Staying positive while feeling like a failure is not as easy as Miss Sunnypants describes, especially when you need every penny to just survive. Vacations, trips, you have to be kidding. That won’t get you a job. Sitting in the dark to save on electricity while spending 14 hours a day scanning website after website desperately looking for positions, knowing that there are 500 other people applying. It would be nice if all of the people who already have a job would stop looking so that those of us looking for work don’t have to compete with as many candidates. That may sound selfish but I am fighting for my integrity, my reputation, and my home so I don’t have to live in my car. I have spent my career doing for everyone else and putting myself last. I get to be selfish for once.

It would be great if when the unemployed do find jobs, then they focus on hiring from the unemployed as much as possible.

Marie I wish you luck in the real estate thing but there are seasoned agents who can’t make it in the current market so you may want to consider a backup.

I’m really sorry to here you have such an extensive experience with being laid off, that surely must be tough. I appreciate your honest contribution to the discussion. I’m actually surprised it isn’t said more often, when we published I had some of the same thoughts you did, though like you said, the point of the piece is to try to make the best out of what’s happened.

I wish you the best of luck, and thank you for reading and commenting.

I can’t afford my apartment, much less food and transportation, without applying for unemployment checks. And even with unemployment, I can only just barely cover those three costs. Take a trip? Take a class? Volunteer? Even if I HAD the money, you do realize that technically all of these things make one ineligible for unemployment. Not that you HAVE to fess up to the unemployment folks, but technically you will have to commit fraud by claiming that you were ready and available to work– ie, not busy volunteering, learning, or out of your hometown on vacation– each week you call in to get your check. Not that I think this unemployment policy is fair, or right, or good. But I can’t seem to wrap my head around articles that suggest pursuing these things while you’re on unemployment as if they’re not fraudulent, and with no warning that if you were to get caught somehow, you might have to pay back ALL of your unemployment, plus a fine.

I may be more jaded than the average person– being laid off four times in six years can do that to a gal! But I’m a little tired of being told to swallow this all-too-sour lemonade.