Unemployment, Jobs , and Purpose

I would not be able to talk about being unemployed without first talking about employment.  
                 

Since 1982 I have been working in many different occupations. I originally was going corporate with a background in advertising sales. I was a pretty good advertising salesman. I was not from the "Madmen" time, but more of the Charlie Sheen, "Wall Street" era. My partner and me were out in the field selling advertising space to local businesses for a local Free TV Guide magazine.

We had a mentor, Candido, who we looked up to because he was the only Latino with a six-figure income that we knew of. He worked for AT&T before the breakup. He was responsible for negotiating major technology and corporate deals. He worked his way up from an encyclopedia salesman to an executive account representative. He was responsible for the original ATM machines, called MAC (money access center). These machines appeared all of the sudden throughout the city.

I was doing everything to make it.  Both my partner and me who would later become my brother -in-Law, Roberto were trying to break out of our lower social environment.
I felt that my future was set. I asked my girlfriend, Roberto’s sister, to marry me on New Years Eve in 1984, even though I was broke. All of the my sales profits went back into the business. I was on my way to corporate bliss. I had become a confidant sales account representative. I was bringing in real money for the ground floor enterprise. I had negotiated thousands of dollars in advertising contracts. If I hadn’t invested my commissions I would have been earning about a thousand dollars a week in 1983.

I was married at City Hall in April of 1985 and celebrated with a humble gathering of friends and family at the house I grew up in. My father cooked up a feast and I was happy to be married. I had all of the confidence in the world and a real faith in my abilities and my future, when my whole plan fell through.

The Monday after, I found out our partner, Randy Williams, a squirrely looking man who looked liked like an African American version of Paulie from the Godfather, stole all of our liquid assets and disappeared. Roberto had his safety net. He had applied for a civil service job and was hired some time before. I, on the other hand was fully physically and emotionally invested into the business and had no such net. 

I was devastated and experienced my first bout with depression. For those that don’t know, depression is not the normal feeling down or sad. It’s usually the overwhelming inability to deal or bounce back from a crisis. This was my first crisis. This was supposed to be my path to financial success and freedom from my humble beginnings. It was not the future that my wife and I had counted on. This wrecked my confidence and forever affected my relationship with my wife. It probably affected all of my subsequent relationships since.

After loosing my chosen path and falling without a net I had to find more earthbound work. I eventually after some time started delivering pizza while my then wife was delivering my son Charles (Bobby) Robert, then eventually finding a retail sales job at Buster Brown Franchise store.  I worked my way to assistant manager and became a Mallrat. The funny thing about working retail  in a Mall is that you get to know what’s going to be on sale at the other stores before the public does. All of your friend start asking about getting a discount. Fortunately for the discount, I was able to shoe both Bobby and Sarah, My daughter. I was also able to maintain a new wife, property and a living, even though it was not to last.

In 1993 was laid off due to the store that I worked from was closing and went back to school for some time. I was separated and divorcing at the time and put all of my angry energy to school. After that I ended up doing and AmeriCorps Term of service. That was 1995. I became more interested in making a difference in children and their families’ lives. I had found my next purpose.  I have worked the next 17 years in non-profit in children, teens and family programs for community centers. I had always felt that I needed to have a purpose. Being unemployed had made it challenging to say the least to continue with a purpose.

I felt that the good that I did would come back to me somehow.  I have gained a lot of experience and consider myself very capable of doing many different things. I have been a supervisor, interviewer and workshop facilitator and yet I still feel unprepared for the job seeking experience that I am currently doing.

I was completely caught off guard with my being laid off of my last job. I had been told the whole summer that things were rough. I was given extra responsibilities because I had the right "Skills-Set" and facilitated some life skills training at the high school level. This made me think that I was a vital part of the organization. The fact that I could be in different positions within the organization made me realize that I do have certain skill sets that were vital to the organization. Even when I was told that I would be let go, I thought that at the last minute things would turn around. They didn’t.

