Friday, June 29. My daunting three-day trial on the unemployment line ended when I was offered an Art Director position immediately after a two-hour interview. I accepted the offer and start this Friday. The people seem great and of the non-douchebag variety, the pay is solid and my skill set should grow exponentially. That night our neighbors extended an impromptu invite "for a drink" over the fence. We ended up staying for six hours, helped drink their cooler dry, gorged ourselves on barbeque spare ribs and watched their 13-year-old daughter's recent European vacation slides.

Saturday, June 30. With the wives at a baby shower talking about their uteruses, I stuffed an amazing basket of fish and chips down my cake chute and drained numerous Coors Light pitchers at Clancys with CH, Tyler and Fateh. Aside from the poor patio location and a bad wait staff that included a red-haired meth skank that kept forgetting our orders and a chubby blond girl with a giant snake tattoo, good times were had by all. That night we ate a late sushi dinner and took in 1408 with Team Sutton. It was refreshing to watch a movie in a theater since we have not done so since the Korean War.

Sunday, July 1. The wife and I celebrated our one-year anniversary. We walked around our deserted wedding venue in the 100-degree heat sipping on blended coffee drinks, ate heaping plates of steamed mussels and took in back-to-back movies thanks to my criminal wife who snuck me into Ratatouille in the confusion of the exiting Rise Of The Silver Surfer crowd. It was refreshing to watch movies in a theater since we have not done so since Saturday, June 30, 2007.

Labels: career, drinking, sg crew, unemployment, weekend that was, wife

Yesterday I lost my job. The company founders called me into the office and broke the happy news. They brought up the following reasons for my termination:

• I came in late three times in past two months.
• I was expected to work more than eight hours every day.
• They felt they had to coddle me through their company policies and procedures.
• They had no confidence in me as a designer.

I addressed these points as follows:

• I was late three times but it was never more than ten minutes each time and I stayed well past 5:00 whenever this occurred. You would have known this if you did not leave at 5:15 everyday.
• If I had known the job required me to pull ten hour days (which I was never told) I would have not accepted it in the first place.
• I was never given any briefing on company policies, expectations or any formal or informal training. I recall my first day (which neither one of you even offered to take me to lunch on), I was thrust in front of a computer and told to, "Be an Art Director."
• I spent the past two months editing files and websites other people developed. I produced one original design. You hated it. The client loved it. Is that not how a designer measures success?

The corporate culture over at Gas Sack, Inc. (my new pet name for that fuck circus) was more oppressive than a concentration camp. Granted, nobody was getting shoved into an oven, but I have never witnessed employees operating under such intense fear; fear of making a mistake, fear of failure, fear of good design. I can recall only two times when I heard people laughing in the office. Two times. In two months. And both times the founders were gone for the day. The art on the walls even sucked. Oil maps of Texas, Arkansas, New Mexico and this. Which is appropriate for a homosexual ski lodge but not so much for an Investor Relations consulting firm.

So now I am back to firing off resumes (seven today), eating ketchup sandwiches and watching Judge Joe Brown and my wife is back to questioning why she married such an unemployable sack of shit.

Labels: career, unemployment

Today, in the midst of Hanukkah Blizzard, I accepted a Creative Director position with a small design firm in Denver. I will be able to maintain the pants-free lifestyle I have grown accustomed over these past months, as my office will be in my home. I will occasionally venture out for a cup of coffee or a sandwich and maintain connectivity with the world via all form of modern technological accouterment (cell phone, computer, IM, email, carrier pigeon). Other than that, society is officially dead to me. This career path is free of company-wide circle jerks with CEOs who receive Xmas cards from unemployed designers that lie about profits, revenues and layoffs. Once the roads are deemed safe by the governor again, I will be rolling up to the Apple Store to drop some coin on a new iMac and MacBook. Final unemployment statistics: 101 resumes sent and nine interviews all spanning three months, one week and one day.

Labels: blizzard, career, colorado, pants-free, snow, unemployment

My immediate family is now 28% unemployed. My sister was laid off from her job yesterday as nothing says Happy Holidays like a pink slip and a lackluster severance package. While my career is artistic triviality at best, hers is choked full of sexual deviants, pedophiles, predators and substance abusers. No, she is not a politician, she is (was) a caseworker for Colorado Social Services. I am hopeful she will land on her feet in a job with better pay and something easier on her psyche. As for my employment situation: 88 resumes sent, 7 interviews and a lone job offer from the place creative people go to die.

