Just how I like my Christmas elves... large and creepy.

After visiting the mall this weekend, I’m extra happy that temporary holiday season job at the big department store fell through. What a horrible nightmare of crowds and slush and noise. Holiday spending may be down, but holiday shopping is alive and well. As is the Queens Christmas spirit, which translates into lots of pushing and screaming and grabbing. I’m actually making a documentary about it; the working title is “Holiday Kill! Kill! Kill!” I did find a little temp work to prop up the bank account. Rather, a little temp work found me.

Wifey’s company sends out holiday gifts every year to contacts and clients. Most companies do. It’s a corporate holiday tradition to get in a little branding with the giving. Though in my experience, few companies are as classy and generous about it. They hired me to run the show, to be head elf. I was happy to oblige.

I’d forgotten what it’s like to wake up for work. Sleeping in isn’t my usual approach to weekdays. But I never have to be anywhere for anything either. My schedule is fluid and flexible, yet stuff always fills up the time. It felt oddly freeing to wake to an alarm and know that I had an hour to leave the apartment. Those with jobs may be wondering exactly what kind of crack I’ve been smoking. The 2008 model Norm would’ve asked a similar question. But unemployment is a seemingly endless series of uncertainties. Something defined and concrete frees up the brain to think about other things.

That something was putting gifts in boxes. Wifey’s employer sends out snazzy-looking hats emblazoned with the company logo. They design a new one each year. As a rule, I prefer my baseball hats to advertise for overpaid, underperforming sports teams, not corporate brands. Overexposure to crap-tastic corporate conference schwag has scarred me for life. But sports teams are just corporate brands anyway, and these hats are sharp. So what do I know? That’s right, nothing. You can say it. I know the truth, or, uh, I don’t. I’m so confused.

There were five of us to do the job. Each person was a friend or family member of a company staffer and in a similar situation – unemployed and/or cash-poor. The project was straightforward and is best presented in list form, last week’s diatribe notwithstanding…

1. Separate box tops from bottoms.
2. Put tissue paper in box bottom.
3. Put hat on tissue paper.
4. Put top on box.
5. Put bellyband on box.
6. Repeat steps 2-5 approximately 1300 times.

Some boxes got mailing labels and postage. Most didn’t. That was the extent of the project.

With our marching orders, we convened in a conference room and set about separating the boxes. The space was a little cramped, the back wall a floor-to-ceiling window that looked out over much of the office. It didn’t occur to me until later that we were on full display. Within a couple hours, we filled the room with swaying stacks of box tops and bottoms. A gentle breeze would’ve toppled them all, spelling disaster for the fearless crew, or at least minor annoyance.

We didn’t talk much initially, being complete strangers and all. Nor did anyone want to make an executive decision on what online radio station to play. Group deference led us to a middle-of-the-road pop station. I’m not up on what the kids like these days, not since the end of my DJing days many years ago. So figuring out samples in songs was a fun diversion while working. One co-opted Elton John‘s “Tiny Dancer” in the name of Hip-Hop. Another put a melody over Gary Glitter‘s “Rock and Roll, Part 2” – the “Hey” song played at every sporting event ever, by law. I mentioned that the artist who recorded the original, went to jail for child pornography. Nothing like a little light trivia to break the ice and let everyone know I’m completely normal. After that, we all became fast friends, chatting about everything from Michael Jackson to AARP to hair salons. Did you know that hair stylists have to rent individual chairs in salons? I didn’t.

After separating boxes, we filled them. Two people took on tissue paper duty. Two others did hats and box tops. I did a bit of everything, from getting more supplies to breaking down boxes to hat stuffing. All the boxes were stuffed by late morning the next day, and the belly bands affixed by lunch the day after that. We hit a little snag with postage, because I miscounted the number of boxes. But that soon resolved itself.

With the boxes done, two of us stayed on to put together holiday gift bags for extra special contacts. The bags -themselves reusable shopping bags – contained some serious schwag, including fancy brownies, a cookbook, spices, a dove made of blown glass and more. All of the gifts came from companies that do something good for the world. And a booklet was included to explain what.

