*****

My fourth apology: to Bobby R. Taylor, attorney

Dear Sir:

I apologize for monopolizing your time with trivial matters. However, you will hopefully understand, my livelihood and my ability to care for and provide for my family I don’t see as trivial.

I only wish I’d met you as a younger, idealistic lawyer when the fire to “fight the good fight” was still hot in you.

I was looking for a crusader. You’ve obviously built a comfortable living around winnable cases and not on the underdog.

Your name is the one that came up as you advertise on a community radio station in Austin, KAZI-FM. You’ve obviously had many dealing with then in the recent past: in you lobby I saw a poem written to you by Reverend Frank Garrett, Jr. of “The Wake Up Call,” a program on which I heard your advertisement, jazz background music and all. Hence, you were the first lawyer that came to mind for me to call. I cannot dictate your criterion for taking on caseloads.

For that, I forgive you.

*****

My last apology: living a lie of faith.

When things are fine and food is plentiful; when you have every need met at the end of a credit statement paid on time; when you can go on any plane to anywhere you imagine without fear of a terrorist attack; when gas is $0.98 per gallon it’s easy to have faith. Life resolves like a stanza of Beethoven’s ninth symphony. It is beautiful.

When things are crazy and food is scarce; when you’ve blown out every credit extended you; when your eighty-year-old mother falls and you are finagling a means to go see her; when gas is $3.00 a gallon, faith is a challenge. You curse a lot more than you’d like to. Life sounds like acid rock reverberating off a dry chalkboard being scratched. It is ugly!

“Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen.” And the physical church is just a building, a classroom where you get your nourishment. For some, it’s poetry readings; for other’s it’s a temple or meditation in a forest. The real body – ecclesia – is me. This is what it is for me. Thus, the substance of things hoped for are my expectations.

So, in the midst of this “faith fight,” I choose to change my expectations. It does not resolve. But it is from my soul. And, it is true.

For that, I forgive ME!

Chapter 19 - Open Letter

2005-09-01T20:34:00.000-07:00

An Open Letter To:

The President of the United States
The Senate and the Congress

Dear Sir, Sirs and Madams:

I am an outsourced American.

The previous blog chapters you’ve read have been rants, rages, prayers and praises, celebrations and lamentations. I’ve meant no harm to myself, my family or to any representative of any corporation.

However, I feel I have a right to my freedom of speech. Lay offs, downsizing and outsourcing has attached to it human emotions, human families, dwindling bank accounts and diminishing American dreams.

“What happens to a dream deferred?
“Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?
“Or, fester like a sore and then run?”

Langston Hughes, Dream Deferred, Selected and Complete Poems

I am an American of African decent; my last name given to my paternal great-grandmother and grandfather Epsy and Julius Goodwin on their freedom from slavery in 1865.

I grew up in a ghetto, east of the demarcation of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, US 52. I saw drug deals, prostitutes and lived next to addicts of various stripes.

I achieved a degree in Engineering Physics at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. Jesse Jackson, Jesse Jackson Jr., Dr. Ronald E. McNair (deceased: the Challenger accident) are a few of its noteworthy graduates.

I was a commissioned officer in the United States Air Force. My specialty was communications. After serving four years, I went to graduate school briefly at Texas State in San Marcos and was employed in the Semiconductor Industry at a major company in Austin, Texas.

I was laid off 26 August 2003 on the fourth anniversary of my father’s death. I have observed the passing of my second anniversary as an outsourced American.

By the sheer grace of God, I am in graduate school at the University of Texas, Austin in Astronomy. I am retraining. I will still be an advocate for the American science and engineering professional when my matriculation is completed.

I refer to myself as an outsourced American. My story is beyond party affiliations and beyond racial ethnicities.

You are all currently grappling with matters of life-and-death in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina and the hundreds, soon thousands lost in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

My cousin lived in New Orleans, Louisiana. Luckily, he was north of New Orleans, visiting his daughter and son-in-law. His home is gone.

My first apartment used to be in Biloxi, Mississippi. I called it my "two-step" apartment: I could take approximately two steps from the bedroom to the bathroom, two from the bedroom to the kitchen and two from the bedroom to the living room! It is also a pleasant, washed away memory.

I see the myriad faces of people on the news, looting or surviving, depending on your point of view. Two-thirds of which are African American that look like my relatives; that look like me.

I call your attention, in the days and weeks ahead, to the American worker, a melting pot of classes and ethnicities. The unemployment rate is today 4.9%, but that is a misnomer: it does not count me. Nor does not count those others like me dropped from the unemployment roll after exhausting their benefits and no longer receiving a bi-monthly check. It does not count the victims of the current ecological disaster. October’s unemployment figure should be interesting indeed.

Every pundit and lobbyist, every accountant and economist, defends outsourcing: my observation is, pundits and economists positions are not threatened by the maneuver.

I am not an accountant nor am I an economist. I do make these observations:

- The University of Texas, Austin reports a decrease in the number of engineering undergraduate students. This trend is probably observable from other flagship and minor colleges and universities around the nation. Young people are not going to invest the time, (nor their parents the money) and considerable labor in the attainment of a science and engineering degree if there are no viable jobs to matriculate to after graduation.
- As a former child of the ghetto, I can attest that if you provide the excitement of science and engineering training and the youth have the talent and time to grasp it, they will make positive, life-affirming choices that only betters American society.
- Our universities will become revolving doors: foreign exchange students, welcome at all times, will matriculate and attain degrees, then go back to their host countries. If there are no jobs here, there is no need to stay. Diversity in the workplace will eventually devolve to pre 1965 levels.
- If you continue outsourcing American professional and technical jobs, the next innovations will come from overseas. That cannot be good for our national security, since we will not be in proximity to protect any trade secrets.
- If you continue outsourcing science, engineering, manufacturing and technician level jobs, the middle class will eventually shrink. There will be no "bootstrap self-lift" from poverty, into middle class and upper middle class: that can only be bridged by continuing education.
- The American economy is based on the collection of an income tax, mostly from the middle class. Many government and military programs are financed by this method. If jobs are outsourced to India and China because the professionals there can do the same jobs for approximately $5,000.00 per year, we cannot gather a tax from them, as they are not citizens of this nation. (You wouldn't get much even if you could.)
- My income for the last two years has been a declining negative. Therefore, I cannot be taxed at the bracket I once occupied. Furthermore, my charitable giving to churches and causes like the relief efforts for hurricane Katrina are hampered. I’d give if I only had. Right now, I can give my prayers, some canned goods and my time.

I hope in future legislations, sessions of Congress and the Senate, passage of bills that the persons you think about are not just corporations and their profits, but of "We the People, of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility. Provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and to secure the blessing of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution of the United States of America."

I thank you, Sir, Sirs, and Madams for your time.

Sincerely,

Reginald L. Goodwin, outsourced American

Chapter 18 - Invictus' Anniversary

2005-08-26T07:51:00.000-07:00

All honor to my noble brothers worldwide of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc.

William Ernest Henley. 1849 - 1903

Invictus

OUT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet, the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate
How charged with punishment the SCROLL,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

*****

Son of Invictus
© 25 August 2005, Reginald L. Goodwin, A.K.A. The Griot Poet

I am Invictus!

"My head is bloody, [yet] unbowed."
Two years removed from the game by

Downsizing,
Rightsizing,
Outsourcing

Have only revealed that I AM the source
Of my reality;

I AM the cause of my destruction or salvation.

I don't have to look beyond my own faith to know "every need is met"

Because
I AM!

Controlling what something means:

"They don't want me." Who needs them?
"They don't want to pay me." They can't afford me!
"I am out of work." I am OFF the Silicon plantation and done with sharecropping my gifts.
"I am unemployed." I am free to explore and use my talents in a way that please me and the God that I believe in.

I am free to grieve on this anniversary of my father's death (six years ago) and my demise from Corporate America (two years ago) on this date. Or, I can control what this means... and move on with my life.

Chapter 17 - Full Circle

2005-08-25T06:23:00.000-07:00

Hi Reggie,

I want to take a moment to thank you for your interest in -------. While your past skills and experience are impressive, we didn’t feel there was a strong fit for our current opening.

I enjoyed talking with you and want to thank you for the time you spent with us and for your interest in the position. Please feel free to watch our careers page and apply if something in your interest area opens up.

Thanks again and good luck in your search.

Sincerely,

[HR rep]

My reply:

Thank you, -----.

