New York magazine decided to steal my idea and tell the stories of unemployed New Yorkers…

My Laid-Off Life

They picked seven people from the jobless middle class masses and lent them the services of a professional writer. If only their stories were as interesting, engaging, exciting, moving, gripping, captivating, intriging, refreshing, enjoyable, glamorous, thought-provoking and well written (I could keep going…) as mine. But I guess we can’t all be hacks.  Keep working at it, NY Mag, you’ll get there.

I tend to be all business at the gym and, for that reason, not terribly social. Still there are two people that I’ve become friendly with. The first – an older and recently retired gentleman – I met when he shared just how amazed he was that someone else at our gym read The New Yorker. The second is a pudgy Asian guy who is about my age and also unemployed. I don’t remember how we met.

I see the unemployed guy a few times a week. He always asks after my job search and laments the state of his. (He’s an engineer who’s been unemployed for about seven months.) We might then discuss when the job market will pick up again (mid to late 2009, if we’re lucky) or what other types of jobs I could pursue (sales or something trademark-related). He’s dead set on working as an engineer, so I suggest companies and geographical areas where he might have more luck.

Today we happened to be on adjacent elliptical machines. After breezing through the usual topics and then discussing why the government is better than the private sector (mainly job security), we got onto the topic of Unemployment Insurance. He had recently reached the 26-week point and noticed the balance in the history section of his account was $0. But he’s still receiving payouts.

As I understand the system to work, the original term for which the jobless could expect payouts was 26 weeks. It was extended by 13 weeks and then, on November 20, by another seven weeks. So what that means to me is that he (and I) can make claims and receive payouts for 46 weeks. After that, barring another extension, both of us would be out of luck.

His understanding is a little different than mine. As he explained it, the extensions don’t mean an unemployed person receives more money. They allow for that person to collect the same amount of money over a longer period of time (46 weeks as opposed to 26 weeks). For example, an unemployed person who collects the maximum in New York ($405/week) will collect a total of $10,530 after 26 weeks. The extensions allow that person to spread that amount over a time period up to 46 weeks. He also believes that any money collected beyond the 26 weeks puts your account into the negative. So once you’re employed, you have to repay this.

I think he’s wrong, and here’s why. First of all, the system as he understands it could potentially leave the unemployed worse off. If I were to voluntarily take less money each week to extend the term of the payouts and then find a job before maxing out my benefits, I’d end up with less money. It would make more sense to take the maximum payouts each week and bank whatever I don’t use for when the benefits run out (not that there’s ever extra money). There’s one line of reasoning that makes a tiny bit of sense. People tend to spend what they have, so reducing the benefit and extending the term would help them manage their budget so they’d have money for longer. But that can’t possibly be enough reason to set up Unemployment Insurance this way. His assertion that an unemployed person’s account goes into the negative after 26 weeks is also faulty. Unemployment is funded by a tax on employers not employees.

Still the possibility scared me enough to look into it further. I found nothing to substantiate his understanding of how the unemployment extensions will work. It simply seems that New York state hasn’t updated the wording on the site (except to add a separate page about the extensions) or adjusted its online system. My account still shows that unemployment lasts for 26 weeks too. Maybe the extensions require a claimant to file again. That’s a question I’ll have to ask.

For your reading pleasure, here’s the wording about the extensions on the NYS Department of Labor site…

“On November 20, 2008, Congress passed legislation to extend the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) allowing an additional seven (7) weeks of benefits, for a total of 20 weeks of EUC. This 7-week extension is referred to as Extended EUC, and is based on New York State’s unemployment rate. The first week of benefits that can be paid under this 7-week extension is the week ending November 30, 2008. Unemployed individuals may claim benefits for this week from Sunday, November 30, 2008 through Saturday, December 6, 2008 by using this website or by calling our toll-free Tel-Service number at 1-888-581-5812 (New York State residents), 1-888-864-9920 (out of state residents), or 1-877-205-3119 (TTY/TDD equipment users).”

“Under current legislation, new claims for Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) can be initiated through the week ending March 29, 2009. No EUC can be paid for any week that begins after August 30, 2009. The weekly benefit amount paid for EUC is the same amount the individual received for regular unemployment benefits.”

I did discover one thing that concerns me. My 46 weeks would extend past the August 30 cutoff date. I could theoretically lose a few weeks of unemployment. It may end up a moot point if the job market worsens and Obama extends benefits. I’ll still be calling the Department of Labor bright and early on Monday to find out just what the deal is.

