Dealing with Unemployment - a Firsthand Account

Being 22 years old, it may not seem like I have much experience to share. Maybe I don't. However, in the past month I have learned more than I ever wanted to about what happens when you lose your job suddenly. I also have found a way to triumph, and it is that triumph I wish to share.

I previously wrote that I lost my job on June 29th, 2008. That very day, I got up and dusted off some of the clothes I had reserved for job hunting, and put myself back out there. Experience is a cruel teacher, and I know from previous experience just how hard it is to get a job at the end of summer. Everyone has already hired too much summer help, and let's face it our economy is not in the best shape. As unfair as it may sound, I knew that I also would be competing with everyone I worked with for jobs. I still shared every line on a job I received, but I also knew that in doing so I was jeopardizing my own ability to get a new job. Steak and Ale gave me some of the best friends I could ever ask for, but it was still my source of income. A source that I desperately needed to pay all of my bills.

It took me four days, the longest four days of my life, but I got a job. A job that now I am so incredibly thankful for, and I would not trade it for anything. I pulled out all the stops, modesty has no place in job hunting. If you have a skill, let it be known. If you have managerial experience, don't hide it. The job market is just another market -- to get someone to buy you have to convince them that you are the best possible product for them. I know my own personal positive and negative traits, and I made sure to let them be known. Additionally, I was very determined. If someone said no, I kept going. Maybe four days does not seem like a long time. I know that it takes many people months to do what I accomplished, in fact several of my former colleagues are still jobless. However, even at 22 I have not been jobless since I was 16 years old. When I switched jobs, they always overlapped. I am not spoiled in any sense of the word, everything I have I pay for. That includes all the normal things: rent, car note, utilities, phone, student loan payments. I did get the job, but there was just one problem. I would have to wait a week for it to even start, and I would not get paid until the week after that. That paycheck would not even be more than around a 100 dollars. Do I give up a great job, that will have great benefits just to find something where I will get paid faster? In the end, I decided to keep the job and wait it out. I know that I could have filed for unemployment, but I did not feel like I needed to drain those resources when I already had a job that I would be starting soon.

Those two weeks, were not some of the best of my life. I am not an idle person, so I found myself reading several books a day. I could not go out and spend any money, because any money I did have I desperately needed. I suppose in the end it did not matter, I had to move back in with my parents. All of my bills started getting behind. My mom is permanently unable to work, and my dad works hard to just cover the bills he has. My boyfriend saved me in a lot of ways, he kept me afloat. I was barely afloat, but I was still keeping it together. Maybe it is trivial, but those two weeks taught me to be grateful when I did start training at the new job. I threw myself into the job, enjoying every moment of it. It is actually a little pathetic, how much I enjoyed working. I love being at work, I love doing my job. I love the interaction, and I love feeling productive. This job may not last forever, but I honestly can say it is the best thing to happen to me.

One of the things I was most worried about when Steak and Ale closed was being able to find all the things I loved about the job. I needed to make the money I used to make before it started slowing down. More so, I was worried about not having that same friendly and fun environment. Perhaps the money should have been my first concern, but it was the environment that made it to where I could make that money. It was the environment that kept me from calling in when I just did not feel like working. I am happy to say, that I got both in this new job. Not that I would have settled for anything less.

Sometimes I think we all have a choice between taking a risk and being happy, or being safe and unhappy. I know now that if I had decided to just go with a job that I could make money faster, I would not be as happy as I am now. This is a lesson that some of the people I worked with at Steak and Ale have now learned. Two of them got jobs that they knew they could get on the floor as a server faster. Both have now quit, because the job was just that unbearable. It is going to take longer than a month to get back on the footing I was on financially, but it would take a lot longer if I had to do the job hunting thing twice.

This job has taught me that I accepted a lot of things I did not need to accept when I worked at Steak and Ale. I always thought that if I did not have a 10 table station I would not make money as a server. I was wrong. I put up with running short staffed because I thought that was how most restaurants worked. Working in one that is constantly full staffed and still making money, makes me almost a little glad that Steak and Ale closed. Not to be trite, but sometimes getting kicked out the door, reveals another one for you to go through. Steak and Ale put me in a very bad situation. I know I will never receive the two checks they owe me, but I still am grateful for the wonderful job opportunity I have now, and the new level of appreciation I have for having a job.