I have updated my profile in your database.

{To anonymous -- an announcement to you, not the HR rep}

*****

I have had the most amazing conversations with men.

I am now 43 years old. "While my past skills and experience are impressive, no one seems to feel they are a strong fit for their current opening."

I am fine.

I've talked to men about my age and predicament. One has a web design business. From time-to-time he goes for interviews -- mostly for the fun of it -- passes their written examinations and their verbal queries. Yet, "though his skills and experience are impressive..." they hire "Joe College."

I am fine.

I talk to men that are in the same predicament. We have past skills that are impressive, or we're overqualified "based on our years of experience."

I am fine.

What's interesting about our conversations is that we have the same fears, the same self-doubts, the same prayers unanswered. We have the same hopes, the same dreams, the same aspirations -- to feed and provide for our households.

I am F.I.N.E.

But here, the acronym does not mean "Freaked Out, Irritated, Neurotic, and Erratic." At the beginning of the blog, I admit it probably did.

I have lived beyond severance, beyond benefits, beyond unemployment checks. I've managed to survive a semester at the University of Texas, Austin in Astronomy. I'm going back in the fall for two classes and a project with youth at middle and high schools. I've commented in two women's books: "Life is a Song Worth Singing" (poetry) and "Secret Sins of the Heart" (memoir) by Clarissa Bolding and Rachel Caron. I'm working on the commentary for a good friend, Joe Brundidge on his book of poems "The Naked Truth of Element 615" (his stage name). I have enrolled in a copywriting course that apparantly came at the right time.

I take no credit for the above blessings, for these blessings are from Above.

So, I am F.I.N.E.: Fired up, Inspired, Naturally talented, and Ecstatic.

I realize that I have the right to control what something means.

So, as an act of faith and not of vengeance, I am pulling my resume from all sites: Monster, Hot Jobs, Drake Beam Morin and specific company alerts. This should please the Bureau of Labor Statistics: the unemployment rate is only tabulated for the persons receiving benefits. In an Orwellian sense, I have voluntarily become an "un-person."

I will not apply for or receive unemployment benefits. I will live by my talents and live well.

My past skills and experiences are impressive, and those that feel I am not a strong fit for their organization will soon see what they have lost. The fact is, they cannot pay me the amount I am truly worth. I AM priceless.

Chapter 16 - On Faith

2005-08-22T20:22:00.000-07:00

A particularly nerdy essay I apparently wrote to... myself.

On Faith

Hebrews 11: 1 “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

A moderately skilled logician would render the previous word problem thusly:

Faith = null + null.

Null, according to Webster, functions as an adjective, as in “null set.” It connotes “having no legal or binding force, invalid”; “amounting to nothing, nil”; “having no value, insignificant.”

The Apostle Paul is quoted often in sermons and motivational lectures without the impact of his statement clearly understood in the current lexicon. Further analysis from Webster also states null as “having no elements, mathematically, a null set.” In the refrain of a seventies song I recall with fondness: “Nothing plus nothing leaves nothing. [And] you got to have something if you want to be with me.”

Since physics jobs are testily unavailable to undergraduate degreed applicants, and engineering pays better, the following definition caught my fancy: “null is a measurement in which an unknown quantity (as of electric current) is compared with a known quantity of the same kind and found equal by a null detector.”

The problem that Paul introduces is in his formula for faith, without which, it is impossible to please God.

THE UNKNOWN GOD

What is unique about the Hebrews of early Palestine was the lack of representation of a physical body in art. Moses, the lawgiver, whose gravesite is purported to be Mount Nebo in Jordan (See “The Memorial of Moses at Mount Nebo, http://198.62.75.1/www1/ofm/fai/FAInebo1.html), made the stipulation for the early believers that they construct “no graven images.” This influenced Hebrew artists until after about the 10th century AD when they began to depict the human body, and the first earliest physical descriptions of what they looked like.

Europe and literally the entire known kingdoms of the earth at that time did not share this peculiarity. Their gods had physical, human forms, beautiful and handsome. The gods had specific functions they carried out in their respective pantheon (notably the Egyptians, Greeks, Norwegians, and Romans gods bore striking resemblance in their functionality). There were gods of the rain, wind, frost, mist, water, thunder, love, war, and harvest. Their gods had sex with each other and humans. Their gods became jealous and had wars. They demanded ritual sacrifice of bullocks and lambs at their altars: some sects also sacrificed humans.

The Hebrew God had no form. He demanded devotion, characteristically of the other gods with ritual sacrifice, but called for no human sacrifice save twice in written text.

“What proof do I have that God exists?” None… null… nada… zero.

Scientific method dictates “Principles and procedures for the systematic pursuit of knowledge involving the recognition and formulation of a problem, the collection of data through observation and experiment, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses.” (From Webster.) Interestingly, the phrase came into usage in 1854; its Etymology is Greek, from hypotithenai to put under, suppose, from hypo- + tithenai to put (circa 1656).

All that to say, I’d have to put God in a test tube; pour into a crucible, break down by way of some decomposition experiment and evaluate the discrete parts. That would not be deity: it would be an element on the periodic table.

Related to the Scientific Method are tools utilized to reach conclusions: hypothesis, theory, and law.

HYPOTHESIS implies insufficient evidence to provide more than a tentative explanation, e.g. a hypothesis explaining the extinction of the dinosaurs.

THEORY implies a greater range of evidence and greater likelihood of truth, e.g. the theory of evolution.

LAW implies a statement of order and relation in nature that has been found to be invariable under the same conditions, e.g. the law of gravitation.

Acts 17: 18, 22 – 23

“Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoics, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? Others say, he seems to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection.

“Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, [You] men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are too superstitious.

“For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore you ignorantly worship, Him I declare unto you.”

This is a lively chapter. Paul, after having turned the city upside down, according to the Judaic factions there debated the key philosophers of the day.

Epicurus lived between 341 – 270 BC, a Greek philosopher who taught that “pleasure is the only good and the end of all morality, through a life of simplicity, prudence, honor, and justice.” He’s best remembered in the phrase “eat, drink, and be merry.” (A real party animal.)

Stoics were members of a school of philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium about 300 BC holding that “the wise man should be free from passion, unmoved by joy or grief, and submissive to natural law; one apparently or professedly indifferent to pleasure or pain.” (For all you Trekkers out there, this is the inspiration and job description of Mr. Spock.)

Verses 29 & 32:

“Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.

“And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this [matter].”

After which, Paul leaves.

Poverty and the 1st Null set

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for…”

I am not a rich man. I grew up lower middle class in a segregated neighborhood of the segregated South in North Carolina. Forced bussing introduced me to light brown skin, blond, brunette, and redhead friends. I met my share of rednecks, too.

Modern day Epicureans, in my estimation, are probably not hungry. That which they conceive they and their lofty American and Swiss bank accounts can achieve.

Conception would be an inhibitor to conversation with such an individual(s). If you cannot conceive living a poor existence, you tend not to look at systems in effect for centuries, oversights of human government, or just plan bad luck. Such a person would probably blame the individual in the impoverished situation. They’d be right part of the time, but not all. Until they’ve hoped for their next meal, prayed for a sick child, found that their wealth couldn’t address the most perplex of human issues – death – they wouldn’t get it because they wouldn’t have to. They would consider me, as Paul, a babbler.

Schrödinger’s cat and the 2nd Null set

“…the evidence of things not seen.”

Erin Schrödinger is best known for an equation that describes the wave nature of elementary particles, and is fundamental to the description of the properties of all matter. Sometimes referred to as particle/wave duality: it is the basis for the branch of physics known as Quantum Mechanics.

To illustrate this, Schrödinger used a technique called a Gedankin, German for “thought experiment.” Here, in a nutshell, it is thus:

“If you place a cat in a perfectly sealed box and break a bottle of Radium with a remote trigger device, is the cat living or dead?”

Most would say, “it depends on the amount of Radium”; or “it depends on the time of exposure.” Erin probably didn’t intentionally want to anger any animal rights activists. Remember that this was all in his head.

The answer in Quantum Mechanics is “both,” i.e. the cat is living and dead until the reality of its fate is substantiated by an observer.

For our Stoic/Mr. Spock mentality, “this is not logical.” Such illogic, such uncertainty is the realm of Quantum Physics. Light can be observed as a photon or a wave. Electrical energy can be observed as an electron or [radio] waves. The perspective is based upon the observer, or witness. S/He reaches their own conclusion based on their own…faith.