The work was mindless and monotonous, as assembly line-type work tends to be. My feet and lower back hurt by the second day. And a dull headache lingered throughout. But my coworkers were friendly and hardworking. And we had unlimited access to the stocked snack closet and all the holiday sweets that came through the office. I was happy to be productive, and to push back my unemployment insurance by a week. Box stuffing isn’t a career move, nor will it bolster the old resume. The experience was worthwhile though. I always think of temping as a horrible soul-sucking experience. But this time was different. I didn’t sense the least bit of condescension, maybe because they knew me already. More likely, it’s just a good company with good people. I also felt like what I was doing mattered in some small way. It’s nice to have a purpose, to be relevant again.

Why does Jerry look like he's about to rise up to heaven? (courtesy of http://binkis.wordpress.com/)

[Read the holiday season job post, part 1 so this post makes sense.]

A security woman sat at the front desk – really more of a maitre d’  stand with a stool nestled in a corner – and glared at me. She seemed to want to rip my head off or fall asleep. I couldn’t tell which; it’s a fine line sometimes. Maybe she wanted to rip my head off because I kept her from falling asleep. I signed in, because that’s what people do when entering an office. She continued to glare, because that’s what people do when they hate you. Only when I asked where to go for my job interview did she take my ID and point me down the hall.

An official-looking woman with a clipboard met me in the actual reception area. She seemed to be about 20 years old and playing grown up. Ah, to be young and employed again… I asked a couple questions and quickly realized she only knew what was on her piece of paper. She checked me off the list and shuffled me past banks of computers and people in various states of interview limbo into the “Turnover Room” to wait. Apparently the online application is the E-Z Pass of the hiring process.

The Turnover Room could hold 50 or 60 people. But the five people there were spread out as if everyone else were contagious. “Don’t get too close,” their placement suggested. “I don’t want to catch your unemployment too.” I can’t say I blame them. Each looked up when I entered and then returned their attention to a cellphone or the floor.

Feeling a little self-conscious, I took a seat on the far side, a few rows from the front and also nowhere near anyone else. The room – with its dingy drop ceilings, worn-down industrial carpet and windows not cleaned since smoking was outlawed in the workplace – was depressing. Corporate inspirational posters dotted the walls. The one closest to me titled, “I Commit To My Own Sales” was signed by those who presumably had. It reminded me of something high school cheerleaders would post outside the boys locker room before the big homecoming game, sans bubbly letters and heart-dotted i’s. A TV and VCR sat on a rolling metal AV cart near the front of the room, as if class that day would be a video. Sound from another TV drifted in from the next room over.

I read a magazine and tried to figure out what was on. If forced to guess, upon penalty of more bad television, I’d have gone with “Living Single,” the mid-’90s show about Black, urban 20-somethings in Brooklyn starring Queen Latifah, Tootie and the guy who voices the God Of War video games. I’ve seen more episodes on late-night cable than is probably healthy. I could probably even rap (badly) the theme song’s Hip-Hop interlude if asked. At any rate, whatever show it was, the laugh track thought it hilarious. And who am I to disagree?

Jerry Springer came on at 11:00. Chants of “Jerry” gave it away. I put away the magazine and played with my phone, texting anyone who might respond while contemplating how to join the talk show circuit. The attitude part would be easy. I’ve already mastered the key phrases…

• You don’t own me!
• I be who I want to be!
• Talk to the hand!

But I’d need a gimmick and some ill-fitting clothes, maybe a bad haircut and fewer teeth. But the gimmick would be key if I wanted to be a regular. Garden variety fat people and unfaithful spouses come and go in the talk show world. And they’re bush league besides. No good persona came to me, so I gave up trying. So much for that career path. Maybe I could be part of Jerry’s show security team.

The Turnover Room started to fill up with applicants, but not so many that anyone sat next to anyone else. Every few minutes another job candidate wandered in, causing everyone to look up, sigh and return to their distraction of choice. Less often an HR rep hurried in and pulled someone out to interview. A clear sense of purpose distinguished the employed from those seeking employment.

The other obvious difference was level of dress. HR people wore corporate business attire; heals and pinstripes predominated. Applicants opted for what might seem like business attire to someone who didn’t know any better. Or they simply didn’t care. I was one of two applicants dressed in a suit. The other punctuated his outfit with a sideways baseball hat. A few people managed a shirt and tie or a nice blouse. The rest wore jeans and t-shirts. The longer I sat there, the more I doubted my choice of outfit.

