This blog has been moribund for a long time, mostly because I’ve been trying to undo the job loss that prompted this blog in the first place. That layoff was in 2009. The job in question was one the very best I’ve ever had working at a university I co-founded. I gave that job my all, only to see investors get control and kick the non-corporate types like me to the curb in the name of dealing with the Great Recession.
At the time, I had what I thought was a damned impressive resume and an equally remarkable network built up over the course of that project, plus many years of strong experience in the workplace. I figured that at the very worst, finding a job to replace the one I had lost would take perhaps six months. I never imagined that part-time employment would be the best I could do after nearly four years.
Not that I’m not still searching. I’m just not looking as much, or with the same level of expectation. If a job finds me, great. Doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result is a well-known sign of insanity. It will also drive a sane person to madness. I must conserve what sanity I have left.
We have a conceit in this country that I have both mocked and embraced. It is that we are the masters of our fate. Anyone can succeed and find their way out of the economic shallows with enough hard work, smarts, and playing by the rules. This blog has followed that dictum to some extent, but has also insisted on different rules that push back against some of the cultural subtexts of that conceit, such as “rugged individualism.”
I’ve played by the rules, mostly. I worked hard to educate myself and have a Ph.D. from one of the world’s top universities to prove it. My work ethic is excellent. I learn very fast and can think creatively and laterally. I get things done. I can manage projects. My communication skills are first-rate. I am very, very employable, but remain under employed.
As an aside, one excellent reason for keeping people employed is that if they spend too much time outside the working world looking in, they will start to see just how much of what goes on is pure crap, how much the whole thing rests on pretentious illusions of significance and twisted definitions of prosperity.
But I was reassessing. It’s clear by now that I am not going to find a regular job anytime soon. As time goes on, someone like myself is less likely to be hired in a traditional job. It’s also clear that I am not necessarily an outlier. “Job growth” has been mainly in jobs that, frankly, suck. Low pay, no benefits, no health care, no pension, and no permanence. Temp jobs are where it’s at now. About 50%–half!--of all American are one serious financial shock away from dire poverty, if they aren’t there already. Upward mobility has all but ceased to be. Fighting and winning against the odds is admirable, but beyond a certain point it’s also a fool’s bet.
There’s even a new word for people like me, like us: the precariat. We are the ones on the precipice, in ever-precarious financial straits. It’s a good description. The Presidential election results mean that things might not get worse, and may get a little better. Maybe. Signs of turnaround are in the headlines, and I see some cause for optimism, but our economy as a whole is still precarious. There are too many ways it could still come crashing down again. I have zero confidence that this Administration is going to make the real changes needed to protect people like me, let alone help us find out way back to regular employment. My faith in the Captains of Industry to pull us out of this is deep in negative territory.
Since there is a neologism for people like me, it seems that this is how things are going to be for awhile. Maybe a long while. I do want to get back to writing on this blog, mostly because after so long with so little worth reporting, I think I now have new objectives for myself. It is clear that making a living in the usual way isn’t an option for many people, so we must learn to live in our own way, with a different kind of economy, perhaps even a different kind of society within a society.
But I also need to state clearly that I’m not just looking at survival. I mean a rich, full, aesthetically pleasing life that allows us to grow and thrive, create, and give back. Can one still be of significance even from the margins? That’s what I plan to explore in future posts.