A [paraphrased] joke from my pastor:

“A believer lived next door to an atheist. She was a poor woman without money. Nightly, she prayed for food from God. The atheist, ever eager to prove his point bought the woman food. She began to shout for joy, praising God. The atheist triumphantly entered her apartment saying ‘You see? God does not exist. God didn’t buy you those groceries. I did!’

“She praised louder and longer. ‘Didn’t you hear me, you silly woman? God didn’t buy you those groceries, I did!’

“She looked at the atheist and said ‘God not only provided groceries, he made the devil pay for them!’”

“Human existence in the saga of the cosmos can only be explained as an act of a God who intended to create beings like us.” Stephen Hawkings, Nobel Laureate Physicist, “A Brief History of Time.”

Chapter 15 - Once More... Into the Breach

2005-08-17T07:15:00.000-07:00

[HR rep],

I received your e-mail yesterday. I will be patient.

Could I possibly receive addresses for ------ and ---? I'd like to send them thank you letters.

Regards,

Reggie Goodwin

*****

Hi Reggie…Thanks for your patience. I’m afraid we are at a standstill at the moment, there is some internal reshuffling going on in this department at the moment, so we cannot make any decisions about hiring. I hope to know something for you in a few days or maybe by this time next week. If you do not hear from me sooner, feel free to check back with me this time next week.

Thanks again for your time and patience, I understand it’s frustrating not to have an answer.

*****

[HR rep],

Whatever your internal reshuffling, I'd still like to thank them personally. If you have a policy against it, I'll understand. I thought it the professional response to the phone screens.

Reggie

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
"Or close the wall up with our English dead.
"In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
"As modest stillness and humility:
"But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
"Then imitate the action of the tiger;
"Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
"Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;..."

William Shakespeare, Henry V, Act III, Scene I

Chapter 14 - Sighs, Brass and Tinkling Cymbals

2005-08-15T23:03:00.000-07:00

From the Introduction (see archives for 2004):

11/23/2004

HR's reply:

You are on the hiring managers list of calls to make - I looked at the tracking sheet this AM.
(name blanked out)

My (14 August) e-mail:

I've talked to --- and ------ regarding the opportunity. I am confident we had good rapport and exchanged pertinent information on the position and its expectations. I am motivated to take the next step in this opportunity! I look forward to your reply to this e-mail, or call me at --------.

Thank you, and best regards,

Reggie Goodwin

(New) HR's reply:

Hi Reggie…I don’t have an answer for you yet. As soon as I do I will let you know.

Thanks,

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become [as] sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." 1 Cor 13:1.

Sounds of sighing are
like unto the sound of one
hand clapping: hopeful.

Though I could have said "hopeless," I chose the word because the syllables match the beat of a proper haiku. Also, with a single word, the mood of the poem changes from somber to bright.

An extension of charity from a friend:

“Happy belated birthday Reggie! I love Ecclesiastes, and the book of Jude is also a favorite of mine. I studied End Time Bible prophecy with a minister who travels the world doing seminars on that subject (Larry Wilson) for 6 years every day ... then I wrote a book, ‘Thy Kingdom Come’, that sold out in the Family Christian Store. I'd change some of it now, but it was pretty good I think.

“If we're well into the time of the end (I think we are), God would take you out of the "system" for your own protection Reggie ... at just about this point.

“I took myself out of the system, some time ago because that's going to be important. In the spring, I'm going to be planting a huge garden, wildflowers, then flowering plants and bushes, veggies, and herbs. I'm just feeling lead to do that. It's going to be important now, to be spirit-led, Reggie.

“If you have time and you're interested, it might be worthwhile for you to look into Mayan prophecy, Native American prophecy, Tibetan Prophecy, Celestine Prophecy, the Dead Sea Scrolls are also worth looking into the (Esscene scriptures). Know what? It's possible that you're more like Saul than Job ... Paul was caught up in the world that he was living in, until God separated him and taught him, in the desert. God saw something special in Paul. There are supposed to be prophets prepared for this time ... "God never does anything without first informing his servants, the prophets" You never know. Know what book I love, I have "A guide to the I Ching", I just read it like a book of philosophy, it's really inspirational.

“I love all the Epistles, Paul seems so human to me. Some of your writing sounds like him.... "What I would do, I do not" etc.

“Keep on Reggie, Love, --------“

Out of respect for the poet's privacy, I've omitted her name.

My home boy, Ivanho, says poets are Prophets Of Eternal Truths.

If I am a prophet, this time of my life is my desert.

I am pleased that what I've written has touched at least one. I hope it has touched you.

I am wretched. I struggle with inner demons. I am all-together human.

Although, I wryly observe, beheading is "in vogue" again, and I remember that was Paul's demise at the hands of the Roman government. Also, due to being left for dead, shipwrecked and the infamous "thorn," I hope the Apostle and I only share writing styles and philosophical outlook.

My... a funny! I believe I am... choosing joy.

Chapter 13 - Surrender

2005-08-14T20:12:00.000-07:00

Purgatory
© 30 July 2005, The Griot Poet

Eye am below Heaven and above hell
where familiar spirits dwell.

Teased between what appears to be
the "light at the end of the tunnel";
and the licking flames of discontent.

Oldies songs take me back to the seventies:
before sex;
before bills;
before marriage;
before responsibilities.

Eye remember
all eye ever wanted to do was to
make an honest living.

Somewhere in my story, eye discovered
[John] Milton's nine-level purgatory.

Vision... became lust;
"doing whatever it takes," violating sacred trusts.

If the soul is
the mind,
the will,
the imagination,
the emotions
and the intellect:
eye sold it!

When do visions become vain imaginations?
When does goal-setting lead to coveting?

Thrust into responsibilities before eye was trained and ready,

eye skipped down the "Primrose path" -- eye wide shut -- in "no mind,"
forgetting that
"action without thought"
takes prior planning
and much practice.

So, here am eye
at forty-three
feeling less like
Solomon
and more like
Ecclesiastes *

My prayers as the
vain repetition
of a heathen

Teased between what appears to be
the "light at the end of the tunnel";
and the licking flames of discontent.

*: Ecclesiastes 1: 2 Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all [is] vanity.

My alter-ego revealed.

I originally wanted to title this chapter "Bankruptcy," since that option is on my mind, and the rules for it will change by October after the end of the fiscal year.

I've been on a two-year journey. I've documented the pains I've felt, the self-doubt, the despair, and the hopes.

This is a process, long, complicated.

I remember a video I saw of Charles Dickens in a class based on Steven Covey's "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People." He was despondent, depressed walking through the despair of the streets of London in an economic depression -- with no story idea. For most of us that viewed it with hindsight -- I was sitting next to a very good friend that was up on her literature -- we recognized the beginning of the plot for "A Tale of Two Cities": It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.

That kind of recognition -- the zen balance of life -- is where I am now.

My emotions, and granted, I've been in touch with some I initially put away on a dark, machismo shelf for many years -- are validated.

My hopes for a better tomorrow are justified.

And my desire for meaning of this crazy phase of my life, is "vanity." Other translations say: "Everything is meaningless," says the Teacher, "utterly meaningless!"

The job I thought I wanted at the company I had an HR rep for is in a hiring freeze until early next year.

The job that started this blog called me -- twice -- and it looks good. My hope.

I surrender to the understanding of life. "For in much wisdom [is] much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." Eccl 1:18.

I surrender to the seasons that must process through my life: "To every [thing there is] a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven": Eccl 3:1.

Seasons change every ninety days. I look forward to my time to heal, my time to laugh, and my time to dance! Eccl 3:3&4 [paraphrased]

Chapter 12 - The Carrot

2005-08-13T22:52:00.000-07:00

“My day” occurs tomorrow. I will officially be 43-years-old at 7:39 AM.

When I included the verses from the book of Job, I’d buried my head into the keyboard after slamming my fist into a very expensive computer desk. My oldest son came to console me. He said he was proud of me.

I finally read the Book of Job, ironically in the same spelling as the word for employment, and found it a most depressing book! His friends were despicable! Most of the reading, I felt like physically slapping the TASTE out of their filthy mouths. For Job to pray for the callous snots after their bad advice, even with the Almighty coming to him out of a whirlwind is HERCULEAN to me. Somehow, praying for others makes his circumstances “all better.”

Speaking of praying: my wife and I try to pray at 5:00 AM every morning. This is HER idea, mind you. Since God is timeless, and man bound by time, I don’t see the difference in giving El Shaddai His due at 6:30 AM after a little more shuteye.

