Bait and Switch (6 page)

with Kimberly, which I admit I haven't done very well—she once

"SO? Then you ARE thirty-seven!" she announces tri-utilized the "dance" metaphor to tell me, "We're dancing, umphantly.

but we're stepping all over each other's toes"—has been part

"But you can figure out my age from my resume, which lists the of the training process. I can be what I want to be, is the year of my college graduation."

message, so long as I act like I believe it. I am ready, or almost

"Absolutely
don't put your graduation date on your re-ready, to press on out into the world.

sume," she advises, "and eliminate all the earlier jobs. It shouldn't go back more than ten years, fifteen max."

two

Stepping Out Into

the World of Networking

All the web-site advice I have gleaned about job searching emphasizes the importance of "networking." At first, in my innocence, I had envisioned this as a freewheeling exercise in human sociability, possibly involving white wine. Joanne and Kimberly, though, have impressed on me that networking takes hard work, discipline, and perseverance. When I informed Kimberly of my intention to launch the networking phase, she caught me up short with a demand to hear my "elevator speech." This, it turns out, is a thirty- to forty-five-second self-advertisement, which in my case, Kimberly suggests, should begin with "Hi, I'm Barbara Alexander, and I'm a crackerjack PR person!" In one of our phone sessions, Joanne shared with me her own elevator speech—it turns out that she long, close-fitting skirt that creates a definite mermaid effect, too is job searching—and when I ventured that it sounded a bit greets me in the corridor and directs me to a table where Ted, stiff, she confessed to not having fully memorized it yet.

also about fifty, is presiding over the name tag distribution. He wears Hours of Internet searching have netted me a "networking a wrinkled suit and tie, set off, intriguingly, by a black eye. No, event" only two and a half hours away at the Forty-Plus Club he instructs, I am not to take a red name tag; as a "new person,"

of Washington, D.C. Founded to help middle-aged executive I am assigned to blue. Looking off to the side a little, perhaps to job seekers during the Depression, the club attracted to its first draw attention from his eye, he confides that the networking will advisory board such corporate and cultural luminaries as Tom proceed until 10:00, at which time we will be treated to a lecture Watson, the founder of IBM; James Cash Penney, of JC Pen-on "New Year's resolutions for job searchers."

ney; Arthur Godfrey, the TV personality; and Norman Vincent Time is short, so I get right down to work, going up to my fellow Peale, the author of
The Power of Positive Thinking—whom
I job seekers, introducing myself, and asking what kinds of jobs take to be the intellectual granddad of Kimberly. Despite their they're looking for. About fifteen people have drifted in so far and establishment origins, the nineteen Forty-Plus Clubs around distributed themselves among the chairs arranged insemicircles the nation are the closest thing one can find to a grassroots or-around a podium. All are middle-aged white guys, and I manage ganization of the white-collar unemployed. The clubs are run to successfully connect with several of them before the seats fill up, entirely by volunteers, conveniently drawn from the pool of hampering my efforts to circulate: Mike, who's in finance; Jim, unemployed, middle-aged, white-collar people.

who is also in PR and, alarmingly enough, has been looking for The event starts at 9:30 on a rainy January morning, at an seven months. A man who identifies himself as a media manager impressive address near Dupont Circle, although the actual latches onto me next, relating that he is bitter—his word—because space turns out to be a dark, almost belligerently undecorated he gave eleven years to Time Warner and has just been laid off in basement suite. Pamela, who's about fifty and dressed in a some inexplicable corporate reorganization, leaving him with two teenagers to f e e d a n d e d u c a t e . S o t h e s e a r e m y W h e n I n o d i n a g r e e m e n t a n d s a y t h a t I a m a l s o

p e o p l e , m y n e w constituency—men, and now a few women,
consulting—a

term I've learned to substitute for

who will go home as I will to a desk off the dining room and
freelancing—
he observes that "that's what they want us an afternoon of lonely web searching.

all t o be —consultants." Because then they can use us when I had worried about not having an elevator speech prepared they need us and get rid of us when they don't—no benefits or but none of the people I talk to offers one, much less asks to other entanglements involved.

