How I Lost My Job

At least I wasn't ungrateful for my job while I had it. In fact, I said (more times than you could shake a stick at) if I ever lost this job I didn't know what I would do because I would never be able to replace it.

"This job," for the past 12 years, was as senior producer for ScienCentral, a production company specializing in science video, whose news division operated as a public service and not-for-profit thanks to grant funding, mostly from the National Science Foundation.

Like any type of journalism, science media coverage is always at risk of being eclipsed by "sources" with political/financial agendas, only, you could argue, even more so since the language and techniques of science can be mystifying to people not trained in science. The mission of ScienCentral News was to employ science journalists, in a publicly-funded environment not beholden to any particular organization or interests, to put science, medical, environmental and technology news in front of regular folks. And one of the best ways to do that is still local TV news.

Local TV stations these days can't afford to employ science journalists, and ScienCentral News actually gave its video stories for free to local stations nationwide. (The network's contribution in this scheme is the distribution of the stories to all the local affiliates, which would have been an extremely expensive thing for ScienCentral or the NSF to do otherwise.) And it turned out that in fact, if stations were offered a trustworthy, independent source of free science news, they would air that instead of some other crap they get for free

In fact, my personal measure of how good we were was not how much air our stories got, although that was often measured in millions of viewers. It was the very few times when one of our TV network media partners, which distributed our stories to its national network of local affiliates, actually opted not to feed one of our stories about a discovery that was both really new and potentially controversial. And then later, after our reporting proved trustworthy as always, they would end up covering the story after all, only instead of airing our scoop they would be playing catchup.

But this was a rare occurrence because our reputation was known, which was that pretty much the only thing we didn't approach with skepticism was the scientific method.

Uniquely, as part of its NSF-funded obligations, ScienCentral's impact was actually measured by independent researchers. The result was that you could say the project was a demonstrated success and it would be an accurate statement even by scientists' standards. The main finding was that people remembered seeing our stories on TV, and that they remembered the information they learned from those stories. Our stories increased scientific literacy in the general public, something the general public sorely lacks.

So, on a normal workday for me for the last 12 years, I got to be at the leading edge of a small band of independent science journalists adhering to exceptionally high standards and employing a really effective and even beautiful medium to report and explain the most important new science research, while also sneaking in lessons about how such research is done and inviting thought and debate about its implications for peoples' lives and public policy, all in 90 second bits of airtime complemented in-depth by topnotch Web reports.

Ie, filling a much-needed gap in trustworthiness that is now (IMHO) gaping.

We lost our jobs in June with no notice and no severance, because the whole company suddenly went under.

One day we were busily producing and the next, I got a phone call from the CEO saying our NSF funding, which had made up more than 60% of our budget-- had been suddenly withdrawn, guaranteeing bankruptcy, and that we would be paid "through yesterday."

I can't pretend to know financial details that may have played a role in the agency's sudden decision to pull the plug, but I know this: ScienCentral News was able to produce 5 science news stories a week, on deadline, on an annual budget about the size of one PBS documentary production. It was the only truly independent organization of its kind, and despite its shoestring budget, it covered science news better than any other science video news outlet no matter how you define "better.

The amount of the grant that would have keep us going another 3 years was probably on the order of $2 million. I would like to see any other project create a dozen professional jobs putting out such a value-added product for that kind of money.

One of the ways ScienCentral did that was to allow a couple of its most experienced employees to telecommute, like I did from my home in Oswego County. So they were able to pay me a good wage by CNY standards that was much less than they would have needed to pay me to be located in Manhattan where the newsroom was based.

Which is why I'm so out of luck now-- there's not much call for what I do in this neck o the woods, even without the worst recession most of us have ever seen. But with all of journalism shrinking and what's left of it in a persistent state of devaluation, I am in good jobless company.

I do find it amazing that after surviving 8 years of the "anti-science" Bush administration, the funding such a pro-science project was yanked under the administration that's supposedly about restoring science to its rightful place

Meanwhile, plenty of companies that made huge financial mistakes were being rescued because they were TBTF.