My prayer was testy, angry, blunt, pissed off. Yeah, I was mad at my invisible God. After all, I’ve been through this Jobian experience for well onto two years. I’m waiting for the whirlwind. I’m tired.

I got a call on my cell. Amazingly, it’s the same company that started this Blog in the first place (see the introduction). I don’t mention their names as I did there because I don’t want to jinx any possibility of getting back into the game.

Peer pressure: it’s not just for teenagers. Part of my journey this year was to realize that I am affected by peer pressure. Two instructors I admire are on the cover of Tae Kwon Do Times. They were laid off from their high-tech jobs like me. I had no reason to believe that I could not achieve the same level of success as they did. I was successful in getting the studio as a local interest story on News 8 Austin (see link in the title). Yet, we don’t share the same background; experiences or culture. I can’t be like them. I can only be me.

Unfortunately, my net after earnings wasn’t and hasn’t been much after two years. I made a lot of money and I had to spend a lot of it on advertising and operational costs.

I talked first to the HR rep (a new one!) I talked to an associate of the hiring manager. I talked to THE hiring manager. This was all done as a phone screen. Then, reality set in.

The face-to-face is what I’m waiting on. They didn’t actually SAY they were going to pull me in for an interview. This unknown is the biggest problem the unemployed face.

I’ve been out of the game for two years. I’ve honorably tried to get a business off the ground to stay in the area. I’ve honorably looked for other jobs outside of the city and state.

The face-to-face is probably the only answer now I could stand to accept now. My day is tomorrow. My tomorrow is in the balance.

Chapter 10 - "It has to be blatant"

2005-08-09T15:48:00.000-07:00

"Facts About Age Discrimination
"The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA) protects individuals who are 40 years of age or older from employment discrimination based on age. The ADEA's protections apply to both employees and job applicants. Under the ADEA, it is unlawful to discriminate against a person because of his/her age with respect to any term, condition, or privilege of employment -- including, but not limited to, hiring, firing, promotion, layoff, compensation, benefits, job assignments, and training.

"It is also unlawful to retaliate against an individual for opposing employment practices that discriminate based on age or for filing an age discrimination charge, testifying, or participating in any way in an investigation, proceeding, or litigation under the ADEA.

"The ADEA applies to employers with 20 or more employees, including state and local governments. It also applies to employment agencies and to labor organizations, as well as to the federal government."

However, Mr. Bobby R. Taylor (www.taylor-law.com) says "it has to be blatant." From this quote describing age descrimination from the EEOC, I don't read that.

You read it for yourself. I've posted the memo below for your review. Mr. Taylor, as black and as bald as I am spent 20 minutes with a white couple before me dressed casually in jeans and canvas pants. He might have spent 20 seconds with me dressed in a business suit. "Just cut to the chase and I'll see if I can help you." I paraphrased the memo below. He "didn't have enough to go on. They may have a reason: they may not want to pay for older employees and are looking for college freshouts." But, that's not age discrimination. Amazing clairvoyance from Mr. Taylor's "cutting to the chase," considering the lawyer never bothered to read my memo:

*****

Memo for Record, 8 August 2005
Re: Corporate Plus Executive Search Firm/Age Discrimination

To Whom It May Concern:

A Mr. Levan Johnson of Corporate Plus Executive Search Firm contacted me Monday, 25 July 2005. My initial contact was apparently via e-mail at 10:25 AM CST (see E-mail). That was followed up with a call on my cell phone at approximately 11:10 AM.

Mr. Johnson informed me of a Leadership Training Program with a Fortune 15 corporation that his company represented (again, see E-mail). I was chosen for my resume on CareerBuilder.com and it’s mentioning of my four years of prior management experience in the United States Air Force where I managed 85 persons in a four-year period.

Mr. Johnson understandably wanted an updated copy of my resume: “What have you been doing since 2003?” I’d been laid off from my job. I admitted I’d been running a business – he called me right in the middle of administrating a martial arts summer camp at the park. He said that experience would also be attractive since the Leadership Training Program was a store management position with their client, Home Depot.

I revised my resume and sent it the same day for Mr. Johnson (see 2nd E-mail). I’ve also included the revised resume.

Not hearing anything, I called Mr. Johnson that Friday, 29 July 2005 to follow-up on the status of my resume. He forwarded me to a Walter, who was over the division responsible for the Home Depot account.

Walter informed me that the resume had been forwarded and I should hear something soon regarding the next step – a telephone screen. I was informed if I did not hear anything that Friday, I’d definitely hear something conclusive on Monday.

“You’re overqualified based on your years of experience,” was the call and the statement from Mr. Johnson. I asked for clarification, as I could see I am probably overqualified with an Engineering Physics bachelors and 10-plus years experience as an engineer in the semiconductor industry. “No, sir. You’re overqualified based on your years of experience. The position is looking for someone with a total work experience of 6 – 10 years. You have more.”

I did the math in my head. I’ve worked since the age of 16 and I graduated college at 22: that’s either a person age 22 – 26 years or age 28 – 32 years. I will be forty-three Sunday, 14 August 2005. “Is that another way of saying ‘I’m old?’”

“No, sir. You’re overqualified based on your years of experience,” he repeated hesitantly. “That’s the total work experience our client is looking for. We will keep your resume on file for other opportunities that are a better fit for your background.”

I said, “Thank you.” I hung up and called information for the number to the Law offices of Bobby R. Taylor, Attorney. END

Mr. Taylor extended his hand as I walked out of his office. I did not reciprocate, interrupted by a call on my mobile phone. He informed his secretary I did not need to pay the $50 consult fee. A rather small, gracious gesture.

I will not seek Mr. Taylor's permission to use his comments if this blog becomes a book. You can't pay for this brand of cosmic comedy anywhere!

Chapter 11 - My Day

2005-08-09T14:48:00.000-07:00

After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.

And Job spake, and said, Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night [in which] it was said, There is a man child conceived.

Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it.

Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it.

As [for] that night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined unto the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months.

Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein.

Chapter 9 - On Becoming

2005-08-04T22:22:00.000-07:00

Suffice to say, I was not offered the phone screen for the Home Depot position.

However, it has made me consider hiring a lawyer.

I received a call from a headhunting firm. [They] got my resume from careerbuilder.com. They asked me for an updated version of my resume. I obliged the rep. I was confident I could sail through the interview and out of my financial morass.

"I'm sorry, sir. We rejected your resume on the basis of... you are overqualified."

I say, "I've been out of work for two years. YOU called ME. What is your definition of over qualification?"

"You're overqualified, sir, because of your years of experience."

"Just what does that mean?"

"Well, the position requires 6 - 10 years of total work experience... you have more."

"So, are you saying I'm overqualified, or that I'm too old?" I've been working since I was sixteen years old. That's either 22, or 26 years. If they tabulate from my age at graduation, that’s 28 - 32 years.

"You're overqualified, sir, because of your years of experience."

"I see. Thank you."

I called information and contacted a lawyer. The math just doesn't add up and two years of blogging is patience enough for anyone.

Chapter 8 - Mr. Mom

2005-07-30T21:26:00.000-07:00

I've been unemployed now for 1 year, 11 months and 4 days as of 30 July 2005 (today).

I'm really getting tired of hr reps, headhunters, recruiters calling about "I saw your resume on Job.com, Monster.com, Careerbuilder.com, dbm.com, etc., etc., ad nauseum.

You have this... hope that springs up when a headhunter calls. It's after all, in his or her best interest to place you in said position for their commission checks.

First, it was Target regarding a logistics position. "I don't have experience in that area," I said. "I know, we're going to try to sell your soft skills as a people person..."

So, I go through the phone screen with Target. I've looked at the web site. I've researched the company and its commitment to diversity; its impact on the communities it operates in.

Then, the recruiter gives me the bad news: "They said there wasn't a good fit between your skill sets and what they were looking for." Isn't that what I JUST said about two paragraphs ago!?

This chapter is titled "Mr. Mom" because of an apparent role reversal.

I'm not the only black male in this boat. Two friends are finding themselves the caregivers and their mates the breadwinners.

I've always prepared breakfast and dinners. It was fine when I had a job and my masculinity was intact.

False hope extended is worse than no hope at all. It's a striptease: a hard-on after the performance with no where to go.

