I, like so damn many other people, am unemployed. Well, technically I'm trying my hand at my dream career -- freelance writer, but I'm making so little money in that that I'm pretty much unemployed. The government considers me unemployed. Another friend said to me (referring to herself), "A freelance writer is pretty much a glorified housewife." Goddamnit. I'd been laid off before, but I was very lucky to be offered a job a couple of days after leaving the first job. This time I wasn't so lucky. The economy was already in the toilet in April, 2001, and terrorist attacks last fall didn't help at all. I was lucky enough to get some severance, and when that ran out, I became part of a huge club of people from all walks of life. We were the Unemployed. The ones that Stand in Line. Well, not just yet. The glories of technology has finally been adopted by the North Carolina government, and the unemployment offices have a website where you can submit your paperwork! "Huzzah!" I said. As a web developer, I was much more comfortable in the position of sitting at home in jammies submitting a web form rather than Standing in Line. (I never knew what one stood in line for, especially since they mail the checks to you, but I know through many rock ballads that Standing In Line was what one did while unemployed.) The website wanted a lot of information. How much was your severance (exactly)? How much did you make? When did you work? Pick, out of this list, which job best describes the work you did. That last one was the most confusing. I was a web designer. So I chose the computer careers job. Engineer. No. Tech support. No. Sysadmin. No... So I searched for web design. I got textile manufacturing jobs (attracted, supposedly, by the word "web" although I thought only tailors in EverQuest used spider webs for their craft.) and graphic design jobs. See, it was important to match your job title with their list, because a lot (hah, more on that later) of jobs come through the unemployment office itself and as you beg for money from the government, it's supposedly trying to help you find a job like your last one. In frustration, I finally went to the "Misc." label of jobs. Mime. Rodeo rider. Showgirl. Still no web designer. I toyed with the idea of claiming I was a showgirl, just to see what would happen. Maybe I could change careers. My legs aren't that bad. However, the fear of defrauding the fun-hating government made me settle on Tech Support Representative as a job listing, and I figured I would tell someone when I Stood In Line. And let's point out the irony of the government having a website, but having no recognition of the job web designer. The mind boggles. So I submitted the form via the web and got a message saying, "Thanks for the form, you must go to your unemployment office within 48 hours to get your job search sheet." I drove to the office, fully prepared to Stand In Line. Indeed, the line was out the door, but moving fairly quickly. Without attempting to eavesdrop, I noticed that the people in front of me were told they would have to wait 20 minutes, an hour, as much as 3 hours. I noticed that there was no line after that -- they had many chairs and tables in the waiting area, and instead of Standing In Line people were Sitting and Talking or Reading. Feeling like I'd been lied to by pop culture, I bravely approached the desk. A cheerful woman who obviously did not give a fuck about my joblessness listened to me say I had been told by a website to come there, and she handed me a sheet and told me to follow the instructions. That was it. No Standing In Line or Sitting and Talking or Reading. I left. As the weeks went on, I applied for jobs and wrote them on my sheet. I would call in and, before I could tell the automated lady that I had made no money that week and therefore deserved to get money from them, they told me to wait for a job listing in my career field. Remember that I'm now a tech support rep, although I can't even download drivers to save my life. After the first time calling in, they "HAVE... HAD... NO... NEW... LISTINGS." None. Calling that number is the best gauge of the economy I've got, better than NPR and the newspaper. Until Stephen Hawking's sister can tell me that there are jobs for tech support reps out there, my hopes aren't high. Over time I learned that I did have a job. My job was to not get a job, write down all the places that told me that I sucked (or never bothered to tell me anything), and go back to the offices and get a new sheet of paper upon which to track all of the people who didn't want to hire me. Not good for my ego, but hey, a paycheck is a paycheck. I had to report in to the office every six weeks to turn in my sheet and get a new one. The first two times, I talked to real people, cube dwellers in suits who also didn't give a shit about me or my plight, didn't want to listen to conversation, simply wanted me to write things down and turn in my sheet. Then, as the economy got worse, they no longer had the manpower for one-on-one meetings. The Sitting and Talking or Reading area turned into the Lurk and Covet area, as the seats filled quickly and the rest of us stood and watched carefully for one of the lucky ones to get up. The uncaring unemployment people would call groups at a time, take all of our sheets and give us all new sheets. Instead of being snubbed on a personal level, we were now being snubbed en masse. Suddenly a solution came to me! The unemployment office was clearly understaffed, and they were seeing thousands of people who needed jobs! All they have to do is hire us, teach us to not give a shit about our fellow man, and they'd have enough employees to deal with all the layoffs! Only... then there wouldn't be any unemployed, cause we'd all have jobs. Then there would be government layoffs and we'd all have to go to the unemployment office, which would get overrun and need to hire others... Wow, economists have a tough job. My first journey through dealing with unemployment has been interesting. Not all bad, but I'm surprised how much it makes me wonder about society. Someone said we're all equal in death, I think we're also all equal in the unemployment office. There are people there laid off from $70K/yr jobs with cell phones and leather jackets, and people laid off from manufacturing jobs in overalls. Unemployed mothers haul around bored children, old men cough, and then there's me, pretending that I'm just watching and learning about the system, and am not part of it, not one of these people with desperation in their eyes, feeling like a useless person in the eyes of society. "How's the job hunt going?" they ask. "Well, I'm looking for more freelance work, I hope to get a contract in soon for another book chapter," I say. "But what about your hunt for a real job?" they say. No matter what I do, no matter how many freelance jobs I get, even if I started to make what could be considered a modest salary, even if I stop taking free money from the government, I will still be in the eyes of society, Unemployed, or One Who Stands In Line. Or even a Glorified Housewife.