ScienCentral was far from TBTF, and sadly, it will probably not be terribly missed because it's not the job of viewers to notice the difference.

Being Interviewed

So I got a job interview, yay! Now that it's over & I wait while they talk to other less-qualified candidates (LOL), I get to obsess over how I think it went or didn't go, get excited about the prospect of working & the difference I might be able to make in my community if I got this job & worry some more about what the heck I'm supposed to do if I don't, etc. etc.

As a TV/video producer, of course I'm used to always being the one doing the interviewing. I'm accustomed to not only asking all the questions, but also possibly commanding my victim to repeat their answer while looking at me, or suggest a different word than "phenotype" or to avoid some tangential moment. But in that role, my purpose is to help them to communicate whatever it is they are doing/finding, so I like to think they generally come away feeling that they were in good hands with me.

For this job interview, one thing I didn't have to worry about at all was what to wear, because having telecommuted from home all these years, I only have one "for good" outfit that's not "for funerals."

Amazingly to me, I also didn't spend any time or energy stewing over whether or not to disclose about the Tourette Syndrome. Back in the days/years after I got the diagnosis, this was a big issue with me because the stress of a job interview can instigate more twitchiness than usual, which can make me self-conscious wondering if they think I'm nervous or a freak or whatever, resulting in a negative feedback loop going nowhere in the direction of the goal.

So, I would float the idea to family members/friends/anyone that maybe I could make it easier on myself by just explaining that I have Tourette, which may be making me appear to be a nervous freak... if indeed that is how I appear... and if not, never mind... and of course their advice to me would always be, T! M! I!

But it has been some 12 years or even more since I had to seriously pound the pavement under pressure, and in the meantime I guess my own attitude about having this or any other difference/quirk/"disability" has solidified-- that being, it is what it is.

I twitched when I really needed to, and during the interview, the subject of the autism spectrum came up, and I not only ably displayed my knowledge of the science all around that topic, but also took that opportunity to mention that I have Tourette and that I have blogged about it.

The other difference I noticed is my self-confidence. I think I now exude a lot of it. So that's a new thing to worry about-- does that generate the feeling that they'd be in good hands with me, or might it seem obnoxiously, off-puttingly arrogant?

As for me, true to my nature, of course I inevitably loved everyone I met there and the environment and possibilities, and I have no idea whether that showed or not.

Sigh... with this posting I hereby stop re-analyzing, let it go & let it be what it will be.

Antidepressant Use Up Among Journalists

Plausible headline, eh?

While employed NPR journalists yesterday covered the unemployment of so many colleagues in mainstream media, tears poured from my eyes.

I was stacking wood and had the radio on but it wasn't the coverage. I could be driving to the grocery store or cooking dinner or even watching my dogs delightfully playing and it seems the waterworks can just start streaming down my face lately.

I called my doctor and asked to be put on sertraline, the generic variety of Zoloft, because it has the lowest co-pay.

There have been times in the past when I have taken antidepressants, so I know they can work for me. There were a few months 11 years ago right after my dad died suddenly and unexpectedly of a heart attack at age 63. There were a few months a couple of years back when my family was gone and I didn't know if I would get them back. I still had a job, a career and a profession and continued to perform as well as always, while constantly on the verge of tears.

One of the few things it's actually hard to do while weeping as much as possible is to eat well. One of the easiest things is to smoke, but amazingly I have still not smoked since August 24, thank goodness & the transdermal delivery system.

Anyway, the point of sharing this is that while I can recognize depression, and that even if it has an identifiable cause, it's not necessarily going to get better all on its own.

There are plenty of folks a lot worse off than me, and I know it. There's the frckn earthquake in Indonesia for God's sake. I have a partner who has a job that greatly decreases the chances of us losing our home, and includes domestic partner health insurance so that I could even consider getting an antidepressant.