Now, it's a black firm from Georgia. I researched their site. Their listed with Black Enterprise Magazine. The recruiter sounds like a brother! The position is with Home Depot in their store leadership program. Starting is $80 - 85K, plus benefits. That's more than I made as an engineer.

Reality: My business is within a week of closing, despite the prayers I've solicited from the Internet, the prayer team (experts in this area), the three days of fasting (OK, I was desperate) and the amounts of 401 (k), severance, 60 plus hours a week I've devoted to making myself successful.

Reality: It looks like I'm going to have to be Mr. Mom as my wife kills herself selling for Plantation Homes (not kidding). She thinks she can do it, and I'm sure she can.

The casuality in all of this is my male ego. I have a need to succeed and provide for my family. It's an in-bred instinct: the weaker males faced extinction in the clan, did not mate with the most attractive and in some extreme cases were EATEN by their kinsmen!

An open comment to hr reps, headhunters, recruiters and Catbert Evil HR Directors: this is what you're dealing with when you call a guy that's been out of the game for two years, is developing dish panned hands and a disturbing tolerance for the SOAP Network!

So now, with the hope, I wait. I waited Friday until I could not stand it and called the firm with kids (running a summer camp) screaming in my ear. The do-wop song "Rescue Me" comes to mind. My revised resume has been forwarded to the rep over the Home Depot account to make a determination about doing a phone screen.

Ah, the infamous phone screen. And so, I wait...

Chapter 7 - Heathcliff Huxtable

2005-04-21T08:06:00.000-07:00

I am looking at the images of the houseless (as I stand corrected by a shade tree mechanic: he is not "homeless" as he pointed to the wooded area where he comfortably lay his head with his fellows at night). These are not images I see only on television: I see them alarmingly closer to my suburban home; alarmingly resembling my neighbors.

"Nick at Nite" has run through all ten years of the Cosby Show and is now on the initial reruns dating from 1984 when Rudy was cute. Now, Keisha Knight-Pullam is starring with Queen Latifah in "Beauty Shop" and had a magazine expose in what looked like skimpy bikini fashion (saw it at the grocery store: didn't buy it).

Nineteen eighty-four was not only the year I graduated with my Physics degree, we were treated to positive images of black family life by Bill Cosby and Phylicia Rashad.

As I understand it, getting Cliff cast as a doctor and Claire as a lawyer took a heated confrontation by "The Cos" with the show's producers. They wanted another "ghetto sitcom" similar to Good Times (which, John Amos left the show because his TV family never left the ghetto); The Jefferson’s, George never left his ignorant acting ways from when he was neighbors to Archie Bunker though he'd made it to the "deluxe apartment in the sky," and lastly Sanford and Son, with Fred faking heart attacks to Elizabeth and Lamont tripping through life clueless (I hear he is or at one time was a preacher).

I was twenty-three, young, impressionable and scared to death. I was going in the US Air Force as a Communications Officer - a specialty everyone says was a good choice. The problem is, I didn't choose it. I digress.

Cliff and Claire became the black Ozzie and Harriett. We were glued to a tube that stated simply "you can have a successful black sitcom without the general stereotypes." Unfortunately, we substituted new ones.

What I mean is Cliff and Claire represented the “new” rich in black America. Most of us were just beginning the steps taking us towards the middle class. With the exception of the occasional "glitch" with each of their TV children, they resolved most problems in thirty minutes or less in time for the final scene.

I now realize the Huxtable clan were both a good thing... and bad.

Good in that I could view The Cos in his element: comedy. I could laugh and take my mind off my troubles for just a moment.

Here's the bad [all opinions mine]:

The Cosby Show became the litmus test for the so-called "color-blind society" that conservatives, black and white, began touting in the eighties. Unfortunately, the success of the show was warped into the foundation for attacks on affirmative action and set aside programs for black business owners to get a leg up (like major corporations still do with tax abatements).

Bad in that Heathcliff and Claire Huxtable became an ideal I subconsciously reached for and would do anything to fulfill that image of success. That image became an idol.

Bad in that we went from one extreme of "ghetto fabulous" to "suburban somnambulism." We went from no hope of getting out of our dire straits to obviously never having been there. We went from being held down by “the man” to “lifting ourselves by our own bootstraps.” I know Dr. Cosby never meant to have that effect on the black community, but I suspect overreach is part of the Urban League’s report that our net worth is 1/10 that of whites still… in the Twenty-first century: trying to be like the Huxtables.

So, I find myself juxtaposed between the reality and the fantasy of the Huxtable image. I am unemployed. I am trying to get a business off the ground that like many of us began as a hobby, an outlet after work. I am looking at the real possibility of loosing the business and the house unless some drastic, RADICAL changes don’t take place. I know what one of those changes is: selling my 4-runner. My wife makes a good point: what are we going to do when you NEED a car? My simple answer is “get one.” With what resources at my disposal at the time, God and truly God, only knows. I know the other change is to lease or sell our home. Even with her working and it refinanced out the wazzo, we can’t afford the mortgage.

I feel like the father with the son possessed by a demon, crying out: “Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief!”

I don’t know how God will get me my wealth. I do know it’s needed now!

Chapter 6 - Reds

2005-04-01T01:32:00.000-08:00

This is something I have to get off my chest.

Maybe it will help someone. I'm hoping it will help me.

Reds is a shooting range in Pflugerville, Texas. I somehow find myself passing it often now that I'm "free."

I've been on the range before. I've shot usually a Gloc 9 millimeter.

I see myself in this vision: I go in the door from the parking lot. I purchase time on the range and ammo. I see myself talking to the proprietors of the range. We joke briefly.

I get my ear protection; adjust my glasses and head on the range.

I mount my target and send it via the automatic pulley down range.

I load my weapon, careful to point the muzzle at all times down range.

I release the safety, lifting the weapon, aligning the front and rear sights. I practice "BRASS": breath, relax, aim, slack (the trigger finger), squeeze (the trigger finger). Repeat.

I pull the target back up range. I inspect it to adjust my aim and possibly my sights from the shot group.

I send my target via the automatic pulley down range.

I load my weapon, careful to point the muzzle at all times down range.

I release the safety, lifting the weapon, aligning the front and rear sights. I practice "BRASS": breath, relax, aim, slack (the trigger finger), squeeze (the trigger finger).

My universe is crimson - the gray of the range is replaced by a space of blood. My head erupts into molten lava as the smell of sulfur invades my olfactory. I fall.

I practiced "BRASS": breath, relax, aim, slack (the trigger finger), squeeze (the trigger finger). No one suspected until they have to call EMS. Too late.

I always awake from the vision with a bolt of consciousness. Lately, the visions have been during the day... as I drive past the range.

I wish I could say this was an "April Fools" joke. I hope it helps someone. I hope it helps me.

Chapter 4 - The Working Poor

2005-01-22T21:18:00.000-08:00

"Economy Not Kind to the Working Poor"
By Anna Varela
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
from http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/123104J.shtml

The aspect of a lay off: you don't think of the next step to do with your money, though you are counseled to do just that.

You don't think about the fact that your benefits for doctors visits will run out with the time they've attached to your severance.

Melancholy is a numbness. It's neither maniacally panicked nor remotely calm.

Even if and when you are counseled wisely about your money, the most obvious thing to do is to downsize your lifestyle. Thoreau said "simplify, simplify, simplify."

What works for writing assignments doesn't always work for living in suburban neighborhoods after living most of your life in a... hood.

It's a pride issue. I'd worked hard, sacrificed much time to the pursuit of a degree in Engineering Physics. I can't TELL you how many parties I avoided for what I now reflect on as above average grades.

I had a window in my room that faced east towards the sunrise. It subtly told me that a new day always dawned despite my circumstances.

I recall every safe house and drug/candy store a character by the name of "Po' Charlie" had in my neighborhood (or, "hood").

I vividly remember the announcement of police raids at Charlie's safe houses; how they would find nothing. I remember cheering for Charlie, not the police.

He was Robin Hood, though I never benefited from his largesse. He was merely strong enough to go up against "the pigs" -- a metaphor from the 60s and the Panthers.

As I look back on him, he was a leech sucking the vital blood out of a community. He was a vulture feasting on the dead bodies of the addicted. But, I digress.

You realize you are the working poor when you apply for... food stamps. Now, the stamp is a debit card with a balance you must not exceed each month. In downsizing the types of foods you'd usually get, the choices left aren't very nutritious.

The upside -- it forces you to budget, which in this long personal night I'm walking through is probably the only good thing about it.

