On “Turning Over a New Leaf” and Other Decade’s-end Clichés

For roughly the last nine years I have been clinging to the comforting promises my favorite English professor offered me whilst shopping for alcohol at a local grocery store. The summer between my junior and senior year of college, in 2001, found me interning at a publishing company in Des Moines and spending my spare time with a friend whose romantic life was far more interesting than mine. As fate would have it, she found herself unceremoniously broken-up with one weekend, and since I was newly 21, I was in charge of picking up some beer with which she could drown her sorrows.

I wasn’t in the booze aisle for long when I looked up and noticed the professor who had taught my short-fiction writing class walking towards me. Although I’m usually paralyzed with fear at the thought of having to write fiction, I adored my short-fiction class almost as much as I adored this professor. After she asked for my beer-buying advice (and I am far from an expert), I explained I was there picking out something for my lovelorn friend. She groaned sympathetically and wished me and my friend good luck in handling romantic disasters to come. I can’t remember for sure how our conversation went from mundane to memorable, but it eventually resulted in her telling me that life would get easier in general by the time I got to my 30s. “I promise you, it gets better. Your 20s are so much harder.”

It’s a good thing she told me this then, because things got a lot harder after that summer. A few short months later 9/11 happened, George W. Bush settled into office and my own physical health threw a giant wrench in my plans for the future. Things started to rebound in 2006-2008 with the success of my stimulator surgery and the landing of my best job to date. However, 2008-2010 has been a rollercoaster that I’ve documented pretty thoroughly in this space.

One of the benefits of being born at the tail end of 1979 is that every time the world marks the end/beginning of a new decade, I get a nice, even number to start the decade with too. For example, I turned 10 right before 1990, and turned 20 in time for the beginning of 2000. This year is no different – I turned 30 shortly before the dawn of 2010. Somehow this makes all the looking back at the last ten years -- and forward to the next -- all the more cathartic. And it’s for this reason that I so welcomed the age 30. Turning 30 is giving me a chance to “start a new chapter of my life.” [That sounds a lot less cheesy when I say it in my head].

If you’d asked me a few years ago, I probably would’ve admitted some dread about reaching the big 3-0, citing hubris such as lack of professional or romantic success and financial instability. I had one friend who celebrated her 29^th birthday two years in a row, and another who celebrated her Sweet Sixteen instead of age 31.

But for some reason, the opposite happened to me. At least six months before my 30th birthday, I began overusing the “But I’m almost 30” excuse to rationalize far too many decisions and actions: “I’m almost 30 – that’s too old to still own a futon. It’s time for a real couch,” or, “I’m almost 30, for crying out loud, applying for entry-level jobs is beneath me.”

So far, all signs are pointing to good things to come in this new decade and for my 30s. Nearly every birthday, Christmas or New Year well-wish I received this year contained a variation on a theme: “2010 will be your year,” or “I’m sure your 30^th year will be much better than your 29^th.” One pair of thoughtful friends went so far as to give me 30 gifts and 30 cupcakes. I can’t think of a better way to put a sugary spin on some rough years.

One of my closest friends, who also turned 30 two days after me, sent me a new journal as a gift. There's an inspirational block of text on the cover and on the back of the notebook that I'm briefly excerpting here:

"She's turning her life into something sacred: Each breath a new birth. Each moment, a new chance...It is here where she must begin to tell her story."

Fitting, huh?

I have been far from alone in enduring the trials and tribulations of this decade, but even Time magazine’s morose “Decade From Hell” article offered some glimmers of hope, and all things considered, I have many, many things to be grateful for. And some day I’ll try to look back at the last ten years and count all of the lessons learned and why it was imperative that I remember them. But until then, I’m gonna stuff those memories back down for a while, and party like it’s 1999 all over again.

A Word on Cheerleaders

Back in January, when the global economic crisis started to directly impact my own bank account, I figured I wouldn’t gain any meaningful insight until the end of my ordeal. I thought that once I finally landed a new job, I would be flooded with all sorts of wisdom, advice for others and tidy cautionary tales. But as this drags on, I realized it’s not too soon to be learning some lessons and finding silver linings. This huge, scary and seemingly intractable recession has provided more than enough surprises to keep my spirits up — most of the time.

One of the things that has surprised me the most is the abundance of people who — somewhat silently — are standing in my corner cheering me along, from utter strangers in the checkout aisle at Trader Joe’s, to church acquaintances, and even hiring managers. By far, the most touching display of encouragement in my job hunt has come from a woman who interviewed me twice for an editing position but ultimately offered the job to another candidate.

A little over a month ago I had an interview with an association magazine that more than fulfilled all my requirements for the perfect job. During my two interviews with the organization I felt that I hit it off with the executive director and the publishing director. In my eyes both women looked to be excellent mentors. And if there’s anything I want in a new job, it’s to find a great mentor. I felt confident about both interviews and was gratified to hear both women praise my past writing and my resume.

However, as a week passed after my second interview, I started to feel a sneaking suspicion that I didn’t get the job. With no immediate prospects on the horizon my heart sank. At the end of that week I got a call from the publishing director who told me what I had already guessed: they offered the job to another candidate although I made the decision very tough for them.

It was evident very early on in the call that it was not an easy one for her to make. She assured me that she and the executive director felt terrible about not being able to offer me the job. She wanted to let me know that she would do whatever she could to help me find another job. She even said “We’ve been asking ourselves ‘who can we tell about Mary?’” She told me that if I applied to any more association magazines in Chicagoland, to send her an email to see if she knows anyone at other organizations, promising to call that recruiter with her endorsement.

