You spill my coffee beans. But you also give me a tasty beverage. Do I slap you or hug you? I'll get back to you with my decision. (courtesy of http://www.adamas.com)

I’m a creature of habit. My morning commute to my five-month freelance gig always included a stop for coffee. The project’s long hours made caffeine a necessity. Soon enough, the caffeine headaches made caffeine a necessity. My trip always led me past one of two decent coffee places, depending on the route. The fancy-sounding though utilitarian Pret A Manger – located between the R train and the office – was one. The tasty though overpriced City Bakery – located between the F and V train and the office – was the other. A Pret iced coffee cost me $2.49; a City Bakery iced coffee $3.00 or $3.75, depending on the size. Both were well within my budget while employed.

The freelance gig ended a week and a half ago. The smartphone I was helping to market successfully launched, and is available in a store near you, and 137 stores near me. I won’t say which smartphone it is, though here’s a hint: touching a certain spot with your bare hand won’t hang up your call, unless that spot is the disconnect button. If you need another hint, follow me around and listen. You may catch me inadvertently humming the intro music to one of the videos. It’s forever burned into my temporal lobe.

Another smartphone project may be in my near future. And smaller, unrelated projects are starting to roll in. The last few months of paychecks have bulked up my bank account. But the next few months of paychecks are uncertain. Being essentially unemployed, I’ve reverted to my super, extra frugal ways. No more weekend trips to the south of France . No more summer vacations in the Hamptons. No more chauffeured limousine double-parked out front and ready for my next cookie run. It’s back to life, back to reality.

My first order of business, as someone without a steady income or government handout, was to reexamine my extravagant spending. I brought in executives from PriceWaterhouseCoopers to review my books. They determined that I have no books. But were I to have books, they would be empty, because compared to their usual clients, I’m broke. But were I to have books and money to track in those books, they would contain no extravagant spending. Wifey verified, citing the closet full of toiletries, paper products and breakfast cereal purchased in bulk on sale. I’m one frugal bastard. A raging $3.00-a-day caffeine addiction accounts for most of my discretionary spending.

Cutting back on coffee purchases is every financial advice columnist’s go-to tip. Want to be rich… make your own coffee. Somewhere along the line a Starbucks barista screwed up a freelance writer’s grande double soy mocha-frappu-latte and the company has paid the price in print ever since. Though lazy and cliche, the point is still valid. My coffee purchases add up to $90.00 a month or $1080 a year or $108,000 a century. That’s a lot of money. If I saved for the next 100 years, I could buy a kitchen cabinet or, perhaps, a bathtub in Manhattan. Of course, by then I’d be too dead to enjoy it.

The savings could still come in handy in the shorter term. There was just one problem. I only knew how to make hot coffee. And hot coffee in the New York heat and humidity is about as unappealing as reading job boards. Whatever is a caffeine addict to do? My solution – made possible by a grant from my last full-time employer – was pretty damn ingenious. I would make my own iced coffee. And because I figured out how, you don’t have to. Everyone always says, “that Norm… he’s a giver.” They’re right.

The first step is to buy some decent coffee beans. Wifey (then girlfriendy) taught me once upon a time that coffee doesn’t have to taste like runny tar water. Up to that point in my life, I’d drank it only to stay awake for exams and term papers. Enjoyment never mattered. These days, I’m a bit of a coffee snob. It doesn’t have to be expensive; Dunkin’ Donuts and McDonalds both make a cheap yet respectable cup. It just has to taste like something I want to drink. I went with the NYC blend from Oren’s Daily Roast for $13.49 a pound. Sometimes saving money requires a small upfront investment.

The second step is to brew the coffee really strong. Pouring regular hot coffee over ice cubes doesn’t give you iced coffee. It gives you a watered-down, room-temperature brown liquid. And that’s only enjoyable for people who like hanging out in 12-step meetings and hospital waiting rooms. Most recipes call for two scoops of coffee grounds for every cup of water (hot coffee is generally a 1:1 ratio). That was a little too strong for my refined palate and sensitive constitution. Delicate flower that I am, I had to let the ice melt and water it down. Adding a little more water to the next pot did the trick. Iced coffee, I discovered, reaches perfection at 12 scoops of coffee grounds for every 7 cups of water.

The third step is to add sugar while the coffee is still hot. Sugar doesn’t dissolve in cold coffee; it ends up as a tasty sludge in the bottom of a cup. While a nice little dessert to your beverage, it doesn’t really sweeten it. Four spoonfuls for seven cups proved to to be the right level of sweetness. Wifey would argue that that’s four spoonfuls too many. She would be wrong. It’s the perfect amount to bring out the flavor of the coffee without overwhelming it.

The fourth step is to chill. I put the coffee pot in the fridge. Six hours later, the iced coffee is ready to drink. If nothing else, unemployment has made me good at waiting. Pour it over some ice cubes, add some milk and enjoy. Maybe click away from UselessJobSite.com or NotHiringInc.com for a few minutes. Coffee time should be me time.