I just applied for a position at a company whose name you’d recognize. Before filling out the online application, I was presented with the following message…

hey, before you send your resume, consider yourself warned: it’s not all fun and games here, at the crack of dawn and into the wee hours, we’re busting our butts because we believe in this, and we expect you to do the same. otherwise, you can stick to watching those infomercials in between dr. phil. with that said, welcome aboard….maybe.

That’s pretty brazen, and a tad obnoxious. In a good job market, could a potential employer get away with that? Maybe. There are always desperate people looking for work. In a bad job market, I’m guessing potential employees don’t even blink before sending a resume. We just have to take it.

It’s not that my apartment has been completely silent. It’s not that I’ve been working in front of the TV – though I did watch Office Space again the other day (so funny!). It’s… well… I don’t know why I’ve been holding back on my playlists. But the buck stops here.

Sun Kil Moon – April
This is fast becoming one of my favorite albums of 2008. Mark Kozelek can do no wrong.

Great Lake Swimmers – Great Lake Swimmers
I was feeling oh so pensive this morning.

Simon & Garfunkel – Bookends
What kind of name of Garfunkel? What kind of name is Elrod? Touché.

Spoon – Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
I resisted this album for a long time, probably because everyone kept telling me how good it is. Don’t resist, give in.

Daydream Nation – Daydream Nation
Ah, bands that wish they were Sonic Youth. And I don’t even like Sonic Youth.

Alphaville – Forever Young
A friend of mine chided me for not playing this on 80s day. See what you made me do. Are you happy now?

Ulrich Schnauss – Goodbye
Or as my wife calls him, “The Schnauss.” Modern keyboard music to get me back into this decade.

Kaito – A Hundred Million Light Years
This guy’s trying to out Schnauss The Schnauss, and doing a pretty good job.

It pains me that I can say this with authority, but getting laid off is different every time. Though the end result is always unemployment, each occasion has peculiarities that make it oh so memorable.

My first layoff was extra special (the first time always is). I was working for an Internet startup, in the heady days of the dotcom bubble. The company focused on live music, concert reviews and listings in particular; whether or not this could be monetized was another issue. When we weren’t skateboarding around the office or playing touch football, I was a content editor.

The company’s offices were in some raw space on the top floor of a loft building in the then industrial and now chichi DUMBO neighborhood in Brooklyn. This was a huge step up from the previous office – a big room over a paper disposal plant a few blocks away that doubled as the owner’s apartment. The new space had huge windows with fabulous views of the Manhattan Bridge and downtown Manhattan, some prefab desks and a bunch of computers. That was it.

Things went along swimmingly for the first part of 2000. I got to go to a ton of shows for free, and then write about them. Sometime in there I even got a raise. It wasn’t enough to retire on, but I was happy with it.

Along about September, the company started to run out of money. The CEO called everyone together and said he had enough in the bank to cover the next month or so of operating expenses. (Pizza from Grimaldi’s was probably involved, as every meeting involved pizza… another perk.) He had meetings set up with venture capital firms and was confident he could secure additional financing. But the dotcom bubble was deflating and investors were no longer throwing money at everything. If the trip secured anything, it wasn’t much. I was still getting a check, so I continued to show up every day. It didn’t occur to me that this wouldn’t always be the case. Oh to be young and naive.

After the trip, the plan changed from securing additional funds to selling the company. There had been talks with a couple of suitors in previous months, and those talks were renewed. One even sent a representative to review the company’s systems. It seemed that I would continue to have a job and could net a small windfall from my stock options. Things were looking up, and then they weren’t. In fact the one serious suitor was only interested in bringing the company’s technology in-house, not in carrying on the company as it was.

The paychecks stopped but the talks continued. The CEO was confident that a deal was still possible and encouraged us to continue working to keep the site viable. I showed up for work for a couple days after the company missed my last check. Others didn’t. I worked from home for a few more days, doing the bare minimum. The potential deal fizzled and the company basically ceased to exist, except online. The site remained live on the off chance that another buyer came along. I was unemployed.

My last couple of checks depended on additional cash in the form of more financing or a bridge loan from a new owner. That cash never materialized, so I was essentially out of luck. Needless to say the stock options became worthless too. Over the next week or so, while management was clearing out of the space, some of my co-workers helped themselves to computers and furniture as compensation. I can’t say I blame them.

In this layoff, there was no official meeting, letter or really notification that I was laid off. There was no severance package or continuation of benefits. No one walked me out of the building or FedExed my belongings to my apartment. The CEO just told us that he was no longer able to pay us, so I stopped working. To his credit, he was upfront (if overly optimistic) throughout the whole ordeal, sharing information as he got it. It still would have been nice to get my last two paychecks. I guess I’m just funny like that.