By 11:30 people who had entered the Turnover Room after me were being called to interview. I felt forgotten (and a little stupid for wearing a suit), but figured my turn would come shortly. Causing trouble and making waves wouldn’t get me hired as a small, cheap cog in a giant machine. I grew restless and even more bored. I’d finished my magazine and texted everyone. The stale air was drying out my throat and making me a little ill; anybody who’s attended a business conference and spent hours breathing canned hotel or convention center air knows the feeling. I was thirsty and needed to use the bathroom, which was two floors down on the other side of the store. And I wanted to take off my tie.

By a little after noon I didn’t care anymore. Waiting an hour and a half to interview for a seasonal job seemed ridiculous. I asked the clipboard lady and another staffer when my interview might occur, trying my best to be deferential. They guided me into an office full of temps and left again. I waited there and then back in the Turnover Room while the situation was resolved. As it turned out, they really had forgotten me and were re-slotting me in the queue. I was finally called to interview 40 minutes later.

The holiday season job I didn’t want and didn’t get, part 1

The holiday season job I didn’t want and didn’t get, part 3

Where's Kool-Aid Man? I didn't pay all this money to meet a mustard bottle and a bald guy. (courtesy of www.realtimeadvertisingweek.com)

Many of the daily emails I receive are useless. They may even be less than useless, costing me two seconds to delete, two seconds I could have spent scratching myself or staring off into space. The nextNY newsletter is actually worth the time. The first of the week gives a huge list of technology events happening in and around New York. I always peruse it in search of the solution to all my problems;  “How To Grow and Care For Your Own Money Tree,” for example, would be ideal. Last week I found something not nearly that good, but maybe worth $25 and a few hours of my time.

“Advertising Week is North America’s premier gathering of cutting edge communications leaders,” according to their marketers and copywriters. Is that vague (and, therefore, ironic) enough for you? The event could just as easily be a gathering of teenagers with really fast thumbs on the latest Sidekick, or maybe knife owners who talk a lot. The wordsmiths go on to describe the event as, “…a hybrid of thought leadership and special event programming, uniting clients, creatives, media and inspiring figures…” They didn’t work in “next generation” or “turnkey,” so I only sort of understand what they’re getting at. I’ll try to summarize Ad Week myself, having attended and all. Media people sit in auditoriums, listening to more important media people talk in platitudes on stage, and plan out their networking strategies. Near constant lip service is paid to social causes, though networking and open bar parties are the main draw.

I attended last year as an employee of my previous company and managed to learn a few things and meet a few people. My schedule is a little more open this year, so I bought a $25 student pass with a borrowed .edu email address and filled my days with sessions. Some of the programming included…

• The New Media Mix: Connecting the Dots in a Multi-Screen Environment
• The Future in 4D: Brands, Communities, Content & Technology
• The New Mad Men: How Familiar Agencies Are Writing a New Business Model for a New Ad World
• Social Networking 2.0: Brands Get in the Game

The sessions took place at The Times Center in the heart of Times Square (read, on a side street within eyeshot of the Port Authority Bus Station) and the Paley Center for Media a little further uptown. The Times Center – part of the new New York Times building – is a state-of-the-art auditorium where performances, lectures, readings and fancy parties are held. They may use it as a meat locker on off days, given how cold they keep it; the New York Times needs to make money any way they can. The Paley Center is more like a movie theater, before anybody spills soda and buttery popcorn on the floor. It’s comfortable in a padded, high-use, industrial sort of way. The two venues aren’t close enough together to make it from one to the other between sessions. So I stopped trying. As it turned out, no one gave a crap what I’d registered for and what I attended. I came and went as I pleased.