One $13.49 bag of coffee beans has given me six days worth of iced coffee so far. And there’s probably another four days worth to go. That’s a savings of $16.51 per bag, or $49.53 per month… not too shabby. If my knowledge of first grade math still holds up, that’s almost $50. I could buy something with that kind of money, besides coffee. Maybe when I find a full-time job, I will.

Fake is the new real. (courtesy of wikipedia.org)

After a long day of not finding a job, it’s relaxing to engage in an even more mindless activity. Channel surfing, second to sleeping, is the greatest time-waster ever created. My thumb and a few buttons on the remote control give me 200 stations of useless television programming, and occasionally something worth watching. I always start with channel 2 (CBS on Time Warner Cable in NYC) and work my way up…  3 (TNT), 4 (NBC) and so on. Somewhere in the 150s – amidst the American Life TVs and the Gospel Music Channels of the cable world – I get bored and return to 2. I like a good “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman” marathon as much as the next guy, but I can’t help hoping for something a little better. Unemployment taught me that. Cycling through the channels drives wifey crazy. She prefers to scroll through the on-screen guide – a wholly different approach to channel surfing that bears no resemblance to mine in any way, whatsoever, at all, in any universe, even the ones without TV.

The other night, around 8:00, I plopped my ass on the couch and commenced with the remote clicking. Wifey wasn’t home, and I was killing time before dinner. Nothing was on, at least nothing that could overcome the slim possibility of something one click away. Then my world changed forever, ever so slightly for the better. I happened upon one of the funniest movies ever made… if you were a goofy teenage boy in the suburbs in the late 1980s.

“Coming To America” is the touching tale of Prince Akeem’s (Eddie Murphy) quest for a soul mate amidst parental and societal pressures. Dissatisfied with his country’s marriage customs, he set outs for Queens, accompanied by his assistant Semmi (Arsenio Hall), in search of true love. Where better for the future king of Zumunda to find a wife than my home borough? Such indisputable logic sets the tone for the rest of the film. The Prince falls for Lisa McDowell, whose father owns McDowell’s, a fictional restaurant that rips off McDonalds. As the owner describes it, “they got the Golden Arches, mine is the Golden Arcs.” The Prince gets a job at the restaurant and sets about winning Lisa away from Daryl Jenks, heir to the Soul Glo jheri curl haircare products fortune. Hilarity ensues and endures, as it is wont to do when Eddie Murphy is on screen and you’re 16 again. Nothing rounds out a heartwarming love story like poop jokes and racial stereotypes (Lifetime… are you paying attention?). I laughed, I cried. Rather I laughed until I cried. Okay, so I chuckled occasionally.

The story takes place in my neighborhood Jackson Heights. And I soon realized that the fictional McDowell’s is really the Wendy’s over on Queens Blvd. (technically in neighboring Elmhurst). I’ve walked by it a million times, including the other day on my way to Target. This discovery was the most exciting thing to happen in weeks. I couldn’t wait to tell wifey, though I knew she wouldn’t appreciate the revelation to the same extent. Her comedic palette is nowhere near as refined as mine; we can’t all be comedic geniuses.

A pilgrimage to the McDowell’s location is in the early planning stages, as is a party to celebrate the movie’s 21-year, three-month anniversary. Arsenio Hall is already on board, because really, what else does he have going on? Eddie Murphy’s people have yet to get back to me. Rumor has it he’s in the studio recording the followup to “Party All The Time” (as in my girl wants to…). The new single, “Take Her Meds Because Now She Has Liver Disease” should be a big hit. In the meantime, to pay homage to the film and the local tradition of ripping off national restaurant brands, I spent the afternoon at the local Starbucks wannabe.

Halfway between my apartment and the gym is a coffee shop called Esparks. (I’d post a link to the site if there were one.) It’s a copy of everyone’s favorite national chain, right down to the font in the logo and the dark wooden interior. Like the fictional McDowell’s, Esparks is easily mistaken for the real thing. The coffee shop sits on a busy corner across the street from a car wash and the pediatric emergency and trauma center of the local hospital. Huge glass windows face each street, and a giant creepy picture of smiling kids. I’m no doctor, but I’m fairly certain that kids going into or coming out of intensive care don’t look quite that healthy or happy. Light streams into the coffee shop, as does local foot traffic. Many people just stop in to use the bathroom.

I arrived a little after 3:00, hoping to score a window seat with an electrical outlet… no such luck. A worried-looking woman with a giant mole on her face was camped out there. Empty coffee cups and dirty napkins littered her table like she’d been there a long while mulling things over. Maybe she’s the resident crazy person; every coffee shop has one. I bought an ice coffee and some cookies, found a seat in the corner next to the bathroom and continued my unemployed Wednesday tap, tap tapping away on the computer.