Chapter 5 - The Return of Catbert

2005-01-22T19:06:00.000-08:00

I think I just lost it.

I'm sure of it now. I had her number and I called it.

If you remember in my intro, I corresponded with an HR rep. The initial e-mails were very positive and I thought... I thought I'd get hired by her company.

I smelled a rat! You see, my resume is two pages on and it says the ubiquitous phrase in it "Senior Engineer."

I paraphrase the following conversation from memory:

HR: Hello?

Me: Hello, am I speaking to _____________?

HR: Well, hello. How are you doing?

Me: I'm inquiring about something.

HR: And, what might that be?

Me: Why I was passed over for the position.

HR: I'm not at liberty to discuss...

Me: LOOK, lady! I've been out of work for over a year. I have NO health benefits. I've exhausted my retirement just to pay bills. You don't live my life!

HR: Sir, SIR! Calm down.

Me: I'm as CALM as the circumstances allow me to be.

HR: We... we're in the same boat.

Me: How do you figure that? You're in an air-conditioned building in a cubicle with a computer...

HR: I'm a contract worker, sir. Once the company hires all their needs, I'll be laid off.

Me: I'm all tears.

HR: Sir... you're not serving yourself. As a matter-of-fact: if you persist in this course, I can put in a recommendation to not hire you!

Me: "Catbert" was obviously spawned from YOUR personality.

HR: SIR! I can... appreciate your dilemma. This is a rough economy. But, if I were to put in this recommendation, it will travel. You wouldn't be able to get hired by any firm in the city; possible the state... possibly further.

Me: You really enjoy your work, don't you?

HR: I'm just telling you to calm down. I won't put in the recommendation unless you continue to insist on this line of conversation. The company doesn't want to hire unstable people.

Me: ..... Goodbye.

That was it.

My rant stopped cold by the cold logic of Catbert's power. I can ruin your life. I could feel her predatory stare through the phone. I hung up, not because I didn't have more to say, but what else could I say?

What happened to engineering? When did it become a thespian performance art? Even in unemployment I must put on the positive Step-n-Fetch smile, grinning from ear-to-ear, dance my jig and mouth YASSA, MASSA. My jaws were tight, just like they were when I had my so-called job...

When my wife lost her job, it was kind of sweet. We pulled in our budget and saved where we could. She was home going on field trips to pick berries with the women in the cul-de-sac. My youngest son loved the fact that his mom was at home and he didn't have to go to daycare, one of the pulled-in expenses.

The point is, she had emotional support.

I recall "The Manpower Series" by TD Jakes. In it, he made a black-and-white declaration about men and women: men being in most general cases positional and women being relational.

Women: "How many children do you have?"
Men: "What do you DO for a living?"

Do... what defines you now, months after a lay off? It used to be the morning commute, the coffee at Starbucks, the banter before the 8:30 AM engineering meeting. It used to be lunch with your coworkers and conversations. It used to be the projects you were assigned and the sense of accomplishment at their completion.

Do... some of us I've heard invested money in either T2 or T1 connections, bought software they used at work as a means to "consult." They end up instead checking their e-mails for the job leads they've sent out on a souped-up computer. But, consulting gigs are going overseas as well. I've heard of depression and at least one suicide (I hope it was a rumor, and urban myth).

I... went a little crazy. But I am convinced, Catbert DOES NOT in any way identify with what I'm going through right now.

Chapter 3 - A Falling Action

2004-12-30T08:17:00.000-08:00

The last communications meeting was Thursday, August 19, 2003. We were shown the new structure of the business unit. The reorg had finally been accomplished.

Everyone's names were on the new charts!

Granted, my Operations Manager was demoted in grade to a group level manager. My group level manager was moved to program management. What was immediately infuriating to everyone concerned is that for all the drama, we were still in the same positions, still in the same job functions.

Or, so we thought.

August 26, 2003. This was the fourth year anniversary of my father's death. I remember the trips I took between Texas and North Carolina to see him as cancer ate at his cells. I saw a man I once looked to for strength and wisdom slowly wither away. I saw once hard muscles atrophy and become languid. The steady frame that taught me how to box I now lowered gingerly into a tub to bath as he once did me. I saw the strong will that kept me from experimenting with the drugs that savaged my community become weak and... frightened. I saw a gray mane fall to the pillows revealing a head made bald, not by choice. I saw death and could no nothing, NOTHING to stop its natural process.

I called him "Pop" ala Elroy Jetson from the sixties cartoon show. He was a smoker and had been so since the age of ten years old. He stopped at 65.

I called him Pop as a mantra, a breath prayer to counteract the years of tobacco and alcohol abuse. I called him Pop because I calculated his age from my birth: 37 until his demise at 74 on August 26, 1999. I just turned 37 when I received the call from my mother: "he's gone!" I was literally half his age.

I'd been in contact with emotions I'd denied for so long - tumultuous, agonizing pangs of tears that would not stop. I would try to anesthetize the pain with teaching martial arts, poetry, sex, wine - no drug that offered a temporary fix seemed appropriate. That night, 11:27 PM central time, I collapsed into the arms of my wife and my children. Pop, grandpa was gone.

So today was the anniversary of his death. I was four years removed from the event and was curious as to how I would commemorate his passing. At each visit to his grave in North Carolina, I'd become a hopeless mess! Apologizing for not being strong enough, agonizing over every sin I'd ever committed, feeling that I hadn't measured up to his expectations.

Today I was in Texas, 1,500 miles from his grave site. I was in control of my emotions; melancholy...

"Reggie, could you come with me please?"

My former manager had a somber look on his face. I knew what was transpiring.

My former Operations Manager had tried valiantly to find me another position within the company. The severance did not come as a surprise; just the timing of the day they chose:

August 26, 2003.

My former manager led me to my former operations manager to a walled office with someone from HR. The door was respectfully closed. Both men were visibly upset - almost to tears - as the HR rep (not the Catbert/Stepford wife Android woman, but a male underling) reviewed all the paperwork now assigned to me discreetly behind that closed door.

It felt like rape.

Ironically, I'd read an article in Fortune Magazine, ominously titled "Finished at Forty" http://www.fortune.com/fortune/articles/0,15114,375941,00.html. They were surprised at how quickly my office affects fit neatly into one box.

If you study the art of war diligently (for me, over two decades), a sense of your surroundings develop. I'd moved out slowly, prepared for what seemed inevitable.

On that day, August 26, 2003, I'd just turned 41 twelve days before.

The day after my forty-first birthday, I wrote this poem. I hope you're not getting tired of these tomes!

As I stated in the previous chapter and somewhat above, I think humans have a built-in sixth sense of dreaded things on the horizon. I am sharing with you, the reader, what I was feeling at the time. Downturns in the economy can make you a little prophetic and a lot crazy! As the last line suggests, I'd received my... falling action.

Laughing Through Wormholes
Copyright 15 August 2003, Reginald L. Goodwin

I wanted one door to close and another to open.

I wanted
to plunge through its orifice having intercourse
in lands flowing with milk and honey.

I wanted
to steer my own rudder working cow utters
wearing protective suits and screens
occasionally getting stung by honeybees.

I wanted
to stop acting like an engineer
intellectually propping up numb skull
regimes by numb and dumber
"pointy-haired" managers (see: www.dilbert.com)
straight from Hades
torments and screams.

I wanted
the death-rattle games to end,
played by "Catbert - evil HR directors"
to my chagrin.

I wanted
to flee the tomb of innuendoes; rumors and gossip.

I wanted
to stop hearing the doubts
seeded in my mind by doublethink demons
using my talent for their fat wallet profit.

I wanted
good health and financial independence,
dependent on my God-given gifts and not
"Leave it to Beaver"
"Ozzie and Harriet"
to-make-THEM-comfortable-with-my-kind
riffs.

I wanted
to fill my days with the hot haze
of door-to-door graze, knocking, clocking
fulfilling my dreams.

I wanted
time to think and self-publish
the great American novel, essay, anthology, chapbook.

I wanted
time to design one B-A-D web page
to which others would link and look.

I wanted
to see my dreams and my life fulfilled,
my children and my wife have FAITH in me.

I wanted
off the long, unending road going to nowhere;

off the steep rollercoaster to obsidian oblivion...

I wanted to STOP it!