Labels: l-i-v-i-n, unemployment

• A man argues that he cannot be prosecuted for having sex with a deer because the animal was dead at the time of said bestial necrophiliac coitus.
• A cargo container loaded with the Doritos washes ashore after falling off a ship. Fattys riot for the sloppy seconds.
  
• A killer whale acting like a killer whale (save for the act of eating its prey).
• Gingerbread Tie-Fighter.
• Google Video of a limber octopus.
• Awesome architecture, installment one: hotcakes housing project.

Labels: bestiality, link goodness, perversion, unemployment

• Paparazzi shots of Britney's cash and prizes (very un-work safe). Five years ago this link might have melted my face, but now her nether regions are about as interesting to me as an introductory to statistics college course. Bonus: C-Section scars! Whoopee!
• Wikipedia for Encierro.
• Snow reports for local ski areas. With an intense Arctic storm moving in, ski areas could be getting upwards of two feet of snow and I could be spending the next couple of days on the slopes reveling in soft, champagne powder while you jerks are stuck in a cubicle at work.
• Selections from the notebooks of Max Roosevelt, 15-year-old socialist.
• Big local news (so big in fact, they interrupted an episode of Judge Joe Brown for the press conference yesterday): Jake Plummer gets benched and Jay Cutler will start as the Broncos quarterback on Sunday. I'm officially nicknaming Cutler "The Paperboy" because he bears striking resemblance to a chubby neighborhood kid that slings the daily news and not because he looks like the one-hit rap wonder of the early 90s.
  
• Wikipedia for GG Allin. Read the "Death" heading. Good times.

Labels: link goodness, unemployment

In the past two weeks, my former employer's chief technologist accepted a job offer in Boulder and three members of the senior sales staff resigned (I am still firmly entrenched in the data slaughterhouse gossip circle). I shared anger, pain, jokes, laughs and bourbon with all four of these individuals and am happy to see them make it over the wall. A message to all my people still trapped on the inside: The owl hoots at night. The fat man is dancing with the briefcase. The circle is red. The bell tolls for thee. Vive la Resistance!

Labels: data slaughterhouse, unemployment

The employment search has officially become stagnant. I just sent resume number 75 since Broz's Day of Liberation (September 12) and I am now seeing jobs that I applied to in early September repost on the job sites I troll daily like a ravenous jackal. With the oncoming holiday season, it is a likely possibility that I will not have procured gainful employment until the Christian New Year. This reality is crushing as I have the Colorado Pass and may have to spend the winter work week on powder-filled ski slopes while avoiding the weekend warrior, latte-swilling transplant yuppie in an overpriced SUV jamming up the I-70 corridor and harboring the delusion that they can ski expert terrain and the term "yield to the downhill skier" does not apply to them. I do have a few freelance gigs in the hopper that should keep the lights on and the wife and I off of dog food for the time being. Unemployment has me contemplating many things; geographic relocation, getting my masters degree in eMAD, attempting to make a committed run at the freelance thing, writing the great American novel and designing a fetish site with Russian women in casts. Of course, somebody has already beaten me to the fetish site.

Labels: colorado, unemployment

A snowstorm is dumping a blanket of thick wetness across the Denver metro area today. I'm sitting in the warmth that is a firing furnace and blown out slippers, sucking down a tall mug of coffee that could strip paint, gazing out out the back door and watching vintage Ricardo Montalban Chrysler commercials. It's a good day to be alive and unemployed.

Labels: colorado, snow, tomfoolery, unemployment

After watching a provocative commercial during an episode of Judge Mathis, I am now contemplating a career in Medical and Insurance Billing. According to the real-life testimonial, the pay is decent, I can live the life I want and I will be joining the fast-paced world of health care. Advanced data entry rules! Stay tuned tomorrow when I will be debating a career in the fast-growing field of Aircraft and Aerospace Technical Maintenance.

Labels: tomfoolery, unemployment

Bob Arno makes a living studying pickpockets. A pickpocketing career would be a good move for an unemployed deviant like myself. If you invite me over for a barbecue and I squirt mustard all over you shirt and gank your wallet please don't get angry with me. I am just doing my job, baby.