But even though I can tell myself clearly and intelligibly that I need to move on, buck up, count my blessings, don't worry, enjoy today, keep the faith, make myself useful, do the things I need to do, etc., etc., those tears just keep wanting to flow.

I suspect that somebody hiring me to do what I love doing and am really good at would have the same effect that I expect this medication will start having in a few days or weeks. But since the former might not happen anytime soon, I decided I needed some help.

The other day I actually took out the book, "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff-- and It's All Small Stuff" from the library and it didn't help. Then, coincidentally I saw this really great Guardian piece, "Welcome to the Bright New World of Positive Thinking" about people-- like me-- trying to make themselves feel better while the world falls apart-- brilliantly engulfed by google ads marketing same.

Asking my doctor for the cheapest generic antidepressant asap is not going to end the current Great Depression. But I did just come across an opening to inquire/obsess about so I am going to go do that, hoping that if I actually get an interview one of these days my eyes won't be leaking all the way there.

Look Like a Witch?

If you are receiving unemployment benefits, you know that when something comes in the mail from NYSDOL you had best open it right away to see what they want.

So imagine my pleasant surprise when what came in today's mail contained zero threat of loss or reduction of benefits even in the fine print.

Instead, it was the delightful October 2009 issue of Oswego County Workforce New York's "Connect for Success" newsletter featuring a fantastically hilarious Halloween-themed take on job-searching!

Here's the header & lede:

"Spooked By the Thought of Job Searching?

Fall is here and Halloween is fast
approaching. Do you enjoy trick or treating
but the thought of job searching scares you
to death? The “treat” part of job searching
is when you get the job! However, there
are some “tricks” to job searching so let’s
review those."

And here's my favorite ""treat"" bullet from their ""trick"" list:

"Look Like a Witch? Before you
frighten potential employers away,
check your appearance. The trick to an
appropriate job search look is not to
overdress or underdress. Neat and
clean will never be out of style. Jeans
with holes in them, t-shirts and
sneakers may be appropriate for trick
or treating but not for job searching.
Neatly styled hair and no perfumes or
after shaves will be the trick to getting
the employer to ask you to join their
team."

HA HA HA HA HA! I love it when my tax dollars are not only workin for me but doing so charmingly and entertainingly!

Here's the link again to download the pdf. Don't miss this Halloween """treat!"""

Email Angst

Besides stressing the finances, feeling like a shiftless loser and wishing I had chosen a different profession, the worst thing for me about being unemployed is not knowing what to do every day.

When I was working I knew exactly what I needed to do each day, and the first thing I would do is check email. There would be lots of them, most emails I had sent yesterday would have replies by this morning, and one might even contain some really big news for me to jump on immediately. Before my first cup of coffee was finished I would be totally involved in my productive, salary-earning day, and if I was on deadline as usual, your email to me that was unsolicited or not urgent might need to wait until later for a reply.

I still check email first thing but doing so is now fraught with angstful issues. Today I happen to be hoping for a reply to an email I sent yesterday following up on a job I applied for last week, so just watching my mail load is pretty trepidatious because what if there's no reply, or worse, what if there is a reply but it's rejection? Or possibly worse, a good-news/bad-news reply, like an offer of less than half your former salary?

There's no reply.

But as I write this, new emails do trickle in every few minutes to top off the angst tank.

I have some friends, some of whom still have jobs, who are keeping an eye out for work leads they might forward to me, and I also belong to several professional associations (a couple of which have dues coming due that I need to worry about paying) that have email job postings.

So if a job posting actually arrives that looks potentially appropriate for me, I can swiftly switch gears to angsting over how I can compete for the position with my simultaneously-terminated colleagues who are better geographically situated, who I need to know at the employer to get my resume noticed, and what the odds are that it even likely pays a fair salary. Then it's on to fretfully composing a cover letter about my least favorite topic-- myself-- knowing full well that there is no chance in hell that my writing on that topic could possibly reflect my science news writing and producing abilities. That best-case scenario is extremely rare these days-- it's happened exactly once since I lost my job.