Despite the grand names of the sessions – complete with colons and qualifying descriptions, as if working titles for nonfiction hardback rejects – not much substance was offered. I’m media savvy, though not expert, even with my much-celebrated, prize-worthy blog to end all blogs. But I didn’t take away much more than a few free magazines and some pilfered cookies. Presenters tended to generalize and not back up their ideas. Everybody was friends; no one really disagreed with anybody. The real goal was to get a little publicity for their company, while using up as many plastic water bottles as possible. I did learn that AOL still exists, or at least an entity by that name still sponsors conferences. And the ten-year-old trend of oddly capitalizing a company’s name is alive and well, as is the shunning of spaces. What were once cutting-edge ideas, even bleeding-edge, are now childproof-scissors edge. Okay, class, today we’re going to brand our startup. Everyone cut your construction paper. Be sure to follow the lines… exactly, so nobody can tell them apart.

I found myself drifting off during sessions; cool air and a comfortable seat will do that. How might I re-brand myself, were I a company? Maybe I could go by normelrod, or normElrod, or even nOrmelrOd. The third one has potential. It’s like my name is looking at you, making eye contact, so you know I’m serious about doing business. Stare into my eyes… you’re getting sleepy. I’m going to count to three. And when I snap my fingers, you will give me a job. If I were a conference session rather than a company, what would I be called? A couple of the finalists were…

• Norm Elrod: Connecting the Dots Between Education and Unemployment
• The New Mad Man: How an Employable Person Goes Postal in a Jobless Recovery

Some company ran a contest that preoccupied me for the better part of an afternoon. Entrants filled in words for “(blank) moves (blank) forward” on a sign and were photographed holding it up. The pictures ran in a long slide-show loop on the wall as advertising. One randomly chosen entrant won $3.27 or a gift certificate to Chipotle or something else not worth the price of their dignity. Entries tended to be along the lines of “hard work moves my company forward.” I didn’t enter, but kept coming up with possible responses. “Bran moves my bowels forward,” was one of my favorites. “Bad corporate management moves my last day forward,” was another. But the winner was, “stupid advertising moves the competition forward.”

I eventually started wondering why the people on stage were there and I was in the audience and, more generally, why some people have jobs and some don’t. There are many possible reasons… skill, luck, timing, hard work, fate. All of them and many others probably figure in somehow. No one reason can fully capture it. My daydreams didn’t provide an answer, nor did most of the people talking at me in generalities. A few of them were indeed very impressive people. But all of them could’ve been me, later on in life or after a sex change. I suppose if I had the answers, I wouldn’t be asking the questions. I’d be up on a stage talking, or writing a book. Or maybe I’d be picking large, ripe bills off my money tree.

Unemployment doesn’t leave me huge amounts of free time. On the contrary, I tend to stay pretty damn busy. Even days with light schedules tend to fill up quickly with other activities that had been pushed down the to-do list. While I’ve been bored often – job sites don’t make for interesting reading – I never wont for something productive to do. I haven’t napped in months. My video game playing is suffering. I’ve long since defaulted on my plan to set aside one day each week to explore the city. And the online gambling addiction I covet has yet to develop. I’ve been pretty good.

Lately I’ve been helping to organize a local Recession Survival Fair. I may be unemployed, but my situation could be a lot worse. Plenty of people’s are, and they need help. Hopefully we can give them some this weekend.

The Recession Survival Fair will be a non-partisan community service event to assist Brooklyn and New York City residents in tackling the challenges springing from the economic recession. Attendees will have free access to important information and professional help on a range of relevant topics, including healthcare, food and nutrition, job search, debt and personal finance, and tenants’ rights and foreclosure. DKMS, the world’s largest bone marrow donor center, will also be conducting a drive for potential donor matches. All help will be provided free of charge, although participants will also be invited to offer their own expertise to the community in exchange. Here are the particulars…

Who: Brooklyn for Barack (718-757-8572) in association with The Stuyvesant Heights Parents Association
What: Recession Survival Fair, to provide professional info and help to Brooklyn and New York City residents hurt by the economic recession
When: Saturday, June 6, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Where: Mount Lebanon Baptist Church, 230 Decatur St. (near Lewis Ave.) in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn
How: Subway: A, C to Utica Ave; Bus: B15 to Bainbridge Street; B25, B26 to Lewis Avenue; B43, B46 to MacDonough Street.

Please pass the message along to New Yorkers who need help. And please reach out to me if you’d like to volunteer. It’s a good cause.

Don't hate the playa, hate the game.