The afternoon was uneventful… some blogging, some job searching, some fantasy football scouting, all accompanied by my trusty iPod. In other words, the usual, except I wasn’t in my apartment. Doctors or people who like to wear stethoscopes around their necks wandered in for a caffeine fix. The mole lady gazed expectantly at every passerby. Other computer types stared at their screens and typed away. “Your Body is a Wonderland” and “Californication” – somehow audible over Boards of Canada – assaulted me over and over from speakers in the ceiling. Eventually I poured scalding hot coffee into my ear canals to soothe the pain.

Despite the obvious similarities to Starbucks, Esparks is fine as coffee shops go. The coffee is decent. The cookies may have been bought at the grocery store and repackaged into individual servings, but they contain copious amounts of sugar. And that’s all I really care about. Free wireless and outlets built into the benches invite people to hang out. And nobody cares how long I stay. Aside from the occasional weirdo, what’s not to like?

A couple of teenagers carrying their computer stuff in an Ikea bag sat down next to me just when I was thinking about leaving. They appeared to be settling in for a marathon gaming session. An older man showed up to meet the mole lady. She perked up immediately, like a lost puppy who’d just been found. They bought still more coffee, and then settled back in at the same table. The sun was going down, and commuters were going home. The daytime crowd gave way to the evening crowd. And I’m sure later the evening crowd will give way to the overnight, caffeine-deprived, worried parent crowd. I was no closer to having a job, at least as far as I can tell. Maybe one of my resumes will find its way through the ether to an HR person’s desktop; stranger things have happened. But I’d paid homage to one of my favorite movies in my own special way. It was time to go home and channel surf.

A picture may be worth a 1000 words. But this one is actually worth 1055.

People lose their jobs everyday. It happens in good economic times and bad, in every city and town across the country. My day was eight months ago. Someone else’s was four months later or last week. Believe it or not someone was also hired on each of those days, maybe even at the exact moment I was getting canned. At least that’s what gets me out of bed in the morning, in addition to the cat pawing at my face. Every economy has some churn in its workforce, and my time will come.

All those unlucky and lucky someones are the basis for such exciting figures as the unemployment rate. If my vague memory of college Economics classes (or Economics in general) is to be trusted, unemployment should sit right around 5% in a well functioning economy. The natural rate of unemployment is the percentage of the active workforce who should be out of work and looking at any given time. Those lucky 5% change from month to month. Some lose jobs and join the unemployed ranks and others find jobs and leave. If the unemployment rate is lower, than companies and industries aren’t evolving and growing as efficiently as they should. If the rate is higher, then wages are too expensive. At least that’s the theory. These days, as we all know, the national unemployment rate sits around 9.5% and should easily push past 10% before the end of this nationwide, nay, global kerfuffle.

Unemployment numbers and theories are abstract. They look great on paper. They sound great at parties and in the media. And they read great in posts from bloggers who like to think they know what they’re writing about, and occasionally do. What makes numbers and theories scary is their meaning in the real world. Every single someone who loses a job is a real person, as is every someone who finds a job (though the ratio of unemployed to jobs is 6:1, according to NPR). Each person could be you or someone you know.

My last layoff bothered me a bit; maybe you’ve sensed the undercurrent of disappointment in one of my many unemployment tomes. But it was also kind of expected. Whenever the economy gets a little gas, whenever my employer du jour sniffles, I’m kicked to the curb. It’s part of being the new guy (last in, first out) in marketing (the first department cut). I probably deserve some of the blame too. Still the scenario is so common, there should be a word for it in the dictionary. Noah Webster, are you listening? I have a couple of additions for your book. No, no, that’s fine. Go back to being dead. I’ll talk to one of the editors…

norm [nawrm]
–verb
to be laid off repeatedly at the first sign of economic trouble.

–noun
one who is laid off repeatedly at the first sign of economic trouble.

Normian [nawr-mee-uhn]
–adjective
of or pertaining to the plight of Norm and his kind, esp. those who are laid off repeatedly at the first sign of economic trouble.

In the last eight months of job searching and bellybutton gazing via blog, other friends and acquaintances have lost jobs. And a few have found them. The lost part always bothers me. The found part makes me happy and prompts a mental note to guilt the lucky bastard into paying the next time we’re out. These are all people who, from what I can tell, are in my league. They are about as skilled in their chosen fields as I am in mine. Ergo, their job loss tells me that mine isn’t all my fault, and their hiring tells me that mine will soon follow. The employment market may be filling up with competition, but at least it’s a fair fight.

Recently two of my good friends lost their jobs. One – a high-priced lawyer with Ivy League credentials – was laid off earlier this week. He’s been fruitlessly seeking a new position for months. Another – an upwardly mobile media/entertainment exec – lost his job a few months back. He’s now spending time with his kid and slurping mediocre coffee at the local Starbucks. I consider both to be excellent at what they do; wifey and a few others fall in this category too, but they all still have jobs ([fingers crossed] no whammies, no whammies!). Both are impressive. Both have done well for themselves to date. Both are extremely smart and infinitely employable. Both should have jobs, and don’t. Their companies were even willing to let them go. Are things really that bad?