I have received several very kind rejections throughout this process, from “You are overqualified and we can’t pay you what you deserve,” to thoughtful phone calls and snail mail letters. But this one was different. I have the distinct feeling that the two women who interviewed me are walking around with an invisible set of pom-pons and a peppy little cheer at the ready. And this week, they have made good on their promise to help me out. I finally applied to a company where the publishing director has an acquaintance that might be able to help.

You expect your former bosses and past coworkers to speak well for you, but you don’t expect it from someone who offered the job to someone else. That someone in her position is willing and eager to go to bat for me has convinced me that good — even wonderful things — are possible in a deep recession such as this. My greatest hope is that I can continue to recognize this and keep plugging away.

George Clooney Can Fire Me Whenever He Wants

I reached a point this summer where I let my self-consciousness get to me and stopped blogging out of fear that I was branding myself as “that unemployed girl.” A similar phenomenon occurred when I blogged my stimulator process a few years ago. After all, I reasoned, both then and now, self-pity doesn’t exactly make for good reading — or writing.

But lately, I’ve been missing it. Not having a job hasn’t stopped me from gaining insight about myself and the millions of other people paddling this boat with me. And when I had the chance to catch a free screening of the new George Clooney movie “Up in the Air,” I got the itch to blog again after watching Clooney’s character fire dozens of unsuspecting (albeit fictional) workers.

Before I get into the movie I want to briefly touch on the awesomeness that is entertainment on a shoestring budget. My boyfriend is incredibly adept at scoring free tickets to movies, the theater and even concerts. In the short few months we’ve been dating we’ve had box seats to “Animal Crackers” at the Goodman Theater; two pairs of free tickets to see The Pixies at the Aragon Ballroom, and movie passes to “World’s Greatest Dad” (including a Q and A with the director); Jim Carrey’s “A Christmas Carol” in 3-D; “A Serious Man;” and “Up In The Air.” Everything is more fun when it’s free.

Anyway. The timing of the “Up In The Air” screening couldn’t have been more unfortunate. I had just completed three grueling job interviews in three days, received disappointing news from two of them and correctly suspected the third wasn’t meant to be either. I was also beginning to feel the pressure of the end of my COBRA subsidy and was battling worries about running down the clock on unemployment insurance payments.

Because the screening for the movie was a couple weeks before the major release of the movie, I hadn’t yet read many reviews. All I knew was that George Clooney’s character works for a company that downsizes employees whose own companies can’t be bothered with the dirty work. Imagine your boss hiring someone else to give you the news. Ouch. What I didn’t realize was the extent to which this scenario is played out in the movie.

To add to the realism, director Jason Reitman filmed the reactions of real people — in addition to actors — upon finding out they’ve been let go. These scenes are used throughout the movie so they couldn’t all be avoided by a well-timed bathroom break. I had thought I’d gotten past the trauma that is hearing the news for the first time, but the scenes were so eloquently and accurately portrayed that it was like reliving the experience over, and over and over again.

The saving grace here is that Clooney’s character, Ryan Bingham, stays respectful, sympathetic, professional and compassionate regardless of how an employee takes the news — be it threatening to jump off a bridge or bring a gun back to the office for revenge.

Bingham faces a challenge, however, when his boss informs him that to conserve costs, the company is considering using a technology along the lines of Skype that would allow them to fire people over the Internet. Bingham rightly insists that his responsibility is to provide a human touch at such a critical time. To prove this he takes the young business whiz that developed the Skype system on the road with him and teaches her the tricks of the trade. Watching the trainee, played beautifully by Anna Kendrick, crumble after firing her first worker face-to-face, is heartbreaking.

What’s not heartbreaking, however, is the skill and care with which Clooney’s character breaks the news and offers consolation to the recently terminated. His signature line of comfort, “Everyone that has ever conquered an empire or started a new corporation had to go through what you’re going through to get there,” sounds sincere whenever he says it. When recycled by other, lesser characters, it loses its ring.

In an especially moving scene with J.K. Simmons (aka Juno’s dad), Simmons’ character worries that he’s too old to start a new career or find a new job that can provide retirement benefits. Unbeknownst to him, Bingham has gone to the trouble of procuring the man’s resume and notes that before he accepted the job he was fired from 30 years later, he attended culinary school. Bingham explains that most people ditch pursuing their dream job in favor of a comfortable but not-quite-challenging career where they stay trapped for years. Being laid off, he rationalizes, gives them a second chance.

When this message is expressed with nuance, the being downsized experience almost becomes therapeutic — at least it was for me, almost 11 months after the fact. People always try to tell you this in subtle, tentative ways that make you immediately defensive.

In a lighter moment, Kendrick’s character asks Bingham if he ever does any follow-up with his clients, and he replies it’s usually not helpful. This made me feel sorry that I’ve had to contact my former HR person more times than I’ve wanted to regarding paperwork. I bet she thought the hard part was over too.

I was beginning to recover by the time the credits rolled on the movie, but Reitman uses the credits over which to dub more audio of real people talking about their layoffs. It even features a musician describing how he wrote his song, “Uncertainty,” about the experience, and soon he’s heard strumming his acoustic guitar. At that point I grabbed my boyfriend’s hand and insisted we get away from the theater before I ran out of dry tissues.

Although the experience of seeing “Up In The Air” was traumatic, I’m still glad I saw it, even though it dredged up some of the anger and shame I thought was gone. The movie never would’ve had the same resonance — in my humble opinion — if it’d been released when the national unemployment rate wasn’t 10 percent. Nothing makes an experience feel more universal than seeing it portrayed in an Oscar-bait film. I prefer to use movies as escapism these days and look to the nightly news and documentaries for my dose of realism. Even still, it’d be a thrill to get fired by George Clooney.