Sisterhood of the Travelling Unemployed

After a stellar round of golf Friday, I headed down to Providence, RI for a friend's 30th birthday party. Yes, I'm reaching the stage in life when friends start turning 30. Luckily I was always the youngest one of the group, so I have some time left in that aspectt. We assembled a solid group of "partygoers", always essential for a successful road trip/party etc; Although today I will not write about the good times had by all, I will write about a "sub-committee" that formed that evening. An imaginary sub-committee, formed only in my head, one that I just came up with. However I did learn some things from this so-called imaginary sub-committee of that fine Spring eve.

This sub-committee was formed by 3 of us that night, all of whom happen to be unemployed. Funny that, me writing about the unemployed. The first of which being myself, and hopefully by now we all know my story. Excuse me, my epic story. The next member of the group was Joe, a friend of a friend, laid of a month ago from a job as an inside sales manager. The third and final member was Simone, an old college friend who met up that night, laid off for now for 7 months; she did some type of finance for some type of company. That night I found myself talking to these two most of the night. Out of necessity? Dare I say ney. Out of reality, or the fact that we could relate to something so monumental? I think so.

Joe is a bright young salesman, promoted to inside sales manager about a year ago. When time for his company got tough, surprisingly, Joe was asked to exit stage left. This surprised me as well, for sales are usually the last thing to be cut. On top of a severance, Joe made an agreement with his former company, stating that he could continue to claim he worked there until he found a job. This is a good deal I suppose, however generally I find honestly is the best policy. Joe and I talked a lot about what we are doing to find employment from networking via LinkedIn to networking the traditional way, through good old fashioned human interaction. During our many conversations that evening, I realized that although unemployed, we were both in the process of learning many life lessons, from how to network to how to be frugal, to how to keep the "nose to the grindstone" in times of peril.

Now Simone's story is a little different. She was working in a job she hated, so a lay off came at just the right time. She is married and hubby does well, so she is not in that bad of a position. In addition to a severance and unemployment checks coming in, Simone negotiated to continue to receive paychecks for an additional 6 months after the lay off. This is one of those things where being a strong willed Italian girl from RI paid off. Where as Joe is now looking rather urgently for a job, Simone seemed to be quite content, even telling people she was now a "homemaker."

And that brings us back to the story of one Mr. Utley. I see myself as having an advantage over these two, an advantage over all the casualties of this recession (the laid off). I am voluntarily unemployed. I chose this path, in search of much greener pastures. In search of the dream job, in search of happiness, in search of a better life. And as you can probably tell if you read this regularly, life's not been that bad. But I know there's more out there for me, and as I have said, I am determined to find it. While I may not collect unemployment or a severance I believe I possess more in terms of intangibles. The things that cannot be taught. Yup, I got those, thank you very much. I have my head on somewhat straight with my eye on the prize.

And this time off has forced me to find life lessons wherever I can; on the ski slope, the golf course, the bar, a late night cab ride, etc; It took a night out with some new faces in Providence to realize that although we are unemployed, we are picking up valuable skills and lessons that the employed are simply not. Yes they may be collecting paychecks, but life is not all about paychecks, my friends. Yes, the are certainly essential and certainly nice, but life is made of more than just money. Don't get me wrong, I want to earn buttloads of money, but I'm looking for the bigger prize: Eternal Consciousness. Which encompasses everything I've written about here On Sabbatical.

And unfortunately for me, I have not caddied for the Dalai Lama just yet, so I must find this "eternal consciousness" on my own. For now.