Where does this leave me… marketing professional and unemployed unemployment blogger extraordinaire? Not only are the best and the brightest out of work. So too are the even better and even brighter. I’m not in direct competition with these two friends. Both are in different fields, and one lives in another city. But I am in competition with people like them. Companies are no longer cutting the fat. They’re now cutting the muscle and bone. Do I even stand a chance? Do I even bother trying? Should I just crawl into the corner, pull my knees to my chest, pine for Econ 101, make up more words and rock back and forth until the nice men in white jackets take me away?

Does this make anyone else think of McDonalds? (courtesy of www.highlands-ortho.com)

Looking for a job is sort of an all-or-nothing deal. Either you find one, or you don’t. I haven’t, for seven months. There’s some comfort to be had in knowing that the job market stinks. Companies continue to layoff employees, and those hiring receive millions of resumes, even for that freelance position scraping burnt gunk off of boiler room walls with a screwdriver. Knowing may be half the battle, but it doesn’t pay the bills. There’s also some satisfaction in getting the occasional callback or interview. Validation that I’m doing something right does give me the warm fuzzies. But it too doesn’t pay the bills.

Job boards are a giant waste of time (though I did find my last job through one). At best they give a decent sense of the current job market and skills needed for a particular type of job. At worst, they help companies gather our personal information and sell it off to marketers who then spam the crap out of us. And where would I be without those more-than-obvious, less-than-useful job search tip emails? Step #1… figure out the type of job you want; step #2… apply for those jobs. I only ever respond to listings for which I’m qualified. My resume is optimized for keywords that appear in these listings. My cover letter describes why I’m the ideal candidate for the job. In my oh so humble opinion, my inquiries kick some major ass. They’re practically lethal. If you come across one in a dark alley, keep your hands in plain sight and back away slowly. And call me as soon as you can, as we will have just discovered where they all go when I hit the send button.

Still I try and try and try, or at least I did. The countless hours slaving over my (and wifey’s) laptop have given me an on again/off again case of carpal tunnel syndrome, or as I call it, “Ouch, My F**king Hand, err, Syndrome” (OMFHeS). The pain is mostly along the back of my right hand and up into the knuckles. It also sneaks around the side beneath the pinkie and up along it on bad days. OMFHeS is brought on by repetitive motion – like scrolling with the mouse track pad through endless, useless job listings and clicking on possibly interesting listings that never turn out to be. Typing doesn’t help. Using a mouse is better, but my hand still aches. The pain disappears when I’m off the computer, but it’s never far from the surface.

A few months ago, I switched up my approach to the job search. Whereas I once devoted serious time to trolling the online listings, now I barely skim the automated searches that appear to my inbox. Sorry, CareerBuilder, none of those 17 Avon positions served up in my last email actually applied, but thanks anyway. My job search is all about networking lately. Starbucks’ second quarter numbers will probably show a spike; I’m keeping half of their NYC locations in business with my informational meetings. I have the third-degree burns on my tongue and the pictures taken of me from a neighboring Starbucks to prove it.

Lucky for me employed types are willing to chat these days. Maybe they want good job search karma, should they get bounced. Maybe they like free coffee, though many don’t even let me pay. Maybe they’re attracted to my winning resume and charming personality like metal to a magnet. Alright, so it’s probably the coffee and karma. But people have been really generous with their time. I’m getting way more informational meetings than I thought I would, and learning a ton of stuff. And I’m meeting many friendly and interesting individuals. Who knew it was just a matter of asking?

There’s one serious drawback. You guessed it… OMFHeS. Shaking hands is really painful, yet unavoidable when networking. It’s how one greets another when they meet. “Hello, my name is…” [shake, shake] “I’m a marketing professional with blah, blah, blah.” In a networking environment, refusing to shake someone’s hand is akin to kicking them in the shin and cursing their mother.  It’s just not the best way to start things off. Explaining that I have OMFHeS makes me look like a weirdo. And no one likes talking to a weirdo, except when drunk in Penn Station at 3:00 a.m., waiting for the train back to Long Island. They definitely don’t want to hire a weirdo and be forced to talk with them everyday, sober, for the foreseeable future.

OMFHeS is bearable in one-on-one meetings. There’s one handshake as a greeting and another as a farewell, with 30 minutes to an hour of interesting conversation in between. Networking events – already painful for other reasons – are the worst. The two requisite handshakes are only separated by a couple minutes of conversation. And everyone there is trying to seem strong and confident (read employable), so they squeeze and shake harder. It’s all about eye contact and a firm grip. After a little while, I have to consciously try not to grimace. As mentioned before, no one wants to work with a weirdo, or for that matter, a wuss.

I’m not a wuss. Let me repeat that, for anyone who nodded off around the 800-word mark and is rejoining us now. I’m not a wuss. These, of course, are the words uttered by someone who is a wuss when faced with their wussiness. But I’m not. I played tackle football. I’ve been beaned with an 80 mph fastball. I can do a lot of pushups and crunches. But OMFHeS really hurts sometimes. And it tends to zap my confidence at the moments I need it most – first impressions. Thanks for the additional obstacle in the job search, unemployment. Next time just send the polar bear, or maybe the black smoke, out of the jungle to get me.