I was devastated. I did not tell any of my co-workers until the last day. I was angry that I worked so hard for the summer. I had been working sick. I didn’t know that I had diverticulitis and was in constant abdominal pain.  I continued to work the summer subconsciously trying to prove my worth to the organization. My sacrifice for the job made the realization even more devastating. I usually have a comedian’s sense of humor. If something happened bad to me I would find someway to make a story out of it. I would tell my coworkers these stories. I would say things like, " You know Marriage is temporary, Divorce is forever!” I had nothing to say that day. I worked as if everything was normal. I told a few coworkers and left. I had been thoroughly embarrassed.

Being unemployed as a young man is different from being unemployed at near 50 years old. It doesn’t matter that the economy is bad. It’s a blow to my abilities that I was not able to be smart enough to avoid it at my age. I just couldn’t move back with my parents and pick myself up. This is my third crisis I will talk about the second one later. I tackled the crisis like the others. I try to get busy in order to get my mind off the crisis.

I applied for unemployment and signed up for job search through the state. The state’s sight is not the place to look for work. I know from my experience as a recruitment representative. The State’s career site posts jobs that are rarely looked at by the employers. When I was on the other end looking for applicants I would have to physically logon to the site. The candidates that were being recommended had no experience in the positions that I was filling. The other job sites aren’t that much better.

I do the usual applying to jobs via the Internet and wait for calls that do not come. Sometimes I don’t even get a confirmation. I used to look in the newspaper for the job listings and send resumes or show up to advertised hiring events. Those days are gone. I am constantly looking at my resume to make sure its different and that that might be why I am not getting any calls. Sometimes I get sick of looking at it.

I was telling my students during the summer when facilitating work readiness training that the job applications process is actually designed to reject applicants out of the process. In this economy with so many people applying for so few positions hiring managers design the process to go through many applications. There are even companies that have set up apps just to process applications without any human review at all.

Having that knowledge doesn’t make my job search easier. The hardest thing about applying online and never knowing how you are doing. You never get a call and you cannot call anyone to check on the status of your application. The government site is not worth it at all. There is no guarantee that your application is even getting looked at.

I recently went to a career fair in which the venders did not have many jobs. They were offering trade careers in bar-tending, cosmetology along with for profit colleges. I felt that I was being taken advantage of. It was a real waste of my time.

I try to remain hopeful and am continuing my job search. I am old school.

Job means purpose.

Elvis, Moms and Simply chicken

 

When I was in 7th grade I became an Elvis Fan. I had always been aware of the great legend. When Elvis died August 16^th, 1977, I was bombarded with Elvis movies, music and documentaries. My first Convention was an Elvis one, not Star Trek, as most of my friends believe. I bought memorabilia and album after album. I met some of his back up singers and was thrilled to be there. I was trying to get all of his work. 

I had seen all of Elvis' movies and liked them. I started to dress like him. I started to play guitar and sing his songs. I eventually gave up singing (I couldn't sing) and took up drums. I eventually became a professional drummer for a while as a young adult. I had Elvis posters along with now lesser-known the Beautiful Jayne Kennedy , who according to her was too black to be an actress on Charlie’s Angels. I also had, of course the black velvet zodiac signs in my room. Elvis' image had the wholesomness of being a good guy, but could also be attractive to women. Since I was a goodie-goodie I waned to be more like Elvis. 

I felt a common bond with Elvis because of his legendary closeness with his mother and his love of music.

I would hear stories about Elvis and the special relationship he had with his mom. I also knew that Elvis had a twin that didn't survive birth. I had brothers that didn't survive. My would be little brother, lived for 6 hours and was even named Mitchel. I sometime wonder what my life would have been like with a younger brother. Like Elvis, I  was the only male that survived.  

I began to alter my clothing to look like his Las Vegas Jump suit, Wide legging my pants, I bought large collar leisure jackets and walked around the house saying “Ugh,ugh, That's alright momma", and "Thank you very much !" in my best Memphis Elvis accent.

