A recent (December 15, 2009) New York Times
article by Michael Luo and Megan Thee-Brenan
titled “Poll Reveals Trauma of Joblessness in U.S.”
pointed out that four in ten were suffering from
depression and anxiety. The article speaks to the
struggles of real people here in the United States.

And while the government speaks in macro terms,
using Gross Domestic Product, Worker
Productivity, and all that other jargon, most of our
citizens are frantically asking, “How do I get a good
freakin’ job?”

That’s right—the $64 billion question on everyone’s
mind these days is, “How do I make something
happen?”

It's now 4:30 PM; I'm in our Westchester
office, and about an hour ago I received a call from
my boss to meet him here now. He pulls into the
parking lot as I'm standing outside in the rain with
another member of the executive staff, who
happens to be a good friend of mine and called me
crazy when I told him what was about to happen.
Five minutes later, and in the sales manager's office,
my boss (with watery eyes) tells me he is being
forced to eliminate my position. "I knew that," I say,

"but let’s hear the creative reasoning behind this
decision. This has got to be good."
"Your department is profitable, and you've
created a very solid staff, who care about their jobs
and would never let the department fail," he says.
"You've already laid out the next year, and your
team will execute your plan. By this time next year,
the rest of the building will hopefully recover and
we'll be in a different position."

To make a long story short, I basically did
this to myself. While I was busy creating a team that
could function and perform independently so I
could focus on creating new revenue streams for the
team to continue to physically execute, I was
actually putting the company in a position to
eliminate a high-salary position that might not
affect the existing performance of a profitable
department.

The worst part of it is, when I put
aside the fact that it was me being eliminated and
looked at from a business standpoint, I sadly could
actually agree with the decision. Well, maybe. The
fact is that my department is so well organized and
possesses such extremely talented individuals
among the personnel that everything we’re currently
doing and planning can probably execute almost
flawlessly without me. They won't be creating
anything new and exciting for a while, but they’ll
certainly be able to maintain what they currently
have. And so I shake my boss’s hand as he holds
back his tears and walk out of the building

Memorial Day weekend of 2008, I hit an all-time
low…and I will never forget it. Driving home after another
fourteen-hour workday, I stopped into the
Exxon station to fill ’er up. As I went through my wallet, I realized I had
no money. I quickly scoured through my glove
compartment, ashtray, and any other compartment to
amass whatever loose change I might have dropped or
squirreled away. The net-net was that I found a whopping
$3.89—just enough to get me home.

Amidst the muddled and angry thoughts and
emotions coursing through my system, one thing became
crystal clear to me: I needed to find a new gig.…again.
But how?

I had poured everything—and I mean everything—
into this restaurant. I had lost contact with most of my
networking group; and the economy was on a downward
spiral. Not exactly the best of circumstances to uncover yet
another opportunity. It was a time of sobering
reassessment.

Shortly after our wedding day, October 18, 2008,
the new boss showed up. And guess what? He wasn’t there
to make friends…that’s another thing I was 100% sure
about. He’d barely finished his first cup of coffee before
he started splitting up our units. This can’t be, I was
thinking. I had everything down pat, and now I was being
cast into a new role.
That’s right—in a New York minute, I went from
being an operations analyst, who developed processes, to a
communications analyst, who communicated processes.
That’s kind of like uprooting an engineer and planting
him in the marketing department. I mean, really, I don’t
know what they were thinking.
But I do know what I was thinking. And that was
that I was no longer a valued employee there, but rather,
lucky to have a job. Pfft!
Late in the first quarter of 2009, the mindset at my
company mirrored that of 99% of the businesses across
the country: We were hanging on for dear life. It got to
the point that I was even afraid to go to the bathroom too
many times in the same day. What was even more eerie
was that people who had been friendly (even bosom
buddies) for years were starting to look at one another cross-eyed.
Funny how recessions bring out the worst in
people, isn’t it?
A few visits to Human Resources ensued…with no
particular encouraging results. For me, it was the winter of
discontent. There were long days, quite a few tears, and
maybe even a little…well, maybe a lot of soul-searching.
Was this any way to live—waiting for the other shoe to
drop, dreading every minute of my working day, and then
coming home at night and projecting my sorrows on to
my husband? I don’t recall the exact day, but I reached my
cracking point and that was it. I bucked up and decided
that I had had it. I was not, I repeat, was absolutely not
going to die the death of a thousand cuts. Not me. I’m
better than that!
But what to do next?