Where working out meets rocking out.

Unemployment took away my last excuse not to go to the gym… work. And for that I will never forgive it. If you’re reading this, unemployment, consider yourself out of the will. The cats now get my ever-shrinking pile of assets. (Wifey will have to take it up with the furry ones.) My gym membership is cheap and paid through some time next year. All that prevents me from going these days is laziness and achiness (by which I mean laziness).

My gym has three reasonably convenient locations and many more totally inconvenient locations. One is in midtown, across the street from a previous employer and a short subway ride from home. Working out was so convenient until layoff #2. I still go there sometimes in the late morning to avoid the lunch-time and after-work crowds. Another location a few stops further downtown in Chelsea is bigger and better, but also more crowded. Working out during off-peak times is still perfectly pleasant. And then there’s the Elmhurst location within walking distance of my apartment, where I go if I’m pressed for time or – like today – just don’t feel like riding (or paying $4 to ride) the subway. That place is a madhouse.

I left for the gym at about 9:30 this morning. It was drizzling and sunny, and the sky threatened thunderstorms, portending another day of confusing weather. There was also a 30% chance of snow, a 20% chance of tsunami and 10% chance that the atmosphere would solidify into some sort of jello-like substance making it impossible to do anything. I crossed underneath the subway tracks as the 7 train rumbled overhead, and wound through Elmhurst past the hospital and the park. I turned down through a neighborhood of houses, most of which have been converted into apartments, judging by all the doorbells and Direct TV dishes. A few have been remodeled or torn down and rebuilt into some blocky, tasteless monstrosity. Many more are just kind of drab. At Queens Blvd., I crossed over to the gym.

The one-story box of a building sits right on the boulevard of death next to an LIRR overpass, some used car dealerships and a few hotels that probably rent rooms by the hour. One dealership I’ve watched shrink over the last year from two lots and 60+ cars for sale to half of one lot and about ten cars. And one motel I’ve watched go up right next to it; all they forgot was a sign big enough for passersby to actually see. A huge billboard on the overpass advertises Big Macs at McDonalds with the words, “Sobrang masala may kasamang extra bun.” Who knew that “two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions” could be boiled down to four words? A huge public intermediate school sits behind the gym, and buses line up next to it. If I go around 8:00 or leave around 3:00, I inevitably end up following a group of 13-year-olds and looking like a total perv.

The gym was packed, because it’s always packed. Every person in Elmhurst is required to hang out at this gym for two hours each day; working out is optional. I signed up for a couple aerobic machines at the front desk. The earliest available was in an hour. Every machine looked to be occupied when I got inside. Some people were working out, some were talking on cell phones, and some were trying to do both. I jumped on a recumbent bike when one opened up.

As if the crowds weren’t bad enough, the noise levels were just ungodly. Pumping club music covers of 80s songs blared from the aerobics room, as the instructor yelled instructions into her headset microphone. Some of the TVs played corporate music videos of beautiful, disaffected white guys rocking out in construction sites and on the tops of buildings. The accompanying audio came through the club’s speakers. Other TVs tuned to CNN played the news. People yelled into their cell phones over all of this and to their friends across the gym. I hoped my head wouldn’t explode.

I moved from the bike to a cross-trainer when my turn came up, kicking off the woman who tried to take my spot and putting my towel in the drink holder not lined with hardened bubblegum. The air conditioning wasn’t really on, and I was sweating profusely. Soon after, a 40-something-year-old woman busting out of her stretchy black and white gym outfit took the machine next to me. She was all silicon and botox, and damn proud of it. I glanced over, and she flashed me a smile through her lipstick, at least what amounts to a smile for someone who can’t move her face. Distracted from a New York Times Magazine article about aesthetically unpleasing construction, I looked over again a minute later. The Williamsburg Bridge may be ugly, but who could possibly ignore a living, breathing disaster two feet away? She smiled again. I cringed.

When construction lady was done, one of the two people I know at the gym – an unemployed engineer – took over the machine. We chatted about what would happen once unemployment insurance ran out. He has his eyes on a job at McDonalds. I’m thinking Starbucks. My reasons are simple… I don’t want to get fat, and I’d much rather be scalded by coffee than grease. The conversation moved on to the situation in Iran and places to play ping-pong in Flushing. I finished up on the cross-trainer and went for some water.

By the water fountain in the locker room, I ran into the one other person I know at the gym – a heavyset retired guy who enjoys science fiction and Broadway shows. We met many months ago when he commented about The New Yorker magazine I was reading. He was surprised to see it in a gym where no one even speaks English. We chatted briefly about the drag cabaret show I saw over the weekend and what movies we wanted to see.

