Seriously? We are entering another holiday season in unemployment mode, while Wall Street goes back to giving fat bonuses to the wise guys who got us in to this mess in the first place? I hear that unemployment isn't expected to get back down to 5% until 2017. Sobering. Who wants a beer?
On the bright side, unemployment benefits got extended 10 months, so that's something - a mortgage-paying something.
I just read an opinion article in the Chicago Tribune about a bunch of unemployed professionals who get together every Tuesday to discuss their job search strategies and encourage each other. The article followed this group's discussion on how to get in the holiday spirit despite their unemployed status. The advice these people gave each other was so quaint. When talking about giving gifts, one man said that last year, when he was first unemployed, he baked hundreds of Christmas cookies and gave those as gifts. Well isn't he just Susie Sunshine? When a mother lamented that she couldn't give her adult daughter (also unemployed) the type of Christmas gifts she used to, someone advised her that she give the gift of her time. Now, do I really have to be the one to say this? LAME.
I know it is nice to be on the receiving end of those gifts. I like to get Christmas cookies and I like to spend time with people I love. My point is, it's one thing to bake hundreds of Christmas cookies because you like to bake, or have people on your list who love to eat, but to bake hundreds of cookies because you are now broke? Feels shitty. Giving the gift of time can be a wonderful thing. But giving the gift of time to someone who you probably spend considerable time with anyway? Listen, moron. When I give a gift I want it to have required some effort, sacrifice, or thoughtfulness on my part. I want it to be personal. It makes me feel good to give gifts that way, and selfishly, I want to feel good. Giving the same gift (cookies) to every person on my list makes me feel like a robot. Spending my overflowing time with someone I already spend time with hardly feels like a gift.
What surprised me about that article is that the people giving such bad advice are themselves unemployed. It makes me wonder if I'm the only one who thinks their advice is simplistic and naive. I know they are trying to be encouraging. Maybe time and cookies are their only remaining gift-giving options. I know they might not know what else to say. I know, I know, I know.
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