Labels: tomfoolery, unemployment

• The sex trade is booming in post-Katrina New Orleans.
• Face tattoos are the mark of the unstable, drug addicts, idiots or criminals that have nothing good to offer society. I present you Exhibit A and Exhibit B.
• Patricia Arquette spilling out of her dress.
• Wikipedia for the Battle of the Trebia, the first major battle of the Second Punic War.
• A teacher who worked in the public school system for two decades after she was caught kissing and groping a 13 year-old student at an middle school dance, became pregnant by a sophomore in high school who she married upon his graduation in 1985 and invited her teenage son's 15 year-old friend to move in with her and then seduced him.
• Map of US Fatalities in Iraq (by home of record) as of October 2006.

Labels: link goodness, unemployment

After two days of throwing myself into the much-needed redesign of Broz Design, I ventured outside this morning to greet the garbage man with my trash. I did not set the trash cans out last night because of strong winds that would have knocked the trashcans over and strewn a weeks worth of dead soldiers, junk mail and steak gristle about the common area. That, and the sweet old woman across the alley turns into the garbage Nazi if you leave your trashcans out for more than a day or do not secure the lids to your refuse containers. I like Eleanor and do not wish to get into a fistfight with her so I respect her unwritten rules regarding the trash. The garbage man is a genial Hispanic fellow who speaks broken English and wanted to chat about the unit that burned down.

"See that burnt place over there?"
"Yes."
"Hard to back up garbage truck in there now."
"Because of all the charred debris and temporary police fence and shit?"
"Si."

The fact that I am posting this inane drivel only reinforces that fact that I really need a job.

Labels: tomfoolery, unemployment

I heard back from both companies I interviewed with last week. Company #1, located in Downtown Denver, gave me the "I just want to be friends" routine via email. Classy move. Maybe you should hire my ex-girlfriend She Who Will Not Be Named, Company #1. Like you, she is a cold-hearted bitch with no regard for social etiquette and would thrive within your corporate culture. Company #2, located near the Governors Mansion, offered me the position and I turned it down. Sure, it would be nice to start working again and sock away my severance booty towards a Mexican holiday with the wife, but something told me to stay away from that place. Perhaps it was the HR lady wearing sneakers, the invasive personal questions regarding my values or the "We do not use Macs" line that turned me off. All I know is that I ignored my instincts far too long while languishing at the data slaughterhouse and I refuse to ever do that again. In more interesting news, a neighboring town home burned down a few days ago. It appears as if the firewall did its job and kept the whole unit from succumbing to the flames. Good times.

Labels: data slaughterhouse, she who, unemployment, wife

Last night I watched the Avs home opener from a luxury suite at the Pepsi Center (the boys lost to the Stars 2-3 in OT). The old man, Jake, Nels and Aaron were also in attendance. My pops was responsible for the hook up as he procured the tickets through assorted work connections. The suite came equipped with a private bathroom, assorted domestic beers, food platters, period-by-period stat sheets and a computer with internet connection. Our luxurious time was surrounded by famous radio personalities with fake cans (Clear Channel suite next door), one drunk fan trying to start an "AVS RULE!" cheer (seats below us) and the now infamous silver bucket of happiness. The life of an unemployed artist is glamorous and fulfilling.

Labels: colorado, jake, sports, unemployment

My day of interviews was enjoyable and seemingly successful. In between trips in the car and long, boring dissertations on design and inspiration, I got the feeling both places seemed mildly interested in my abilities (one interviewer even inquired about where he could get a Your Mom hockey jersey). It is also just as likely that the interviewers tuned me out upon my first mention of "color schemes" and "corporate identity" and thought about the bills they had to pay and the puppies they had to strangle later. I feel really good about one of the companies that was not in Governors Park and hope they hire me before I have to turn my attractive new wife out for groceries.