More frequent but still rare, a posting or lead comes in for which I am apparently over-qualified. In that case I first spend a while and some excess energy deliberating my desperation level before proceeding to the above procedure. That has happened a couple of times in the 3 months I've been unemployed.

More frequent than that is more evidence that it's not just my job and not just my career but my entire profession that's vanishing, like this in my inbox yesterday:
"Research Penn State's Web magazine, www.rps.psu.edu, is looking for a
freelancer to write an article for its column Probing Question.
http://www.rps.psu.edu/probing/more.html Approx. 500 words on a timely
question with mainstream appeal, quoting a relevant Penn State expert.
We pay $200 per article. Please send a couple writing samples or links
to..."

$200 for 500 words. The "going rate" for freelance reporters paid by actual journalism outlets used to be $1 a word, and you would be able to charge more than that for "PR" work, not way less.

The idea of voluntarily contributing to that devaluation along with the prospect of having to wonder when and if you will actually be paid anything at all makes the thought of becoming desperate enough to even consider freelancing enough to trigger some serious nicotine craving.

And by far most common lately is this moment's situation, that being no new leads at all.

That task completed, I can get back to stressing the finances, feeling like a shiftless loser, wishing I had chosen a different profession, and praying that God will let me know load & clear when he opens that window.

Ready, Set... Ready?

I am starting this blog hoping not to continue it for very long. In fact, the reason I didn't start it in the first place was that I didn't plan to be unemployed for any sort of duration, so of course I wouldn't have the time to commit to it.

I also figured if I were to blog I would end up publicly revealing that I have opinions which I am not supposed to have being a journalist looking for work. As well as publicly revealing other weaknesses or un-self-confident-appearing things that don't help one find a job, like that being unemployed is stressful, depressing and hurts one's self-confidence.

But a writer is what I am, my sister thinks it might help other members of the swollen ranks of America's jobless if I share my experiences, and I have now been on the unemployment roll for 13 weeks with no end in sight.

That's long enough for the NYSDOL to send me a letter scheduling me for the mandatory "Ready Set Go" Re-employment Services Workshop, which I attended yesterday afternoon along with 20-some other Oswego County job seekers.

The instructor (not sure what to call him, but picture a classroom) said that when the workshop was begun several years ago, he named it "Ready Set Go" because it was an efficient summary of local employers and professions that were hiring that could turn folks loose on appropriate openings in a hurry. But at the moment, he admitted, nobody is hiring.

Still, he went through his Smartboard slides, pointing out here and there when something was out of date-- an expected plant expansion that didn't, a newly-opened business that's no longer, and actually several restaurants recently closed for nonpayment of taxes.

At the end we all had to sign a form showing we had attended and choosing 3 other workshops we would like to be mandated to attend in order of preference by writing 1, 2 or 3 in the boxes next to the titles-- even though I had to do this when I first registered for unemployment and I know for sure I didn't select anything with as basic-sounding a name as Ready Set Go as any of my choices 12 weeks ago. Generating the depressing vision of being scheduled for a resume writing workshop in another 8 weeks or so.

Coincidentally, in the meantime I had already signed up for an overview of funding opportunities for re-training, tuition, etc. That session was yesterday morning, and it was interesting that they emphasized that their funding comes from DSS not DOL. After it we got to meet individually with a counselor, who told me that it was very unlikely with my college degrees and transferable skills that they would pay to help send me to tractor-trailer school even though that has traditionally been a dependable occupation in our county. I told her I expected as much since I had recently gotten a new puppy who turns out to get car-sick on any ride longer than 10 minutes so I figured God was trying to tell me something.

She offered me a password for a free skills-proving and -upgrading website called Metrix Learning and I'm going to give that a tryout. Will let you know how it goes.

PS, my other "trying-to-guess-what-God's-trying-to-tell-me" message I have taken so far from this experience is that it's really, really, really time to quit smoking because no matter how addicted I am, I can't justify spending any money on smokes while worrying about paying the mortgage. I am now on day 24 of no smoking.