Tenth Anniversary of Redundancy

April 1, 2012 marked the 10th 'anniversary' of unemployment for me. Some friends wonder why I don't simply say that I'm retired [to the extent that is accurate, it's clearly an unrequested and forced retirement]. In some ways that might be an easier designation for my employment prospects. I'm kind of partial to the British labor term redundant, in reference to being laid off or terminated, to describe my situation. I've surely felt quite redundant these last 10 years! As in 'too many highly educated, well-experienced, over-50 year old males for the present state of the American economy'.

I'm hardly alone in this predicament. The unemployment reports are continually rife with comments that, regardless of the 'official unemployment statistic', there are 4 - 6% more people who have become so thoroughly frustrated with looking for work that they have dropped out of the 'job market' altogether, and therefore aren't included in the 'official' unemployment figures. I've read other articles that note that, for many people over 50 years of age, they may never be hired again in any position that has the same level of salary and benefits that they had before termination, and may not be able to obtain any form of employment at all. The American economy is so battered and anemic that older, more experienced workers are facing the same dim employment prospects as many newly minted college graduates, many of who can't find work with which to either support themselves and/or pay off their massive student loan debt.

Whenever I read that someone has been out of work for 8 months, or even for a year and a half, and then found work again, far from seeing that person as someone who should be pitied, I see that person as being rather lucky. After a fruitless 10-year job search, during which I've submitted several thousand resumes and engaged in over 300 job interviews, I no longer even have the illusion that employment is possible.

On the other hand, it's not as though I'm starving. Actually, I'm in the rather unusual position of having some inherited income, enough that I own my house, have a good quality workable vehicle, adequate food in my stomach, and some flexibility in my income stream -- not enough to take many trips, but enough to adequately survive without profound anxiety. On the other hand, I haven't had health insurance since 2004, but do have access to a welfare health system which affords me a caring and competent physician for no monthly health premiums. If I ever end up in the hospital, though, the expense would probably break me financially, but I'm hoping against hope that I can maintain reasonable health until 65 when Medicare kicks in. 

So, though I'd very much like to have some decent employment that engages me in something that stimulates my brain, I'm not desperate for employment (like I was between 2002 - 2004, before these other funds became available to me). Still, I am very much aware of the issues that are prevalent in the employment market and keep my knowledge on the subject quite current.

Back in 1997, when I was working on an MSW (Master of Social Work) in New Mexico, many professional people I knew there said "Oh, when you finish your MSW, along with the MPA (Master of Public Administration, which I had earned at the University of New Mexico in 1978) that you already have, you'll be an eminently qualified person for professional employment." Well, those were indeed positive thoughts, but life just didn't work out that way. I attended one year of graduate social work school in New Mexico in the 1995-96 academic year, then worked at my practicum agency as a contract employee for another couple of years. My supervisor, who had become a very supportive colleague, motivated me to complete my MSW education, saying it would come in handy later. During 1997-98, when I had a contract with the State of New Mexico as the statewide Shaken Baby Syndrome Training Coordinator [one of the most enjoyable and challenging jobs I've ever had], I applied to twelve different graduate programs around the country, hoping to gain admission so that I could complete my 2nd year of graduate school social work education. (I was most unimpressed and not sufficiently mentally or academically challenged by the graduate program in New Mexico.)

In 1998, 5 of the 12 schools offered me admission, and after visiting several of them, accepted admission at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri (where I continued to live after graduation). I graduated in 1999 and then pursued a Graduate Certificate in Nonprofit Management at the University of Missouri, which I obtained in 2002. I kept thinking (with an increasingly forlorn perspective) that all of this graduate education would ‘come in handy’ in a job search. But, alas, the reality was quite the opposite of my expectations. Upon graduating with my MSW in 1999, I could only obtain short-term, part-time contractual positions. I was able to finally gain a professional position as the project director for a statewide anti-smoking coalition, but after 7 months of administrative hell, willingly resigned from that position in 2002 (shortly after finishing the graduate certificate in nonprofit management). From that point on, I began a job search in earnest, but found -- much to my dismay and frustration -- that all of the graduate education I had obtained largely guaranteed continued unemployment. It turned out that the more education I obtained, the more slender my job prospects became.

I was increasingly confronted with the paradoxical ‘overqualified, under-experienced’ syndrome. I had too much education and experience for entry-level positions, and not enough professional experience for management positions. Plus, I was facing the unofficial [and illegal, but nonetheless widely practiced] over-50 age discrimination reality of the job market. Between the poor employment market I had faced for 25 years in New Mexico and several bouts of long-term illness, I had never really been able to manifest a steady ‘career’ in anything that was actually marketable. I was a veteran of over 60 electoral campaigns, but none of those skills were considered to be relevant by most employers (in spite of having wide-ranging experience in management, volunteer coordinator, budgeting, marketing, and all the other required skills for getting people elected to office in the United States). 

For far too many jobs that I applied for, the candidate who was ultimately hired had considerably less education, experience, and skills, and was half my age. Or, if the person was equal in qualifications, the position went to a female, since increasingly social work and/or nonprofit management positions are obtained by women, given that the boards of directors are primarily female. (As a feminist man, I’m actually quite supportive of employing more women in management positions; it’s just that, regardless of my political or ethical position, I’m also the subject of failing to obtain management jobs for precisely those reasons. One of those great paradoxes in life!) 