My time on the elliptical trainer was uneventful, except for the OK Go’s brilliant orchestrated treadmill dance routine video, which came on. Someone programming the music videos for Big Gym TV has a sense of humor, or not. It seemed appropriate either way. The old Jewish guy who works out like he’s on a mission was nowhere to be found. Nor were his right-wing buddies, whom he greets by yelling political nonsense across the room. The Tourette Syndrome guy who spouts off randomly in Italian wasn’t there around either; I think he comes in evenings. The stretching area was unusually quiet. The crew of old ladies who sit around telling dirty jokes was noticeably absent. I finished up my workout in relative peace.

Leaving the gym, I passed an employee returning from her smoke break and waited at the corner for the traffic light. I was tired and had the beginnings of a headache. It had been a relatively quiet workout, but I was still less relaxed than when I arrived. Tomorrow I’ll spend the four bucks and go workout in peace.

I finally had another job interview, after four months of nothing. During the drought, I managed to secure numerous interviews with various press outlets. They all wanted to talk about my unemployment. None of them, of course, wanted to do anything about it. So while a little more famous, I remain equally unemployed. For those playing along at home, the score now stands at 8-3; press interviews are beating job interviews pretty handily.

This most recent interview came to me out of the blue. I was just minding my own business – blogging and not finding work and tormenting small furry creatures who meow too much – when a contact from my last job reached out with an opportunity. His company places creative professionals. The opening was for a marketing director at an online agency. The details were fuzzy, but the job seemed within the realm of possibility given my experience and empty wallet.

I prepped for the interview as I always do – drinking raw eggs and punching sides of beef in a local meet locker. That just gave me salmonella  and bloody knuckles, so I decided maybe Rocky didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. (That’s the last time I model my life on a movie montage.) So I took to the interweb to learn me some stuff about the company and its industry. As it turns out, they and their competitors have websites – flashy ones with lots of fancy words. I read up, then reviewed my answers to common interview questions. Voila, I was prepared.

The morning of, on my way out the door, I received a message from my contact. The company higher up scheduled to meet me was in the hospital. I offered to show up bedside with carnations and play a ditty on my pan flute, but my contact thought rescheduling would be best. A few days later I found myself going through the same routine – drinking, punching, learning, leaving. The phone didn’t ring with word that aliens had abducted the company rep, so I figured the meeting was a go. And it was.

The company’s offices are located near Union Square – a great part of town to work in. A previous employer has a satellite location right across the street, and I fondly remember traipsing down to the year-round farmer’s market on my lunch hour and returning with a bag of fresh, homemade pretzels. I showed up on time, after killing 20 minutes in a Starbucks drinking liquid tar. I always allow for the subways’ unreliability. The 7 train has told me numerous times – in its own special way – that it hates my guts and hopes I get stuck in the doors. The company’s offices seemed nice, if sparse and oddly organized. They had that Internet bubble start-up feel, combining people and space in a way that felt a little unnatural. Maybe things were just moving to fast to stop and worry about decorating and organizing.

The interviewer was saddled with a severe limp and appeared to be in some pain. I asked after the injury and was told it might be a torn ACL. He didn’t seem terribly pleased about it, so I didn’t inquire further. We sat in a windowless office, and he reviewed the specifics of the company and position. The company is a leader in its field with a good client base. The position involved marketing the company to potential clients through a variety of mediums – trade shows, PR, advertising, collateral, Powerpoint. It seemed very similar to my previous job and well within my range of expertise.

We moved on to my resume and how my skills and experience fit the position’s requirements. I gave specific and concrete examples. He nodded and asked more questions when I stopped talking. The interviewer seemed more in the mood for a leg rest, a TV remote and a large dose of Percocet than a job interview. He was utterly humorless, but a good sport, especially given his circumstances. After an uneventful 30 minutes, void of any “gotcha” questions, the interview ended. He assured me that this was just an introductory, get-to-know-you meeting. The other company heads would have me in when they returned to the office. This was a good sign.

I received a call from my contact a couple weeks later. There would be no further interviews. The company already hired someone. He apologized for not relaying the information sooner, but he’d only just found out himself. The company had retained multiple placement firms to fill the position. I didn’t lack any needed skill. I didn’t smell bad or talk s**t about the interviewer’s mother. I just came along too late. That was that.

Can't work here either, as much as I'd like to. Maybe I could smuggle coffee into the library.

Jackson Heights is gentrifying, at least it was until the economy got all spooked and pulled the covers over its head. As part of the minority here, my wife and I have limited places to hang out. The varied ethnic restaurants are great, but don’t lend themselves to leisurely meals. The bars don’t cater to straight, English speakers. The bakeries, many of which have excellent coffee and scrumptious South American baked goods, are bright, loud and uncomfortable. And no place has wireless internet and electrical outlets for customer use. The lack of money thing is a tad problematic too.

