Take, My Life Please

It’s 9:53AM on a recent weekday and I’m waiting in the express line at the Broadway Super Stop & Shop in Somerville. A little Portuguese man in front of me has decided to pay for $30 worth of groceries with a $20 bill and a Ziploc bag full of quarters and dimes. I’m very much annoyed, as there’s clearly nothing “super” about this store and nothing “express” about this line. But life works in funny ways, and this is how I have felt for several weeks now. Believe it or not, I wished I were back in a cube that very moment.

Yes, that’s right. My name is Michael Ratty, and I’m unemployed.

Thanks to a high-profile corporate scandal, I recently found myself unemployed (I actually prefer “occupationally challenged”) for the first time since college. I enjoy a hard day’s work, so the transition from the regular nine-to-five world to the laid-off junk pile has taken much getting used to. It’s an entirely new lifestyle, one that has allowed me to revisit exciting hobbies like vacuuming and cover letter writing.

It’s a mundane life, this unemployment is. While the rest of the world toils away managing millions, curing diseases and righting social wrongs, I continually tweak my resume so someone so a media outlet will hire me. A bullet here, a comma there. The difficulty is that searching for a job means selling yourself, and if companies got even a hint of my crippling depression, I would probably be deemed more qualified for Bellevue than ‘BZ.

After the initial shock of losing my job wore off, I was able to enjoy the holidays. I set a new standard for punctuality by finishing my Christmas shopping in record time, hitting the CambridgeSide Galleria during the day and avoiding the crazed masses. But once the holidays were over, a harsh reality set in. I was summonsed to a state mandated career seminar that is required for anyone to collect unemployment. The two-hour class was institutionalized torture, where I and 20 other job seekers were taught the basics of how to navigate a search. A seminar named “Shoe-Tying 101” or “Grocery Shopping: Paper or Plastic” would have certainly been more stimulating and thought provoking. My brain was elsewhere, and my self-esteem had never been lower.

After being sat in a large downtown conference room, we were told to introduce ourselves and awkwardly share our previous work experience. The class, as I expected, was a melting pot of people and personalities: the African-American hotel maid, the surly Irish ironworker from Southie, the polished Indian commodities trader from Brookline, the sarcastic redheaded radio writer (me), etc. I imagine this is what a reality show casting call looks like.

Then over the next 110 excruciatingly long minutes we were schooled like children on the fine points of unemployment. The teacher, a portly little cherub of a man, spoke at a snail’s pace and had the personality of a lawn chair. His preparation was clearly second to none, as he simply read verbatim from his PowerPoint presentation. Among the nuggets of wisdom from this billowy butterball were warnings to dress properly and always bring extra copies of your resume to an interview. Brilliant! Who in state government made this class a requirement to receive unemployment benefits? I want their name and IQ now.

Maybe a better question to ask, actually, is this: When did collecting become so easy?
The intricate process of filing my weekly unemployment claim goes something like this:

I dial a hotline and enter my social security number and password. Then I answer four patently straightforward questions:

“Have you actively searched for work this week? If yes press One, if no, press Nine.”

“One.”

“Are you eligible and able to work? If yes press One, if no, press Nine.”

“One.”

“Have you earned income in the past week? If yes press One, if no, press Nine.”

“Nine.”

“Have you moved in the past week? If yes press One, if no, press Nine.”

“Nine.”

That’s it. A few minutes later I receive confirmation that my claim is complete, and that my check will arrive in five to seven business days. That timeline, much like this process, is a joke. When I file my claim on Sunday, I receive my money on Tuesday like clockwork. Unless in the future the state is planning to have Eva Mendes deliver my check along with an ice-cold six-pack of Harpoon IPA, I can’t think of any way to better the process.

As easy as getting paid is, equally as humbling is your parents thinking you’re lower than pond scum. God bless Michelle & Robert, for it is quite interesting to see those innate parental instincts kick in when their child is down. My mother has deemed it necessary to feed me at least once a week with home cooking. Turkey with all the fixings, chicken parmigiana and her world famous roasted pork chops; I’ve been treated to all these and other meals many times over. Even though I have not a drop of Italian blood in me, my mother thinks food has many healing qualities. She sees these weeknights as opportunities for me to tear myself away from Monster.com, chances to relax in a Zen-like suburban oasis of mashed potatoes and free laundry. And all dinners are served with a heaping side of moral support.

But it pains me to imagine that my parents may think poorly of me. I never want to disappoint them. Of course, they still love me because I’m their first-born son. But failure is not something my parents accept, and I would love to be a fly on the wall at their house. Why? When I arrived for Thanksgiving Dinner, my parents noted how good I looked for five strong minutes. Now, why would they do this? I know I’m not J. Crew catalog material, but it shouldn’t have been that much of a surprise that I looked decent. My only conclusion is that because I’m unemployed and live in the city, my parents were expecting five o’clock shadow, pungent body odor and a hovering cloud of Pig-Pen dirt.

My retort?

“Yes Mom & Dad, I still bathe regularly. I still pay my $700 rent. I still even follow most basic social morays. However, when I am lowered to perusing the accommodations of the Pine Street Inn, I’ll let you know…”

On an even more recent Saturday afternoon, I found myself at Starbucks on the corner of Boylston & Berkeley streets. The sun was shining, birds were chirping and people traded parkas and earmuffs for sweatshirts and baseball hats. Why was I sitting indoors on such an unseasonably warm day, while BU students were strutting mightily with enormous shopping bags from Gucci and Coach?

I had just charged a Grande Chai Latte to my Visa. What makes you think I have shopping money?