Tag Archives: unemployment

This isn’t exactly what I had in mind.

Posted on December 1, 2010 | Leave a comment

I failed to find a job in Portland, I lost my cushy spot, and I’ve picked up life at home right where I left off when I was 18.  It’s pretty much the same, except that now if I want to sneak dad’s beers after he falls asleep it happens shortly after Jeopardy.  Oh yeah, and my bedroom is also a storage closet.

If you stare at that poster over the head of my bed for long enough you’ll look a lot like a stoned sixteen-year-old me.  There’s also a nice watercolor print that Mom put up next to my Superbowl XXXI Packer’s poster when Grandma came and stayed here 3 years ago.

There’s no place like home.

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Posted in Corvallis logbook

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That’s life.

Posted on September 24, 2010 | Leave a comment


Last week was a whirlwind.  A number of good things came to me all at once, and no sooner than they had appeared I was watching them fold one by one.  Sometimes you are just soaring through the air with double dolphins, and other times you crash your robot unicorn into a fiery death.  That’s life.

I had some serious problems making numbers at my new new job and fired myself on the second day of my three day trial period.  Right now I’m pretty much right where I left off two weeks ago; unemployed and thinking about my next move. It sucks not being able to stay at a job long enough to get comfortable with it, but I suppose that’s what I get for taking the kind of unskilled work they give people who make parole.

Last week during an uncommon and uncomfortable fit of sanity I realized how much time I’ve wasted in the last couple of months.  In this moment of clarity I instantly started writing and sketching up a series of new journal entries about how my time has been spent, and I’m proud to say to you today that I am now discovering,

More soon.

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Posted in idea book, unemployment journal

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Unemployment Day 95: The Final Day

Posted on September 12, 2010 | Leave a comment

Opportunity Cost
noun
1. In economics, opportunity cost is the next best option foregone.

Chupacabra hunter, ice lab custodian, gay boy-toy and every other Craigslist job I’ve found over the last 95 days are all starting to sound awesome compared to going in for my first day of work tomorrow.  I hate first days.  I get jittery and I wake up nauseous.  The good news is I’m somewhat familiar with the skills I need for this job, so I should adapt to it much more fluidly than I would to the gay boy-toy job.  All joking aside, I’m quite happy to have work.

However, it turns out there’s a problem with hunting for a, “whatever I can find,” sort of job.  The problem is that it’s a lot like fishing for salamanders.  They’re relatively easy to catch, but they’re toxic, and even if they weren’t toxic you’d still barely have enough to eat after you caught one.

Even still, colossal victory for me.  This is not just a part time, minimum wage, consequence of expending the smallest amount of energy necessary to find a way to make just enough money to take care of myself.  This was fucking destiny, man!

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Posted in unemployment journal

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