I started the unemployment blog Jobless and Less to get back in the habit of writing everyday, improve my marketing skills and stay off the streets. My thinking was (and is) that beefing up the resume with relevant skills could only help in the job search. Months later I’m still unemployed and finding companies to be a tad unreceptive – hopefully a product of the local job market and not my resume. Otherwise, things are moving along quite swimmingly. I’ve gone from semi-illiterate neighborhood tough to erudite man about town. I even managed to understand my first New Yorker cartoon, though it still wasn’t funny. And I’m fast learning the ins and outs of the crazy world of online marketing.

Last week was Search Engine Strategies New York (SESNY), one of the major search marketing conferences and an important learning and networking opportunity. I attended with open ears and an open mind and walked away with a notebook full of helpful information. This week I launched a nationwide search for someone to implement all my notes while I watch South Park DVDs.

The conference started with notable industry expert and personality Guy Kawasaki‘s keynote presentation about the social media tool Twitter. For those not familiar, Twitter is essentially the status field from Facebook, divorced from all the addictive games and inane questionnaires. Users “follow” (Twitter-ese for a one-way connection between users) and attract followers with whom they communicate through short messages (limited to 140 characters) called tweets. Some of the exchanged info is useful, and some of it’s just babble… kind of like everything else in life. Here’s the Jobless and Less Twitter page for you curious types.

Being a Twitter newbie, I learned tons from Guy. Apparently – and this shouldn’t be surprising – there are many tools to automate (abuse?) elements of Twitter. SocialToo, for example, will automatically follow anyone who follows you. (If only the police had a real-life version they could use on stalkers and paparazzi…) Power users and aspirants no longer have to click through countless “Joe Schmo is now following your updates…” emails to return the favor. They just set up this service and let it run. Other sites provide similarly useful functionality, though Twitter purists see such gaming of the system as detrimental to the micro-blogging community. They have a valid point.

Perhaps the most meta moment of my life to date occurred during this presentation. As Guy presented juicy tidbits on how to game Twitter, people in the audience tweeted about it. He pulled up those tweets on Twitter a few moments later and highlighted them for the audience on the big screen. His new comments were tweeted again. A great vortex then formed and actually sucked a third of the audience into the Internet, where they now live a Tron-like existence. For your reading pleasure, I will attempt to condense the whole occurrence into one sentence, without getting sucked in myself. Please don’t try this at home; I am a trained professional. (If I don’t survive, please tell wifey I love her.) Here we go…

In a session about Twitter, audience members tweeted Guy Kawasaki’s comments about Twitter with their own comments, which he then found on Twitter and commented on to the audience, leading some to tweet about those.

Wow, I think I just tore a hole in my cerebral cortex with that stunt. What’s my name again? Where do I work?

SESNY covered a wide breadth of other search marketing topics. A panel called “Meaningful SEO Metrics: Going Beyond the Numbers” immediately followed the keynote and featured the crazy-looking Ray “Catfish” Comstock of Business OnLine. This guy really knew his stuff, and seemed to bubble over with useful tips from the Search trenches. I couldn’t take notes fast enough. Site Logic‘s Matthew Bailey was also quite enlightening in his presentation “Advanced SEO Strategies: Integrating Analytics, Usability, Persuasion, & Journalism,” though after my last stunt I lack the brainpower to explain exactly how. Just take my word for it; he was good. Other sessions were generally useful, though some more than others.

The exhibition floor was very hit or miss, as they tend to be at conferences. A lot of small companies advertised and offered services that were indistinguishable from each other. They may have been different, I just couldn’t tell from the booths. One thing is for sure, many companies at SESNY don’t know much about graphic design; some of the signage was just brutal. I guess expertise in one area of marketing doesn’t guarantee expertise, or even a working knowledge, in another. Still, I managed to have a few meaningful conversations – the folks at Google were very helpful – and leave behind a few business cards. Quality is always better than quantity in these situations. We’ll see if anything surfaces.

One pleasant surprise from SESNY was just how much I knew already – that progress I mentioned at the outset. Months of reading and slaving over Jobless and Less are starting to pay off. Whether this elevates my unemployment blog into the Search stratosphere or leads to gainful employment remains to be seen. For now a little progress is reward enough. Tomorrow I may not be so positive about my situation.