A couple years ago, a cafe called Espresso 77 opened up just off the main drag, likely replacing one of the neighborhood’s 14,326 hair, nail and eyebrow salons. The place only has five or six tables. But they serve great coffee and invite people to stay with a light atmosphere and amenities like newspapers, magazines and, you guessed it, wireless and outlets. The cafe has become part of the community, offering story time for kids, bringing in musicians and staging exhibits from local artists. Starbucks – the neighborhood’s first – moved in a couple months later and a couple blocks away. But Espresso 77 has stood its own, cultivating a loyal customer base with a quality product.

Maybe once a week I pack up my laptop and notepad and head down there. The change of scenery helps to break up unemployment’s monotony and endless repetition. I’m still looking for a job (and distractions from looking for a job) while listening to music on headphones, but I’m doing it in a public place with people around. It’s social interaction through osmosis, and makes me feel like slightly less of a loser. Espresso 77 is pretty quiet in the middle of the afternoon – a couple people working and a couple more sitting around. I can nurse a strong cup of coffee, nibble a couple of chocolate chip cookies (by which I mean inhale like Cookie Monster on a bender) and do some work. After a few hours, I head off to the grocery store to pick up dinner stuff and then home.

This past Friday I took my show on the road, as it were. But waiting for me at my home office away from home office was quite a shock – little plastic covers on the electrical outlets, secured with little padlocks. The cafe was unemployed Norm-proofed, and I was devastated. They might just as well have kicked me in the crotch and pushed my hunched-over body into traffic.

Blocking off outlets creates a sort of time limit that isn’t that limiting, except for me. My four-year-old computer with its four-year-old battery lasts about 45 seconds if fully charged. I worked that day for less than the length of an album, and then left. My battery was dead. And my afternoons at the local coffee shop were over.

My guess is that people were abusing the cafe’s generosity and starting to cost them money. The plastic covers force out these computer users (once their batteries run out), without making staff act as bouncers. They save electricity and open up tables for more valuable customers – people who spend more money and leave more quickly. There’s a difference between use and abuse. And abuse hurts business. I get it. Customers who come in intending to sit down for lunch may end up leaving with a snack (or nothing) upon seeing no empty tables. Customers who walk by and think to stop in may not. Both may just go to Starbucks next time, where they’ll more likely get a seat.

The funny thing is I used to be one of the abusers, sipping a two-dollar cup of coffee in a to-go cup for hours until it was cold. My attitude was, “screw you, business owner, I’m following the rules you set up.” But I realized early on in my current stint of unemployment that this was not the spirit of the arrangement. I started spending more money during my visits and giving up my table when the place filled up.

Thinking about the matter later only depressed me more. Little plastic outlet covers had eliminated one of the few places I go regularly. A new computer or a new battery would solve the problem if I had the money. But I don’t. Now I have to ride the subway to go to a cafe with my computer, and that adds four dollars to the price of coffee and baked goods. Just how small and ridiculous has unemployment made my world that I even care about little plastic things and four dollars?

If only it were as warm as this looks.

Unemployment makes staying home easy. Frigid temperatures make it even easier. So yesterday afternoon, around 5:30, I faced the biggest decision of my day. Do I bundle up and brave the cold for a subway ride to the West Side (an hour’s trip door to door), or do I play a DVD from Netflix (Family Guy, Season 6, Disc 3, with all the bonus features)? Sounds like a no-brainer… go with the fat guy, talking dog and occasionally diabolical baby. I opted for hypothermia and the MTA, which turned out to be the right choice.

Fordham University – my business school alma mater – held a panel discussion entitled “Layoff Survival Guide.” It was all about proper techniques for panhandling. Topics included…

• Street corner as office – coping with a change of environment.
• Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts – what coffee cup puts people in the giving mood and why.
• Dress for success – pathetic-looking clothing need not sacrifice warmth or comfort.
• Failed banker or bank failure – optimize your story to maximize your earnings.

Sorry, I got sidetracked. Too much Family Guy makes me think in asides.

The panel discussion was all about how to deal with a layoff. You may be wondering why I wasn’t on the panel, given my league-leading layoff tally and hard-earned expertise. I wondered the same thing. But the invited panelists turned out to know a thing or two themselves. They offered more advice than “think about going back to school or an online university.” I was content to listen and learn from the third row.

The panel consisted of Merrill Lynch financial advisers Anthony Russo and Kim Potvin, employment attorney Andy Karamouzis and career coach Alan Cohen. Anthony started it off with his personal story quickly followed by a few very important (if obvious) tips. The most important (and most obvious) is to examine your budget and expenses. Any laid-off business school grad should think of and take care of this in the first week of unemployment. But any financial adviser worth his spreadsheets would be remiss if he didn’t lead with this tip. He also emphasized the need to rollover and reallocate 401Ks. People accumulate multiple accounts as they go from job to job, and let the market skew their investments what direction they will. While organizing your financial house is a convenient time to consolidate and recalibrate. This tip seemed a little self-serving (so you’re reinvesting… we can help), though also logical and relevant. Retirement accounts are assets and should be considered in any financial self-examination.

