I just got laid off for the 2nd time in 2 years. Not sure if my situation is inline with the average shmo because I saw it coming and paid everything off. While I hope I don’t come near the 6 months allotted I will do what I did last time. I will look for jobs that I want to do and that pay more than my last job. Then I will look for jobs that I want to do and pay the bills. Then I will look for jobs that pay the bills. So in some respect I’m not in a hurry to get a crappy job. The money I save by not driving to work and eating out everyday is a tremendous savings to me so I’m in a position of being a little choosy
With that said, I worked 25 years at the same company and the psychological aspect of being unemployed is very damaging, even without direct financial hardship. I can’t imagine 6 months without a job and if I were financially under the gun I would be stressed out. My last job was the best ever but it came with a risk and I’m living with the consequences. I will probably change my strategy to focus on company stability. I’m getting old and this is affecting my retirement.
I agree with the first case. I have been employed steady for nigh on 25 years, so I’d take it easy for those 26 weeks and not knock myself out searching. I have paid in.
But not in the 2nd case. A little sabbatical is one thing, living off the dole for your entire life is another.
It’s only 26 weeks, tops. I can live with someone taking 26 weeks off after 20 years. He’s paid into the system enough so I don’t feel he’s leeching much off my tax dollars.
The writer claims to have been fired for leaving a sexual cartoon of his boss, whom he was screwing, on a dry-erase board in the office. He claims the company sent the office kissup to testify against him to show that he was justifiably canned. He claims the verdict in his favor hinged on whether or not the kissup could see the cartoon’s urethra.
I’ve seen your posts before, Bricker. If I had cited such an outlandish fantasy, and said it seemed sincere, would you have let it slip by? :dubious:
I have a hard time believing that the author is sincere. The thoughts expressed in the article are such a ridiculous over-the-top stereotype of self-centered slackerdom that I believe it was intended as irony.
The point that everybody seems to have missed here is that the writer of the cited piece is not slacking off. A writer who is slacking off…does not write. Does not post 5000-word Op-Ed pieces. Or, in the case of the friend he cited who was not “working”–does not complete a novel.
Unless you believe that writing is not work. Posting on an Internet message board may not be work, but writing something you can sell, and going through what you have to do to sell it, is work.
The second thing, which a few people have picked up, is that unemployment is not welfare and is not a handout funded by your tax dollars. It is funded by unemployment insurance, paid for by your employer, who probably carves the money out of the company budget by paying you less. People who haven’t worked in years don’t get unemployment, and people don’t get it forever.
Maybe a bit off topic, but what do we do with all these useless people? Who’s going to separate out the deserving from the lazy? And how do we punish the lazy without punishing their kids? What about those rich snots who haven’t done shit their whole lives? They deserve to live well for picking the right parents? Why does this lazy slob deserve a Lamborghinni, but the other one deserves to be Soylent Green?
If we are going to err, and Shirley we will, lets err on the side of generosity. “Better angels of our natures”, and all that.
So far as I can tell, the author is absolutely not sincere or in any way serious.
I agree that the attitude expressed is reprehensible, but I see nothing in that hyperbolic tract that leads me to believe that Franklin Schneider is describing actual events in his life.
I’m surprised that so many people qualify for unemployment. In the jobs I have worked, when they want to get rid of somebody, they start screwing with them. Give them contradictory assignments, then write them up when one of them doesn’t get done. Three write-ups, then they are fired for “cause” and aren’t eligible for unemployment. Start complaining about the contradictory assignments, then add “poor attitude” to the reason you were canned.
I’ve never seen a single person receive unemployment benefits that the employer didn’t go along with, but YMMV…
There’s a book called The Official Slacker’s Handbook that says a lot of things like that, but it’s funny. The funniest part is that it’s true; either I or someone I know has done nearly all this stuff for real.
Even if I thought the writer wasn’t joking, it’s still not that bad. He’s essentially saying that the employment market is abusive, and he’s willing to have a reduced standard of living to avoid it. The shoplifting part is a little much, but again, the whole thing is hyperbole. He even mentions that this attitude might have some bad consequences later on!
Why get so worked up about these small amounts which may not be all true? Considerably nastier taxpayer ripoffs go on all the time, involving LOTS of money, by people just as lazy, unproductive and snide as this guy MIGHT be.
My husband was unemployed for 3 weeks last year. Unemployment paid 15% of his previous income. I don’t hear about many people around here thinking that unemployment is a vacation, only people who are used to living on minimum wage.
Some people I don’t have a problem with dragging it out a little. If someone’s been working 20 or 30 years and were screwed over at their last job, I’m all for it. I don’t know about other states but employers here get billed for a portion of unemployment after the worker is fired.
You can contest such a company. I worked for a company that downsized. When I went in for unemployment the company fought it and fought it for all the people they laid off. The MESC looked at who it was and ,Oh them . we will save the trouble and approve it. Fight them.
Better rethink that strategy before the hammer falls on you, especially if you plan to look for a job that is anywhere near as good as your present one. Half a year can go by mighty fast.
I take heart in knowing that, if the economy continues to tank, some of you who think that we unemployed are enjoying a vacation will get the reality check you apparently need. I had made a point to not get in as deeply in debt as a lot of people, but what I take home from UI will still not cover my mortgage. The COBRA insurance extension was a joke because the monthly rate was FAR more than I get, and it is only because of public aid that we can afford our daughter’s seizure meds.
OTOH, I get more than someone who made less at his old job and it is more than minimum wage, and I assume that is so that my job search is subsidized and I am not forced to take a bunch of part-time jobs to get by. The State is interested in me finding as good-paying a job as I can find in the few months I’m on UI because it is better in the long run for the economy and the tax rolls. To that end, I’ll log off now and get back to the search.
The very fact that you’ve brought up the author’s sincerity suggests to me that you suspected a whoosh.
I beilieve that article was designed to inflame by presenting a bullshit false attitude.
I’ve been on unemployment and have known many people who’ve been on it as well, and the only ones who look forward to it and enjoy it for a while are those who are temporarily laid off. You have no idea of the bullshit and record keeping that is required to maintain your benefits. The smallest error in reporting will result in a delay of a cheque by at least a month, And they won’t tell you that your check isn’t coming. You’ll find out several days after the cheque is due and several hours pushing buttons on your phone to connect with a human being. Being on unemployment is a very stressful existence.
The anecdotes are certainly invented and the whole thing presented as hyperbole, but, as far as I can see, the attitude expressed - that is the point of his piece - seems to me intended to be sincere; moreover, many seem to basically agree with it.
I think people who find this piece outrageous do so not because Franklin Schneider got fired for drawing a picture of a naked women on the blackboard of a supervisor he was sleeping with (something which I’m pretty sure only happened in his imagination), but from the attitude of entitlement expressed - that those of us who work for a living are just suckers that this fellow feels no remorse about fleecing so he can spend his time in creative loafing.
No doubt a certain troll-like pleasure in the righteous indignation he would create factored into the writing of this piece, but that doesn’t affect the fact that the attitude expressed seems genuine (and most people have in fact encountered some who hold it).
Well, I checked out other pieces of his writing, and here is a column from 2005 in which he describes a similar history of holding many different jobs, as well as a general antipathy to the generic work environment. In other words, this column is consistent, factually, with the one under discussion.
This blogger comments on yet another Schneider piece, this one about his break-up with a girlfriend; the piece contains this narrative:
Does learning this information cause you to change your mind? Or is Schneider creating an entire fictitious life out of everything he writes?
