I Work, Therefore, I Am: An Insider's Look at Unemployment, Underemployment, and Identity (Part 1 of 3)

By Emily Walls

Not too long ago, I was sitting at my desk in my cramped office, putting the finishing touches on the final origami car of my office supply diorama. In an eight-hour workday, I had finished my work in 7 minutes and so had 7 hours and 53 minutes left to go. Having begged tasks from everyone in my office (no takers), I went to my supervisor who told me I should just read my book quietly in my office for the rest of the day. So as I was putting the finishing touches on the final origami car of my office supply diorama, I wondered why I had gone to school for 16 years, and I wondered how much longer I could continue with what was feeling more and more like paid prison time. (Come to think of it, I could start carving chess sets out of stone...)

I've been out of college for nearly six years now, and I've spent about half of that time unemployed or underemployed. Like everyone of my age, I assumed that college + graduating = job. Like many, I learned that college + graduating = so? Generation Y joined the workforce just when the economy tanked, so really, we joined the bread lines.

These buns are gluten free, right?

That lifelong sense of entitlement Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather were always reporting on finally got a well-deserved kick in the crotch. We of Y were the first victims of the grizzly market, but we were not alone. I know many of all generations who lost their jobs or took pay cuts, and I know some who are still under wage freezes. Some companies have done fine and even grown during the recession, and the out-of-work have fiercely competed for their open positions.

Really, really, it hasn't been so bad. Those of us who have been out of work have been first-world poor, and first-world poor means you still get to eat and have a place to live and receive emergency medical care. You might be stockpiling debt, BUT you are alive. In light of what unemployment  could mean, I have to be thankful for where I've been, and I'm certainly thankful for where I am now. Things are looking up for me in the employment department, and I no longer spend my days building staple cities. Still, I would like to record a few thoughts on unemployment and underemployment while my memories are fresh. If you have experienced neither, I hope you gain insight; if you have experienced both, I hope you gain comfort. I, for one, hope to remember.

Loss of "I": Unemployment

We humans have ritualistic greetings and communications infinitely stranger and more complex than that bird from Planet Earth (you know the sick freak I'm talking about), and that dude changes color and shape. We say, "Hi, how are you, nice to meet you," and we all know we don't care how you are. It's just how we greet. At parties and gatherings, the next step in the ritual is the dreaded "So what do you do?"

It's a habitual question and doesn't really mean anything, but it is the worst question.

"Has that acne outlasted all of your relationships?"

"So, is that a genetic thing, or have you broken your nose a few times?"

"Aww, how many months along are you?"

To the unemployed, these are all preferred questions to "What do you do?" We always respond with something like, "I'm in between things right now," or "I have several projects going," but you know that we don't do anything. You take pity on us and mercifully change the subject, but the shame of unemployment still hangs between us.

Shame. Yes, that's the word for it. It shouldn't feel shameful to get laid off or have your job outsourced or end up as the #2 candidate among a host of applicants, but the feeling clings to you.  All your life, when people have asked you about your career goals, they have asked, "What do you want to be when you grow up," not "What do you want to do?" Since you do nothing, the logic follows that you are nothing.

Along with the constant, nagging shame, you also experience the strange dichotomy of having all the free time you could ask for but the inability to enjoy it. When you're unemployed, your job is to job search, and job searching has no timeframe.  Experts tell you to get up in the morning, shower, get dressed, and set yourself a 9-5 workday of job searching, but even when you follow their advice, you feel guilty for clocking out at 5:00 if you still don't have a job. The guilt of unemployment drains the flavor from dessert.

To further compound your loss of self, unemployment removes from you your former media of expression. You used to collect books, clothes, and art. You used to be a restaurant-goer and event attender. Sick of asking, "How much does it cost," you now arm yourself with a dozen excuses for why you no longer do what you used to do.

"Radiohead show tonight? I wish I could, but I can't, what with the 16 & Pregnant MTV marathon and all."

You spend your time differently, so you become a version of your former self. This new you is not aways bad, but she is different from your former you and so, by definition, constitutes further loss of self.

With unemployment, you also often give up one or more of your social circles, and your relationships with former co-workers change or break. Unemployment can be isolating if you don't work hard to pursue other people. Left unchecked, it can tear down your view of self and whisper to you that you do not matter.

Fear not. This is the bottom, but things will improve with Underemployment in Part 2. Until then, enjoy this picture of a dynamic city on the move.

And so it was that the good people of Pendaflex raced to outrun the Terror of Staple Valley.