Kim summed up her story and continued the retirement discussion before yielding the floor to Andy the employment lawyer. His first point was something I’ve harped on in this blog – file for unemployment insurance. Again, this is Unemployment 101-type stuff, but very important. Don’t leave free money on the table. Swallow any lingering pride; overcome the creeping laziness. I was surprised to learn that some audience members thought the government tries to trick people out of unemployment. Let’s dispel this notion right now. Filing for unemployment is quick, easy and straightforward in most cases. Basically any laid-off worker can do it. No one is out to deprive you, barring the occasional vindictive former company who won’t validate a claim. And the big, bad government doesn’t have it in for you as an individual. You, personally, are not that important.

Alan the career coach finished things up, which made perfect sense given the trajectory of a layoff. Whereas the first three speakers focused on getting your jobless ducks in a row, he looked ahead to bigger, better ponds. His outlook was upbeat, and his advice sage. Get over the perceived stigma of being laid off; it probably wasn’t your fault. And get beyond the notion that a job defines a person; this is a narrow view of an individual. Then examine what was appealing about previous jobs and use that as a lens to focus your energy in the right direction. The trick, as he put it, is not to believe a company is right for you just because you need a job. This resonated with me. As a job search drags on, the group of “right” companies and industries always seems to grow. Desperation leads to bad decisions. Of course, desperation is sometimes justified.

Audience members interrupted each of the speakers with questions, which gave them avenues for expanding and directing the conversation. But in business school, and in life, I suppose, the alpha, ME ME ME types tend to dominate. And mostly they just want to talk about themselves. One woman seemed to have three different jobs yet was contemplating giving them all up to collect unemployment (WTF?). She asked questions so specific to her own situation that no one could understand let alone answer them. I’m not sure she even understood. Some people had more insightful comments and questions that surfaced information I didn’t know. These were the highlights for me…

• Severance packages are not required by law, at least in New York state. Most employment agreements are entered into by an employer and an employee at will. Either party can terminate the relationship at any time. Severances are a gesture of goodwill and come with a waiver that releases the company from any future damages.
• Severances are always negotiable. With a strong case and a light touch, they can be improved. The worst a company can do is say no, and then beat you with the nearest blunt object – likely a stapler, so watch out for those Swinglines.
• Don’t take what’s not yours. What’s done in a work capacity belongs to the company. This includes proprietary information and contacts.
• If laid off, get a letter from that employer stating the reason for your departure (e.g. money issues, corporate downsizing, etc.). It could make securing a new job easier.
• Volunteering for a charity can expand your network and further your job search. It may also give you a nice warm and fuzzy feeling.

Sitting in a room with other unemployed people was just as important as learning more about unemployment. It was therapeutic, a good reminder that many people are going through the same things. My job search isn’t any easier, and my bills aren’t any more paid. But I do feel better about myself for making the effort. And I’m grateful to Fordham and the panelists for their efforts, on a night when most people probably just wanted to go home and get out of the cold.

I was in the city today to see if the Apple Store people could tell me what’s wrong with my computer. (Turns out, nothing. It’s my network, yippee!). On the way back I stopped in at one of my favorite cafes – Communitea in Long Island City – to do a little work.

You can only spend so much time in your apartment combing through endless job listings without going a little crazy. Not that job boards aren’t supremely interesting but, well, they’re not. I’d rather memorize the side of a cereal box (mmm, 25% riboflavin). Some days it’s best to avoid the Netflix discs, the PS3 and all the other distractions at home. And some days it’s just nice to have a change of scenery.

All the tables at Communitea were full, which I’ve never seen before. It wasn’t even lunch time really. Everyone seemed to be settled in and working. Could it be like Mondays at the gym – full because people slacked off over the weekend? I carried on back to my neighborhood to try a new place.

My neighborhood (Jackson Heights) is paused in the early stages of gentrification. One of the first new arrivals was Espresso 77 about a year ago. It’s a great coffee shop, with stellar coffee and a cool vibe. And it seems to be holding its own against the Starbucks that opened a couple months later and a couple blocks away. The place isn’t much bigger than my living room, so I never bothered to bring my computer and avail myself of the wi-fi. I’d feel guilty preventing other paying customers from sitting down. As the signs say, I’d be kicked out after a half hour anyway.

But the place turned out to be slow during the day. People came in and worked on their computers or read the paper. One crazy-looking guy with blonde highlights had a video conference. The place was never full – my gauge for when to give up the table – and the people working were chill. I camped out for a few hours, nursed a cup of coffee so strong my head is still buzzing and got stuff done. Obviously I’d never do this on a Sunday morning. But random weekday afternoons seem to be fair game.

Let’s go ahead and add it to the list of work spots with free wi-fi (or ethernet jacks) that aren’t my apartment…

New York Public Library (Social Sciences branch on Fifth Ave.)
Communitea
Bryant Park (if it’s temperate and you have a full battery)
Queens Library (81st St. branch, but only in a pinch)
Espresso 77