My parents have been together for more than 65 years. I have always considered myself lucky to still have them. The same is true today as it was back then with most young struggling parents; the further along the family ages the further in fortune and prosperity. Since I was the last-born, I didn’t have to experience the struggles that my sisters might have had growing up. Although we were far from financial security, we were comfortable. Through my father's work ethic and my mothers rearing I was always clothed, fed, and at 6 years old had my own room in a house that my parents purchased in 1970. A 3-story brick row-house in Nicetown Philadelphia. 

I remembered my mother would sing as she cooked diner. I could tell by the smell of sofrito. The aroma of garlic, peppers onions and cilantro sauteing permeated the whole house. She would be listening to my cousin Alberto Martino's afternoon radio show.  He was pioneering Latin Disc Jokey in the city at WTEL, the local AM Spanish station. She never liked cooking. She was just taking care of her family. She would pass the time singing along to the songs that came over the radio into the house. I would be watching Gilligan’s' Island or The Monkees, until dinnertime, after I did my catholic school homework of course.

My mother has a combination of strong-mindedness demeanor with a compassionate nature. She never liked hearing bad news. She was so empathetic feeling others pain, that she that she would get sick. I get the feeling that she had some kind of clairvoyance or empathic ability. 

Now it’s a  real possibility that she may go to a nursing facility against my wishes.

 I was a momma's boy and now proud to be, but wasn’t always. There was no way of getting out of that role. I was the 4th child and as mentioned earlier, the only boy that survived. My mother had seven miscarriages in her life. They were all males. From the 50's to the late 60s she would have incomplete pregnancies. 

I was also in danger. I was born 2 months premature. I was placed in and incubator, an isolation chamber in which I could mature until I reached 9 months. It was thought that the incubation would help with the development of a premature baby in those days. My mother was not able to touch or hold me when I was an infant. Preemies are very sensitive to touch. This is probably why I have issues with close contact. A hug for more than 3 seconds and I am uncomfortable.  She always made me feel special. 

My mother cooked the usual Puerto Rican dishes. I never knew the following dishes were poor food, like: Plain Rice and Beans, Potatoes and Bacalao with Olive Oil, Rice and Eggs and even Rice with canned Corned beef. Once in a while my mother would cook something that no one else cooks. 

Whether it was necessity, ingenuity or both, my mother did make a stewed chicken that was very good and simple, even without sofrito.

Recipe as follows

Ingredients

• Whole fryer Chicken cut up in pieces
• 2 cups diced Onions or 2 large onions
• Water, enough to cover chicken and then some
• 1/3 cup White Vinegar
• Salt &Pepper to taste
• Half teaspoon garlic powder

Place chicken in boiling water.

Dice onions and add to the stewing chicken, add rest of ingredients and stew at medium heat for about 45 minutes. The chicken will be tender and you can serve it over rice or vegetables.

My mom was and still is a native New Yorker; she had an adventurous spirit and always liked to go out. When I was younger she would just pack herself and me with some clothes,  get on the train and end up in either Brooklyn or the Bronx with relatives. She didn't worry about planning too much or even when she was lost. She always eventually got there. 

I believe I have adopted this philosophy of not planning vacations too much. I usually just plan a destination and go. Mom is about to go to a nursing home now. She wishes to see her great grandchildren and is not able to. She wants to visit Puerto Rico and cannot go. She never learned to swim, but loves the ocean and is not able to feel sand or the water. She is limited physically and has been confined to a wheel chair since 2006. She makes her wishes known and I have tried to accommodate them. Whenever I visit them in another state. I make sure we are going out somewhere. 

Her spirit is still there but her body has been betrayed by the one impulse that her and millions like her cannot resist. The desire for sweets and the slow degeneration of the body due to diabetes. It is my hope that she finds comfort soon.

I love you Mom

I feel sometimes that I have failed because I haven’t been able to be successful enough, prosperous enough to make her life more comfortable.

In choosing to help others with all of the Youth Work that I have done in the last 20 years. I have failed to help my own. It is a regret that I will have to deal with. 

Life sometimes gives you second chances. I have a grandson.