Chapter 2 - Denouement

2004-12-29T13:02:00.000-08:00

From www.m-w.com: denouement - Function: noun
Etymology: French dénouement, literally, untying, from Middle French desnouement, from desnouer to untie, from Old French desnoer, from des- de- + noer to tie, from Latin nodare, from nodus knot -- more at NODE
1 : the final outcome of the main dramatic complication in a literary work
2 : the outcome of a complex sequence of events

I named this chapter denouement. A testament to my tenth grade English teacher, Velma Williamson, I recall her simplified version of the above definition as "a falling action"; "the story climax." You get the whole point of the tale after hanging on breathlessly page after page. Some authors, even more dramatically, describe it and the conclusion of a story as "a little death." An appropriate metaphor.

The Colonel continued with his non communications meetings, glazed eyes and all from March through August of 2003. We missed one meeting in June due to his having to go to a meeting at our corporate headquarters. He - that is, his secretary - sent an apologetic e-mail stating he was sorry we'd have to miss the June meeting. Hallelujah.

By July, we all got a bulk e-mail from corporate communications. There would be a reorganization of the business units and an involuntary severance before the end of the third quarter. Since July is the beginning of most companies third quarters, you can't plan vacations to conveniently fall on the fated day. Our street contacts were mum. Now, the secrecy of the corporate animus rivaled that of the White House or the Central Intelligence Agency. The attitude from most workers was heavy with despair. That became the central theme of conversations around lunch, either on or off campus. Actually, off campus lunches, though more expensive became more frequent to say things outside of the company that were not quite "PC."

"How are they making this decision?"

"My last review... I mean, I think I scored OK and all."

"You know what p----s me off? I notice they never lay themselves off, and many times it was their dumb decisions that caused the problems!"

"On top of that, they get bonuses. Do you know how long it's been since I've seen a bonus? Centuries. And I haven't lived THAT long!"

They. Them.

I watched a friend become one. He'd started out as a decent engineer. Then the dreaded thing happened: he was promoted to Section Manager.

After a succession of promotions and accolades, he became an Operations Manager of one of our factories. During process yield meetings, I'd watch him grill engineer after engineer, pestering them and hammering them until he could catch them in a technical faux pas, an "aha" moment that he'd ride until the engineer felt about two inches tall leaving the podium. It makes my skin crawl recalling some of his comments:

"What the HELL did you think you were doing?"

"Am I paying you for incompetence, or results?"

"Sit down. Those results are absolute bull----! Come back when you have something of merit to report. Come to my office after this meeting!"

"You were abusing your lab time!" The hapless engineer explained he wasn't and used the time to solve a yield problem that BENEFITED the company. "Did anyone else get in the lab while you were overusing your time? Well, then I still say you abused your lab time!"

Needless to say, my former friend/monster had a lot of professional turn over.

"...reorganization of the business units and an involuntary severance before the end of the third quarter."

August.

All of my engineering projects dried up like a sunflower wilting in the Texas summer heat. I logged as much time as I could on the test floor. I attended meetings and tried to insert myself into new projects, new platforms.

I was so distraught I went to our business unit's HR manager. She was a petite woman, swarthy and lovely, obviously of Hispanic ancestry despite her married Christian name. I made an appointment to talk with her. I wanted answers and I asked her for them. "Am I on this list?" "Why didn't you give us a choice of voluntary severance?" "Don't you realize you're playing with peoples lives and incomes here?" Her face - I'd seen it before - on my cat. An armor-piercing stare of determination. I'd usually see it on my cat before... she'd kill a mouse.

"I know how you must feel. I'm afraid I can't answer that." She said it with a staccato reminiscent of a dutiful Stepford/Android wife.

Before the end, as with my father's death four years prior (the anniversary of his demise coming soon on the twenty-sixth of the month of August) humans I feel, have premonitions of the end of things. This verse chronicled my feelings at that time:

Horizon ROAD (retired on active duty)
Copyright 11 August 2003, Reginald L. Goodwin

On the road going to nowhere
there is static on every channel;
no frantic gestures from road-raged drivers spouting nonsense.

The only relent and belief
is that you are the only driver
gazing at a horizon without event or relief.

On the road going to nowhere
dark, gray cliffs line the side
of empty streets;
no accidents to avoid,
no pedestrians (to miss) or meet.

A world void of color, inhabited by no one other than you.

On the road going to nowhere
is the stark-raving terror of reflection:
remembering life's other goals and directions
requiring risk and FAITH.
Somewhere, you lost your courage and did what was SAFE.

As you sweat in SUV expectations
not reaching for Porche or Vet,

will you stay on this road out of fear and despair:
desperately clinging to the gray color-void
surety
of
the road going to nowhere?

Chapter 1 - Great Games of Cat and Mouse

2004-12-28T09:52:00.000-08:00

In the syndicated cartoon strip, Dilbert (R) (www.dilbert.com), Dilbert's cat, ubiquitously named Catbert is the "Evil HR director." One of Catbert's favorite games was playing with employees - as a cat, the employees likened unto mice - before informing them of their severance from the unnamed corporation where Dilbert and his coworkers were employed.

The funny thing about corporations is their preoccupation with making money. I say funny because the last thing anyone in the upper echelons would think of cutting are spiffs, bonuses and "accelerators" (never understood this compensation) that management from directors to the CEO get regardless of the companies or stock's performance. This is usually the same management that made the decisions, greased the palms and caused us all to execute the company vision on these same decisions that now had us in a deficit (oops).

The Senior Vice Presidents, Vice Presidents and Directors like us received performance reviews, which I can only assume were glowing. The CEO's review was presumably from the stock holders of the corporation. His performance was rated on the performance of the company. Depending on his/her employment contract, firing him/her could be easy or costly. Easy if you happen to be part of a debacle like Enron (a no-brainer there).

Costly, in light of the recent report of Fannie Mae's former CEO Franklin Raines and their former CFO J. Timothy Howard. Raines will receive $1.4 million dollars per year for life (he's a spy 55) and the former CFO Howard will only get $432,852 per year. Howard is 56. See http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2004-12-28-fannie-usat_x.htm.

The underlings (I am one of them) would get a performance review that is supposedly a reflection of the reality of the perception of my job performance. I'm then ranked alongside persons of my same engineering grade. I'm given my score in a quarterly review. I was told everything was going fine and my score was well above midrange of the bell curve.

Around the end of the first quarter and the beginning of the second quarter of 2003, we lost our Vice President, if you want to call it loosing him. We were informed he was finding "other opportunities within the company." Loose translation: find a job before we severe you! I hope he was successful.

Our new director was a European German. For fun and not to his face, we called him "Colonel Clink" (from Hogan's Heroes, I'm dating myself). He had a forewarned reputation as a "hatchet man." I never witnessed the man with a smile on his face. He was always very serious, very grim. Hence, if your a student of history, my reference to the Great Game in the title.

Our great game of cat and mouse began with so-called Communications Meetings. I recall knowing LESS after the communications meeting than I knew before walking in. One brilliant engineer decided to break the silence with a carefully coded question for the Colonel:

"Do you think the organization is of an efficient size to me managed effectively?"

The Colonel's reply:

"Every change in an organization takes some... pain to accomplish the greater good!"

I thought: List this man for the 2003 Darwin Award for the DUMBEST question a human being could say during an economic downturn!

And the great game would continue with our "communications meetings," that as a label was an oxymoron. After one and a half hours of Power Point charts and heavy German accents, your eyes glazed over. If any important information was communicated, you usually compared notes in the cafeteria later. What you didn't get, your fellow worker probably caught.

Since were weren't getting anything from the meetings, we'd circulate our own rumors: "I heard they're going to get us in the auditorium and lay us all off from there! Our division is getting dissolved." Most of us had street contacts with former employees of the Colonel or current secretaries that couldn't keep their mouths shut around the lunch table. If you've ever played the game in elementary school of giving the first person a note and having them whisper it to the next person, then checking the accuracy of the information with the last person in the whisper line, you can understand the distortions when intentions were not communicated clearly. Any bolder questions regarding downsizing, lay offs or division dissolving was parried with the "necessary pain for the greater good" proverb analogy.

It was during this time I wrote in my analog journal (which I still keep). It's been a habit of mine since college. I composed some thoughts about the stress I was going through at the not knowing what the future held for me and my family. I share those thoughts with you now:

Code Orange
Copyright 6 March 2003, Reginald L. Goodwin

I stare
at another "Tableau Rasa"
purchased at Barnes and Noble
for $4.95 (plus tax)
taking respite once
again on a porcelain
god listening
to the accounts
of the original
Tejas inhabitants:
one of the fellow's
wife is due soon.

yet
the rest I swoon
from is not the result of a
blown-up pager:
it is the stranger
silence... that
allows you to hear
the rumors about your
performance and intercept
all stares as broken
conversations about you.