hear mine. What were Kimberly and Joanne thinking of? Most At 10:00 the meeting is opened by Merle, who explains that the of the job searchers present wear expressions of passivity and

"core program" of the Forty-Plus Club is a three-week "boot mild expectation; clothing-wise, few have advanced much be-camp" aimed at turning newbies like myself into mean, lean, job-yond the sweatpants level. Going by such superficials alone, searching machines. I find myself slavishly cathected to Merle; she I'd be surprised if there's another ENTJ in the bunch. In fact, is beautiful, for one thing, about my age or a little younger, and even as the place fills up with a total of about thirty people, all in awesomely poised. I take her to be my female executive template—the same white and over-the-hill demographic, I notice that I'm kindly in tone but brooking no deviations from the business at the only one systematically working the room. One of the later hand. She says she's been job searching for nine months—which, arrivals, Michael, barely responds to my smiling overtures, given the setting, must be meant as a qualification for her burying his head in the
Washington Post.
From him I move leadership role—but the information is definitely disturbing. If on to Frank, a rumpled-looking fellow of about sixty, who says such a paragon of executive virtue can go jobless for almost a he is a consultant in financial matters.

year, what hope is there for someone in my situation?

"Do you know what's wrong with Bush?" he asks me. "He's Merle introduces our guest speaker, Joe Loughran, a former "Wall never had to work; he's had everything handed to him on a sil-Street Associate" who has a Harvard MBA and now runs his ver platter."

own business as a career coach, or "transition accelerant" as the brief biography on the Forty-Plus web site puts it. A large, Merle, who has never abdicated her position at the front of the mild-mannered fellow turned out preppily in khakis and red room, steps forward to ask, "What have some people done to sweater, he begins with a bit of self-deprecation on the theme of manage?" I want
Joe's
job is what I am thinking, which seems to giving up chocolate as a New Year's resolution—he "would have involve no more than note taking and serving, in his brilliant red trouble with that"—and then seems to have trouble sweater, as a human stoplight. But solutions to my problem of relinquishing the chocolate theme, getting tangled up in how

"scheduling" are pouring in as fast as I can write them down. "I resolutions can have a "domino effect": you don't buy a new make a daily schedule including Internet searches and exercise,"

suit because you're waiting to lose a few pounds from the chocolate one woman contributes. "This forces me to be accountable even if deprivation, and then, because you don't have a new suit, you don't I'm the only one in the room, managing myself." Someone else go for an important interview. The lesson would seem to be: don't adds, "I set the alarm for the same time I did when I was working.

bother with resolutions; lecture over.

I get up, shave, dress, just as if I was going to work." Another But things pick up when he asks us what obstacles we face in solution: enroll your spouse as a "supervisor," to remind you "you our job searches. A half-dozen hands go up, offering such said you were going to do such and such today "

obstacles as fear, inertia, embarrassment, procrastination, This advice comes as a surprise: job searching is not joblessness; it is money, "nonlinear career path," and the mysterious challenge of a job in itself and should be structured to resemble one, right

"staying up." I catch Ted, who is standing against the wall, nodding down to the more regrettable features of employment, like having to vigorously at each of the obstacles, suggesting that he knows each follow orders—orders which are in this case self-generated.

of them all too well. Joe is doing his best to keep up on a flip Something about this scenario carries a whiff of necrophilia. I think chart. I throw in that I get overwhelmed by all the things there of the fabled resident of old Key West who somehow had his are to do, lack priorities. This is recorded as "scheduling."

beloved's corpse preserved in a condition congenial to continued At this point I am expecting some solutions from Joe, but physical intimacies for years after her death. So, too, we are not to accept joblessness but to hold on desperately to some faint be especially prone to Calvinist angst. We often credit some simulacrum of employment.

