Opportunity is a dish best served with lots of mustard

When was the last time I collected unemployment? It was September-October of 1992. I had spent the previous 2 months temping as a proofreader at the mighty giant law firm Skadden Arps, and the proofreading supervisor, David Hill, offered me a permanent job at Skadden, which I accepted. However, David explained, it might take a little while for the details of the job to be worked out, so I might need to wait for several weeks before I would be officially hired, but I shouldn't worry, because it was a definite thing.

Well, I did wait, but in the meantime, I needed to get some other temping work, but all my agencies who got me work had forgotten about me since I had been on a long-term assignment, and I would have to work my way back up their lists. In other words, it would take a while to start getting jobs again. So filing for unemployment was the answer.

I know some folks who would rather poke themselves in the eye with a pencil than file for unemployment. It just doesn't fit with their definition of a responsible adult human being to lean on someone else, especially the government, when they are unable to put bread on their table. But I have never felt that way. I don't think there is something noble in not accepting help when someone offers it to you. Rather, I think it's mostly stupidity that would make a drowning man say, "no thanks, friend, I will pass up the branch you're offering me, and keep flailing about!"

I've got nothing against flailing. But I also have nothing against asking for help when I need it. I think it is a sign of maturity to put myself in the hands of others when it is appropriate and necessary, and my experiences in doing so have been vastly positive. But I belabor the point.

So for those few weeks, I participated in the unemployment plan that existed in New York City at the time. As a temp, I was considered an independent contractor, which means that each week I reported how many days I had worked, and for any week that I worked less than four days, I was paid a certain amount per day (I think it was the enormous sum of $80). So if I worked no days, I got $320, and if I worked 4 days, I got nothing. It wasn't enough to make me rich - I'm sure I spent every penny I got, between rent and food and transportation - but it kept me from getting destitute again.

Yes, I had been destitute not long before. You see, in early 1992 I graduated from graduate school at Columbia University, and I spent most of the year clawing my way back from destitution. I temped, I borrowed money, I sold books and records to the Strand and Academy Records. So at the end of the year, with the finish line of a regular paycheck well within my sights, the last thing I wanted to do was accumulate new debts. Unemployment saved my ass, and after about 8 weeks I was hired at Skadden and went off the dole.

Now here I am in 2011, after 18 years of milking the cash cow of legal support work at a total of 5 different law firms. I have decided to turn my back on law firms, and try to do something a little closer to my heart - admin work for music and other performing arts organizations. Maybe even start my own music business. But the phone so far ain't ringing off the hook, and the door ain't falling in with all the folks knocking on it. I'm developing opportunities, but it's a process less akin to digital photography, and more like what Matthew Brady must have done when he took his early photographs using glass panels and cameras that weighed as much as a healthy cows.

Yes, it might take a while. Not that I'm discouraged. I'm entering a new industry at a time of great national and international financial distress. But here comes unemployment to bridge the gap and keep me from the windowsills with other folks who are feeling more than a tiny bit desperate. And I'm thankful for it. I'll take it, and squeeze the money they give me until I get every last drop of sustenance from it. And when I'm back on my feet again in the near future, I will wax nostalgic for the time when I struggled, but didn't give in to discouragement and despair.