Hence, I was confronted with a most profound and frustrating obstacle: all my experience, education, and skill acquisition, combined with being a ‘seasoned worker’, actually operated against me, rather than being a benefit. But once you’ve obtained all of that, short of falsifying your resume (which has it’s own ethical and moral problems) and denying that you have this education or experience, there is no backing out of what you’ve gained in life. You’re stuck with what you thought would be of benefit, but which turned out to be seen by many employers as a deficit. 

Therefore, the job search has since become an exercise in futility. To say that I’m a discouraged job seeker is to put it mildly; after a while, the act of looking for work simply drove me into a deeper and deeper sense of depression and desperation. I still apply for work on occasion when it seems that the position requires skills that I have, but I no longer have any expectation that I will be interviewed, and less hope that I will be employed even if the interview is completed respectably. I am now only too aware that all the talk about older workers being more respected for their experience is just so much hokum. And equally aware that the American job landscape has changed so radically that there is no telling what employers are actually looking for in terms of “what would make an applicant qualified for employment”. It’s all far too subjective. There is no longer any kind of stable ‘benchmark’ upon which to base a credible job search.

The one ‘anchor’ I had available to me was my work on men’s emotional wellness. In 2003, I applied for and obtained federal nonprofit tax status for Mariposa Men’s Wellness Institute, my own nonprofit organization (of which I’m the sole, unpaid employee). I searched for grant funding for the organization, but quickly realized how few possibilities existed for funding nonprofit ventures focused on men’s issues. It appeared, for a while, like there existed some possible funding from the Missouri Foundation for Health. My first application was rejected, but when I approached the foundation officer about what I could do to enhance my application for funds, their initial response was to note that they were actually quite impressed by the venture (“you’re the only organization in Missouri who is discussing these issues”) and to encourage me to apply again, after I had obtained collaborators and a fiscal manager (or pass-through accounting agency). They stated that they were willing to consider a grant of $1 million over two years (instead of $1.5 million over 3 years, as I had originally applied for) assuming I could manifest those added features to the organization. But when I returned, a couple of months later [in 2004], with those enhancements, first they said their Board had postponed consideration for several months, and then, the following year, that a new Board had a quite different agenda and men’s wellness was no longer ‘in the mix’ of their funding priorities.

So, here I am, 8 years later. As noted, I’m not starving, and in fact have been able to cobble together a reasonable life, with the help of my modest inherited income. I don’t have health insurance (and, unless or until the new health care law takes effect, can’t obtain any kind of health coverage, at any price, due to a significant pre-existing condition). But I have a roof over my head, food in my stomach, a joyously positive interpersonal intimacy with a delightful female partner, and a part-time staff position as an usher at the St. Louis Symphony. Plus, I volunteer usher at 6 other venues around town, allowing me a rich cultural life for no monetary outlay (between 150-200 performances a year). And I have a wealth of time to work on projects -- such as my Unitarian Universalist congregation’s Board of Trustees; writing blogs and maintaining the website for Mariposa Men’s Wellness Institute (plus a couple of other community websites); learning how to make competent use of various Apple software packages; and focusing on my continued emotional healing from childhood incest and torture. As my brother often points out, having time to work on projects I enjoy is a rare treat that very few workers have available in their lives, at any point. 

A colleague in my church recently said his perception of me is that I’m “gainfully unemployed”, which I found to be (and which I’m sure was his intention) a most paradoxically interesting combination of terms. It’s true that I’m largely unemployed, in a ‘wage’ sense (except the part-time ushering position), and that all of my graduate education and experience presents an egregious obstacle to ever being professionally  employed again, but I’m clearly not vegetating in the midst of that unemployment. I’m intensely gainfully engaged in marketing and spiritual support in my religious community, deeply engaged in work on men’s emotional wellness, and have served on several community Boards of Directors. I just don’t get any kind of payment for all that work (other than from my family, which is no doubt a profound blessing to me as an adult, especially after all the traumatic negativity of my childhood). 

As a blogger, I never know what effect I will have on my readers, or even who is reading my blogs. (This is not to say I don’t get feedback -- indeed, I have received a fair amount, especially after the articles on my relationship with my father -- but that there are many people who read my thoughts and don’t respond or post comments.) What is important for me is that I’m engaged in work that I find intellectually and emotionally stimulating, even if I never obtain a dime for it. This is not to say that I wouldn’t be overjoyed to eventually find funding for Mariposa Men’s Wellness Institute; indeed, I keep my eyes and ears open for such possibilities. But whether that ever occurs will not, I hope, discourage me from continuing to pursue, via these articles and the MMWI website, a devotion to working on and discussing aspects of men’s emotional wellness.

Being paid for our efforts is helpful (we all have to economically survive), but I’ve been thankfully blessed with the opportunity to pursue my interests in spite of not being able to obtain employment. And in some paradoxical ways, it is that lack of employment which has placed me in a better position to pursue my intellectual interests. It’s most interesting how our lives turn out; often not as we expected them to, but then we can never be aware of all the potential possibilities when we construct our expectations. To be able to understand that time, in and of itself, can be an aspect of wealth and happiness has been one of the most profound spiritual breakthroughs of my life.