activity with the phrase "at least it keeps me busy"—as if busyness Everyone agrees on the necessity of managing oneself much as a were a desirable state regardless of how you achieve it. As I later real boss might, although this presents immediate conceptual learn in Harvey Mackay's business best seller
We Got Fired! . . . And
problems: if "selling myself" had seemed like a tricky form of
It's the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Us,
job searching, self-objectification, "managing myself" takes the process even properly undertaken, should be far more time-consuming than an farther, into the realm of mental cloning. I picture the actual job: "If you have a job, then you might have the luxury of Barbaras splitting off into worker-Barbara (the one who sits at working 9:00 to 5:00. If you're getting a job, then plan on twelve to the computer and searches for jobs), product-Barbara (the one sixteen hours a day."
18

who has to be "sold"), and now manager-Barbara (whose The alternative to manufactured busyness is flat-out de-responsibility is to oversee the other two)—all contending for pression, as a large gray-haired man seems to confirm when, in an dominance in the same cramped office space. I recall that one of apparent non sequitur, he raises his hand to caution that the mysterious "Core Competencies" in the scheme developed

"introspection can be very powerful if you do it in the right by Morton, my first coach, had indeed been "Managing Self."

frame of mind. Otherwise it can get you down." One wonders But the theme here, I am beginning to see, is pain manage-what dark nights of the soul he has endured in the course of his ment and structured grieving. If you have been spat out by the search, but for Merle and Joe, his comment serves only as a great corporate machine and left to contemplate your pre-segue to "staying up," which amounts to maintaining a win-sumed inadequacy, it makes sense to fill the day with micro-ning attitude, even in the face of despair. Here the grim Calvin-tasks, preferably supervised by someone else. Imagining one's ism of self-management suddenly gives way to a wan search as a "job" must satisfy the Calvinist craving to be doing hedonism: We should go to the gym, networking with other gym-something, anything, of a worklike nature, and Americans may 18 Mackay,
We Got Fired!,
p.56.

goers while we're there. Have lunch with a friend. Make a list ha ha—and out of solidarity I try to join in. Otherwise, though, of things you enjoy. The dark-haired, somewhat exotic-there is an appalled silence.

looking woman sitting next to me, who has been looking for a We move on through Health and Money to an obstacle Joe communications job for six months, leans over and whispers calls "the Gap" and identifies as a chronological defect in naughtily, "I take antidepressants. Do you think I should shout one's resume—caused, for example, by a spell of unemployment.

that out?" We both giggle, although it isn't really all that funny.

This may be a measure of my extreme naïvetè and longstanding We are on to "Fear" and Joe asks what we are afraid of.

distance from the world of regular employment, but I had not

"Failure" comes up in various forms, and I add "rejection."

realized that being unemployed may in and of itself disqualify one for There's no dodging fear. Joe exhorts us to "get in its face," and a a job.
19
Joe wants us to acknowledge the Gap, accept it, and woman, who I later learn is a career coach herself, stresses the emphasize the bright side of it, such as what we learned while need "to really feel your fear." This seems to delight enduring it. I raise my hand and ask, "What if the Gap was Pamela, who has remained standing, like Merle, though off to homemaking?" I'm expecting at least some nods of the side: "That's honoring your feelings!" But fear, once faced, is commiseration from the women in the room, but I might as well quickly abolished. As Joe summarizes the topic, "The point is, have announced that I've devoted a chunk of my career to collecting what is there to be afraid of? It's Nike. Just do it."

welfare. Joe looks away uncomfortably, forcing Merle to step Now Pamela has an idea: laughter, specifically, "artificial forward and promise that this subject will be dealt with "in boot laughter." At least you start with artificial laughter, which can camp." Ted, from his position near the wall, speaks up to suggest magically evolve into the real thing. She produces a five-

second-long laugh, followed by "See?" But the fake laugh fails to 19 A period of unemployment is also likely to damage one's credit rating. In a fiendish catch on; most people are looking at her with slight alarm.

catch-22, 35 percent of U.S. companies now run a credit check as a condition for employment, up from 19 percent in 1996—making it far more difficult to bounce She tries again in a higher register—Ha ha ha ha ha, Ha ha ha back after hard times. See Marie Szaniszlo, "Employers Turning to a New Kind of Ref Check,"
Boston Herald,
December 12, 2004.