It’s now March of 2009, and things are getting
desperate. Both my home phone and cell phone ring nonstop,
and it’s not my friends and family calling. You see,
they know better. They are all well aware that I’m down to
the $49.99 plan and it’s not the one with the rollover
minutes, either. So who’s calling? That pain-in-the-ass guy
from the bank who’s looking to discuss modifying my
mortgage and equity loan. And that’s all well and good,
but my $400 a week Unemployment check is the only
income I’ve got. And that just about covers the food, gas,
and utility bills. I simply don’t have money to pay him,
and so I allow him and the rest of those collectors the
privilege of hearing my recorded voice every day.

On March 15—the day that would have been my
husband’s fiftieth birthday—my daughter Shatara calls me,
and we talk about Daddy. It’s one of those
mother/daughter conversations you never forget. You see,
up till now I’ve been hiding just how desperate my
situation has become. I even went so far as to lie to her
and her sister, Sharisse, and to tell her that Daddy and I
had socked away some money.
And why did I lie to my baby, you may inquire.
Well, I’ll tell y’all why: I didn’t want to distract her from
her studies. You see, Shatara, unlike her sister, Sharisse,
who thinks she’s the next Tyra Banks, is studious. My
baby carries a 3.5 GPA over at the university. But, you see,
she’s also like her mama. She worries.
But tonight is different. Tonight, I just can’t fight it
anymore. It’s too big for me. So I break down and confess
to her that I may not be able to hold on to the house and
that we may have to apply for grants next semester.
She goes on to say to me, “Mama, maybe I should
quit school for now, come home, and get a job.” Well,
that hits me like a ton of bricks. But as weak as I am, I’m
not gonna have it. No way…not after all the struggles
James and I endured.

But what the hell am I going to do next?

I told him, “I haven’t talked to the president or
CFO yet. And yes, we are down a bit, but the bigger issue
is, we just got acquired by a private equity firm. These guys
are expecting a rate of return, and they’re probably cutting
the fat (or what they perceive to be the fat). We went on to
bitch about the changing landscape of corporate America.
I mean, really, since when do private equity firms own
publishing companies?
I arrived home that night a beaten young man.
Yeah, I still had my job, but was this the beginning of the
end?

Soul-searching…know the phrase? It’s something
every single one of us does at some point in our lives when
we decide it’s time to make a change and figure out what
we’re really capable of when we’re going to start doing
something about it. So here I was, soul-searching and
starting to feel real uneasy about things. And I mean all
things. A few months back I had just bought a house in a
nice area of North Jersey. That nice house in that nice
area came with an executive mortgage, and if the property
taxes were any higher, they would make your nose bleed.
Welcome to the big leagues, kid, I was thinking. By the way,
the house was all part of a larger strategy. You see, I had
plans to propose to a woman I had been with now for a
few years. Not that I was looking to complicate my life any
more than it already was; I was just searching for that
feeling known as happiness…which is becoming
increasingly more difficult to find today. Or so it seems.

But what the hell am I going to do next?

Ahh yes. Who among us can forget the celebrated lyrics of
the Beatles’ 1970 masterpiece, “Let It Be”? Well, my
friends, I’m sorry to say, you can’t afford to just “let it be.”
You can not afford to sit around waiting for the so-called
stimulus money to stimulate, nor would it be wise for you
to pin your hopes on some “green jobs” initiative. You need
to take some action. You’ve got bills to pay, children to
feed, and gawd forbid, a retirement to factor in.

So, what are you going to do next?

You see, I have this deep-rooted belief that we all
are created with a special set of skills. Some people
cultivate them and become wildly successful, while others
allow them to stay dormant all their lives. Look at me: I’m
forty-three years old and writing a book. If that’s not proof
positive, I don’t know what is.

But whether it’s inside or outside the proverbial
box, whether your skills are analytical or creative, and
whether you are thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, or even seventy years old,
you still have that gift.