Job Seeking

I had an interesting conversation the other day. I was sitting at my desk, upgrading a spreadsheet to automatically notify us when it was time to order more components for one of our product lines, when the phone rang. On the other end was a salesman for a metals service center. He was just doing what salesmen do, cold calling to try and find potential new accounts.

We talked for a minute or two, and quickly established that my company doesn’t use the alloys he carries. He started to apologize for taking my time. I told him it was okay. After all, I’ve sat on the other side of the desk, trying to drum up new business. No reason not to be polite. If you never talk to salesmen, you’ll never find any new opportunities.

On a whim, I asked him how his business was doing. Business was slow, but he was surviving. Since most salesmen are at least partially paid on commission, he had to have been working harder, for less money, than a year ago. My bonus won’t be as good as it was last year, so I’m in the same boat. I told him that qualified us both for the category of under employed. Working, but not making as much as we used to. Of course, that beats the crap out of unemployment.

Then I mentioned that I didn’t understand how some people could fall out of the unemployment statistics because they had “stopped looking for work.” I don’t know about you, but about every six hours I get hungry. If you have no source of income, and you’re not looking for work, how do you keep buying groceries?

The salesman told me a story. He had two close friends, and all three of them had been laid off within a short period of time. One had found a new job within a month. He had looked for a couple of months before landing his current position. Then there was his other friend.

His other friend had been laid off from his previous job last October. It’s closing in on a year without work. The last time the salesman had visited his friend, the guy had said he had given up looking for a job. Between unemployment compensation and side work as a mechanic, the friend was just getting by. When reminded that the extended unemployment benefits were about to run out, the friend replied “I don’t think that the government is going to let me starve.”

Well, this is ostensibly a democracy. So can I register a vote on that?

Seriously, this makes me think that a lot of the people who have “stopped looking,” have stopped because they are still getting benefits. When their benefits run out, they will rediscover a sense of urgency about generating more cash flow. This may not take the form of another job. Some of those people will work a lot harder at their side business. Or they may lower their expectations and take on multiple part time gigs.

If you lower your expectations while you are still on unemployment, you risk losing your benefit. If the jobs available pay only a little more than unemployment compensation, why take the job? But once the benefit checks stop coming in, your perspective will change.

After all, you gotta eat.