The elation
of a job well done
flits by
in nanoseconds
that flip-flop
registers on
computer chip
architecture
couldn't keep pace with.

You've just spent time:
talking to a young mother
and her two-year-old boy
(she has another) and
looks like she's too young
to have the one
slaughtering his pizza
as he smiles
at you in Schlotsky's...
gave her my wife's number
since she and her hubby are
looking for a home
in Wimberly
(wife's a real estate agent);

finding the last
anthology of the
Austin International Poetry Festival
Barnes and Noble had
of Di-Verse-City
where you FINALLY
appear on page 100
(perks of being a board member -
bought it for my mother for
Mother's Day).

Assaulted by WORDS
of Whitman, Hughes, Saul Williams, Beau Sea, Reggie Gilson
as decisions become as clouded as the
overcast skies viewed.

Enraptured by a fellow
artist - Adrienne - young
enough to be your daughter,
yet by her neo 70s dress
and quiet demeanor
stressed you to ask:
"Are you a poet?"
(Yes! And an artist, too.
Her surreal exhibit sounds
intriguing and will go
up soon. She quips its
the "please help Adrienne
with her bills exhibit."
I promise to stop by
again and look.)

Mailing the anthology
with one of several
Mother's Day cards
purchased at
Barnes and Noble,
sending it priority
Mail and walking
out proud: I usually
have to do Express!

Driving back, I catch
a fat, almost tooth-less
cat with a sign saying:

"This just in: homeless
consumers invade Iraq."

It makes me laugh, but not as the MBA in my old piece "The Other Foot,"

because I don't have to descend to his level:
his is the terror of day-to-day,
staying alive,
while mine is Al Jolson
on a downsizing Silicon stage
beveled at the corners to make
the transition look smooth,
while grandsons of founders
make spiffs and accelerators
incalculable over
the corpses of an
"asset lite" rage.

The only difference is the space between us and the 4-runner steed beneath me:

he is my left foot;
I am his right.

Introduction

2004-12-22T22:27:00.000-08:00

I share an e-mail log I've had with a major technology company:

11/16/2004

Hi-I'd like to schedule a phone screen with you regarding the position that you applied or at (name of company blanked out). At the moment, my schedule is open: Tuesday Nov 16 , 2 - 5 Central timeWednesday Nov 17, 8:30 to 2 and 3 to 5 CST Friday Nov 19, 8 to 5 CST. Please let me know if there is a 30 minute window in there that would work for you, what number I should call, or if you would prefer to contact me.I look forward to hearing from you,
(name blanked out) Technical Recruiting
(name of company blanked out)

Reply:

Hello:

How about either 17 November at 10:00 AM or 19 November, same time?

Best regards,

Reggie Goodwin

Home: (number blanked out)
Cell: (number blanked out)

11/17/2004

Reggie-
I'm booked today at that time, so I have you on my calendar for Friday at 10AM. Would you like me to call you at home or on your cell? Also, the resume I have has your last position at (name of previous company blanked out) in 2003. If you have more recent work experience and would like to submit another resume I can replace this version.
thanks-
(name blanked out)

My reply:

(name blanked out):

I enjoyed speaking with you on the phone this morning. I hope to progress successfully in the next phone interview with the hiring manager, and eventually (everything going positively) the position at .

My work experience has been as a self-employed person. The (name of company blanked out) position I just recently picked up for seasonal work. If you think both are relevant, I will update the resume.

Reggie

11/19/2004

Reggie-
I think the version we have is fine. I forwarded it onto the hiring manager, and I think he is checking around here for people who might have known you at (name of previous company blanked out). Nothing like an inside reference :)
Talk to you soon-
(name blanked out)

11/22/2004

(name blanked out),

Any updates?

Reggie

11/23/2004

HR's reply:

You are on the hiring managers list of calls to make - I looked at the tracking sheet this AM.
(name blanked out)

11/30/2004

(name blanked out):

(name of hiring manager blanked out) - (forgive me: I believe that is the name of the hiring manager you mentioned in our phone interview) hasn't called me. Has the postition been filled?

Regards,

Reggie Goodwin
(number blanked out) (h): best after 9:00 AM
(number blanked out) (m): anytime, VM

12/1/2004

HRs reply:

Not yet. We have 2 interviews scheduled for Friday, so my guess is that he is waiting to see what the outcome is of those before spending time wooing anyone else :) I'll try to follow up with you next T or W and let you know what happened.
(name blanked out)

12/2/2004

(name blanked out):

I've established (number blanked out) with voice mail through Call Notes (again). Any calls for telephone and/or scheduling of personal interviews can now be left there.

Best regards,

Reggie Goodwin

12/7/2004

(name blanked out),

I look forward to your reply.

Best regards,

Reggie Goodwin
(number blanked out) (vm)
(number blanked out) (mobile)

HRs reply:

Reggie-
I am sorry to report than an offer was made yesterday, although it has not yet been accepted. We should know 12/17, if you want to email me after that for status.
(name blanked out)

My reply:

(name blanked out),

I've been out of work since 26 August 2003 (ironically, the anniversary of my father's death). If you can tell me what defeated my chances to even get a face-to-face interview I'd greatly appreciate it. If not with , the information would be valuable with some other company.

I'd also like to know if it's worth my time (or ------'s) to continue my posting on the job site. Thank you.

Reggie

12/21/2004

(The follow-up referred to my calling the HR rep directly on 12/17/2004) :

Reggie-
I promised that I would follow up with you as soon as I knew something. We made an offer yesterday to a candidate that we interviewed back in early November, and he accepted. the position is considered filled and will be officially closed once I get his paperwork back.
I'm sorry - I know you are disappointed. I hope you will continue to watch the (name of company blanked out) job board and apply for other positions you are qualified for.
Best Regards-
(name blanked out)

My reply:

(name blanked out),

I'm a little confused in your interview procedure: why was I phone interviewed if you already had (now I'm counting) three candidates with the 2 the previous Friday and now the November candidate?

Forgive me. This answer doesn't change my current employment prospects. I need something with a little more substance.

Sunday, December 26, 2004 will be 1 year and four months to the date I've been unemployed; underemployed working odd jobs I'm severely overqualified for (like ---).

Reggie

As of 12/27/2004, no reply from the HR Technical Recruiter (I think she's on Christmas vacation).

Many would say I've "burned my bridges." They'd say I should have held my tongue and applied for as many jobs on the web site as possible.

Some points to make here:

1. I posted to this site about a month after my lay off, redoing and polishing my resume at Drake, Beam, Morin and Associates (they'd advise me to hold my peace as well).

2. Up until the phone call - generated by her - I'd receive e-mails about job matches that I apparently qualified for. I'd answer yes, of course, then would hear nothing back or that the job has been filled and the rec closed. OK.

3. This is the first REAL person I've talked to in over a year on this site. This company could have made it easier for me to stay in Austin, Texas. I'm trying to maintain stability for my youngest son to finish high school (currently in the seventh grade). I've gotten offers to leave and if I didn't own a local business or had a family, I would have been GONE a long time ago.

4. She stated "You are on the hiring managers list of calls to make - I looked at the tracking sheet this AM" on November 23.

5. I recall in a phone conversation, the hiring manager was walking my resume around to "see if anyone knew me at my former company." Since it had about 13,000 workers at one time of my employ there, there was a fair chance the manager wasn't successful. If anything derogatory (can't think of anything) were said, I believe I have LEGAL rights against slander.

Trust me. I'm trying to stay positive.

I'm working in shipping in a warehouse larger than 10 football fields; on a production floor of conveyer belts, full of cursing workers, and a delicate ballet between the forces of static and kinetic friction I can only refer to as "a controlled avalanche!"

The physicality is the only thing I appreciate. It allows me to beat the snot out of cardboard boxes, sling them through space, yell a little myself and vent any frustrations about my circumstances at inamimate, unfeeling objects.

Trust me. I'm trying to stay positive. But when you're making 1/5 of what you made as a professional engineer per hour, when you're up at 3 AM when the rest of the world is sleeping, when you've seen your retirement and investments dwindle to dust, that can make you a little testy. I probably need a time out!