My chance to learn more about search marketing.

This upcoming week may turn out to be the busiest of unemployment so far. In addition to lunch meetings, networking events and the usual job search activities, I will be attending Search Engine Strategies (SES) in midtown. This event is the leading international conference series for webmasters, digital agencies, online marketers and corporate decision makers. And this year we can add to the list at least one unemployed but excited and enthusiastic blogger who’s looking to learn and network.

I’ve been to SES before, as a representative of a previous employer. It was up to me to organize and set up the company’s conference booth and check out the competition. My responsibilities, though educational in their own right, didn’t leave much time for attending seminars and events. This time around I’m free to come and go as I please. Learning from experts and networking with industry people can only help my job search. And I intend to take full advantage.

Marketing is my chosen field, but much of the work seems to have disappeared lately. The economy decided to throw itself a nice big recession, and invite everyone. Companies always cut back on marketing jobs when money goes away. The approach seems almost counter-intuitive, given the opportunity to reach your consumer with less chatter to distract them.

The few job openings I’ve encountered often have something to do with search engine marketing (SEM). SEM, for those who don’t know, is a type of internet marketing that aims to improve a website’s visibility in search engine results. This includes search engine optimization, paid placement, contextual advertising and paid inclusion. Running Jobless and Less has taught me quite a bit, and business contacts have been extremely generous in explaining things further. I still don’t know as much as I’d like to though. Do we ever? And the more I learn, the more I realize how much is left to learn.

A conference is a great opportunity to network in your chosen industry. Everybody is there at least partly for that purpose. Finding a job may be rough going in this market, especially given my still somewhat limited knowledge, but connecting with people possibly in a position to help can’t hurt. We’ll see what happens.

I was the marketing manager for my last employer, where part of my job was to plan the company’s presence at various conferences. At the time of my layoff, I was working on ad:tech, which focuses on digital marketing. And since I had a free pass and it was in NYC, I went. Maybe I’d find some companies I’d like to work for.

The conference turned out to be pretty useless on the job front (though productive as free candy goes). Most of the companies exhibiting looked to be clones of my previous company. Small digital marketing agencies are all trying to do basically the same thing, though they all call it something slightly different. Most of them will be gone and replaced in a year. I don’t need a paycheck bad enough yet to take essentially the same job only to be laid off again in a few months.

But I did get to meet Santa Claus.

He was working for a company called Santa.com, or at least a company that owns Santa.com. I forget what their deal is exactly – some sort of search engine specific to the holiday season maybe. They also own domains related to other holidays, a strategy that makes them a nice little chunk of change (I’m told).

Anyway, Christmas seems to be their next big holiday, and their conference booth consisted of a table and the company’s name crafted out of crumpled-up paper on the divider behind it (classy!). There may have been some snowflakes too – like the kind you made in 2nd grade by folding up paper and cutting out various shapes. Maybe my mind just filled in that detail given how crappy everything else was. Well, almost everything else.

The Santa they hired was top notch. He had the requisite red outfit trimmed with white fur. He had the natural gut and long white beard. He had the bells on his shoes and the jolly laugh. This guy was a pro.

On my way home, I happened to hop on the same train as Santa, still in full garb. I guess at this time of year, you’re always Santa, even when you’re not. The train was standing room only, though not packed. And we were holding the same poll.

I little boy, maybe 5 years old, was completely freaked out. He kept hiding his head behind his mom and then peaking out to point and whisper. So I asked Santa how parents explain his presence when they see him out in public. As he explained, they rely on the “he knows when you’ve been bad or good…” explanation. Santa is always watching, even on the subway.

I managed to learn a few other things. The professional Santa season is Thanksgiving to New Years, which I guess is no big surprise. But this Santa already has gigs lined up for much of November, which is unheard of. And people hire him to come to their homes on Christmas morning and give out presents. Every year he goes to 8 or so different houses. How awesome would that be – to have Santa actually come to your house with gifts? Even if he gets to come in through the front door though (I asked about that too).

Also, Santa lives in Long Island City and has tattoos on his arms. So if you don’t get your wish list off to him in time, just take the E or V train to the 23rd St. Ely stop. Maybe you’ll find him.