An editorial cartoon recently appeared in the local paper showing a massive traffic jam. In the picture, one driver is standing on the roof of his car, looking off into the distance at lines of cars that stretch as far as the eye can see. Heads are popping up through moon roofs. A sad-faced man leans against his car and looks at his watch. Another grimaces at the viewer. Plumes of steam rise from radiators. A sign with an arrow pointing down the gridlocked highway reads, JOB MARKET, and below the arrow is written, EXPECT DELAYS.
I saved the cartoon in my clip file because, for me, it makes the emotions that underlie today’s unemployment statistics accessible.
As much as I would like to, I simply can’t relate to a number like 236,000 jobs lost in September, resulting in a 9.8% unemployment rate with a total of at least 15.1 million Americans out of work. But I do know what it’s like to sit in seemingly endless traffic.
The longer someone has been out of work, the more important it is for them to stay in regular contact with other people to stimulate their thinking, remind them they are not alone, and help them sustain their confidence.
DELAYED RE-EMPLOYMENT
It wasn’t long after I pulled the cartoon that the scene depicted in it became a reality for those of us who live on Cape Cod.
The Cape is actually an island, separated from the mainland by a canal, and there are only two ways across it —the Bourne Bridge and the Sagamore Bridge. Recently the Sagamore was reduced to a single lane for repairs, creating long delays and a huge uproar.
At first I didn’t realize the impact this would have on me. The week the bridge closed, my husband drove to the Amtrak station in Providence to pick me up, and on the way home he complained that it took him almost five hours to make a trip that usually takes less than two. We’re trapped, he said, and I thought he was exaggerating.
It wasn’t until the following week, when I was stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic for 2+ hours on my way to a speaking engagement in Boston, that the bridge repair got my full attention.
I started observing how people were responding to this significant interruption in their lives, and it set me thinking about what the situation had in common with delayed re-employment. Here’s what I concluded:
Patience.
Like travelers to and from the Cape, it’s going to take work-seekers longer to get to their destination, and this is going to be true for the foreseeable future. The Army Corps of Engineers has told us Cape residents that bridge work will continue through the Fall and resume again in the Spring and probably the following Fall as well.
Richard Bolles, author of What Color is Your Parachute? tells us in his most recent book, The Job-Hunter’s Survival Guide, that the average length of unemployment is now over 20 weeks, and millions of people have been unemployed longer than 27 weeks.
Choices.
Regardless of the disruption, we always have choices, even though they may not be immediately evident. I finally realized that if I needed to go off Cape, I could leave very early, take the longer route over the other bridge, listen to a book on tape, take a walk next to the canal to break up the monotony, etc.
Work-seekers have choices as well. They can ignore the fact that the economy is stalled and be stopped in their tracks by relying on ineffective job-search methodologies such as responding to Internet postings, answering classified ads, going to recruiters and agencies, etc.
Or they can direct their energy down the less-traveled road of learning to articulate exactly what they have to offer so that they can then focus on building relationships and establishing credibility in places where they are able to add value.
Attitude.
Like commuters stuck in daily traffic, work-seekers facing long-term unemployment will have to learn how to deal with the frustration of what is going to be a slow ride.
A positive, or at least a balanced, attitude is the only thing that is going to make their situation bearable. They simply can’t put themselves through the ordeal of getting upset every time they come to a barrier.
Bubble Relief
When my children where small, I kept a jar of bubbles in the glove compartment of the car in case we got stuck in traffic and they started doing what children usually do when confined, that is, fight with each other. I would stick the wand out the window, and as we crawled along at 5, 10, or 15 mph, it would produce an overabundance of bubbles, a source of delight, not only for our family, but also for the people in the cars around us. It was an unexpected response that transformed the situation by providing much-needed lightness and reminding us we were all in it together.
What would provide bubble relief to exasperated work-seekers? It’s a question I’ve been giving a great deal of thought to since I was recently asked by a member of the clergy what could be done to help people who had been unemployed for a long time.
The secret to keeping hope alive is to always have alternatives, writes Bolles in The Job-Hunter’s Survival Guide. Most work-seekers have a pitifully small repertoire of things they can do when adversity strikes.
Focused reading, seminars and workshops which teach people how to use out-of-work time for self-discovery and provide a foundation for finding the work they were meant to do in this world can give a period of unemployment a whole new meaning.
Work-seekers often give up because they reach a point where they are not able to come up with alternatives by themselves, and they don’t know how to access pipelines of other possibilities.
Any form of support—a networking meeting, a book study group, getting together with someone over coffee—where people have the opportunity to genuinely connect with one another breaks the sense of isolation inherent in being unemployed.
The longer someone has been out of work, the more important it is for them to stay in regular contact with other people to stimulate their thinking, remind them they are not alone, and help them sustain their confidence.
It’s a little like carpooling—if you’re going to be on the road longer than you expected, good conversation at least makes the trip more tolerable.