Labels: unemployment, wife

My third week of unemployment will include two web design job interviews; one in the heart of downtown Denver which is a block off the 16th Street Mall and the city's main bus depot (I'm all about the public transportation) and one a few blocks away from Govnr's Park which has amazing happy hour beers and a Slider Basket that would make Wimpy cry (the Won Ton Juans are equally as glorious). Keep your fingers crossed that one of these interviews will pan out before my severance runs dry and we will be subsisting only on a meager public school teacher's income. The wife has yet to wear tattered clothing and babble incomprehensible phrases while standing over a barrel fire, but I can assure you that that time is nigh, my friends. Onto an unemployed artist's browser history:

• An anti-NCAA Hazing website where images of basketball chicks wearing blindfolds and sombreros while drinking from a beer bong and snorting things off the floor live.
• Nate Dogg makes a Wolverine costume for Halloween. Hijinks and homoerotic posing ensue.
• The unluckiest man alive.
• Wedding cake in the form of the Great A'Tuin.
• A guy who loves his Starbucks a little too much.
• Jimmy Dean chocolate chip pancakes and sausage; on a stick. I just threw up in my mouth a little.
• Colorado Avalanche season preview.

Labels: link goodness, unemployment, wife

Today I reached the "30 Resumes Sent" benchmark and I plan on celebrating by taking a nap immediately after posting this. Thus far I have heard back on six resumes and have a phone interview this afternoon with a company who's identity I will protect until I either get a job offer or am denied employment based on my affinity for the movie Road House. (On a related note, I ordered Road House 2: Last Call through Netflix and it will be arriving via mail tomorrow. I am hoping it has much of the same goodness as the first installment: mullets, fighting, boobs and a human throat being violently torn out with somebody's bare hands. I will be sure to keep you posted). All things considered, a 20% contact rate on my resumes is not bad. Granted, 80% of the 20% are "I just want to be friends" rejection emails (which harkens me back to my freshman year of college) but that is not important right now. What is important is that I do not have to shave for a phone interview. The time is nigh for an unemployment nap. Have fun at work, suckers.

Labels: pop culture, unemployment

Today I am 31 years old and will be celebrating another year of life by watching Judge Judy, sending off ten resumes, having a lunch plate of spaghetti with my mom and entertaining numerous offers for well paying and exciting design jobs. The wife has some big plans for me tonight. She still feels guilt over last year's birthday when she was sick and fell asleep on the couch early in the evening while I drowned the passing of my third decade in cheap, domestic beer at the local watering hole with a jackass named Tyler.

Labels: birthday, l-i-v-i-n, sg crew, unemployment, wife

My former coworkers and I have been waxing philosophically on all manner of things over the past week. This picture of vintage supermarket butchers spawned the following diatribe from DJ:

Do you want to work for the Food-O-Mat? Because I kind of do. It's the uniform. Chicks dig a man in uniform. Those were the days; when you could trust your butcher. You wanted a steak, you got a goddamn, corn-fed, natural raised cow slaughtered with love, gently carved up by Americans using American chainsaws, producing a piece of meat the butcher was happy to hand you and you were proud to serve your family. Shortly after this picture was taken I'm pretty sure Alice (the housekeeper from The Brady Bunch) started banging Mel the Butcher and suddenly the butcher was a star and too busy to take pride in his work. Eventually all the butchers were trying to bang housekeepers. With nobody around to keep the ranchers in check the quality of meat went down and the terrorists started winning. I'm not saying Alice and The Brady Bunch aided the terrorists or brought us into our current war, but they were there, man. They were there.

Labels: dj, tomfoolery, unemployment

• Punter stabbed by back-up punter.
• Wikipedia for Bauhaus.
• YouTube of Rachel Bilson as Wonder Woman.
• T-ball coach offers one of his players $25 to bean an autistic kid.
• YouTube of a hot girl on LSD.
• Dwarf planet that caused Pluto's downgrade named Eris after the Greek goddess of discord.
• Jessica Biel: Kissing chicks with her meaty tongue.
• Google results for "stabbing someone in the back of the head."

Labels: link goodness, unemployment

Yesterday I was called into the CEO's office and was introduced to the Angel of Death (the Corporate HR Manager) and asked to sit down. I was informed that my position was being eliminated in a "10% workforce reduction." We then went over my severance information, COBRA benefits, standard employment reduction fare and I agreed to not take a flamethrower to the place. I was then escorted back to my cubicle to gather some personal effects. I felt an overwhelming sense of relief as I exited the building and proceeded to drive off for an expensive cup of gourmet coffee that tasted like dried Orangutan ass. I dialed up the wife, the parents, and a few of my "former" coworkers to tell them the news. I made it no secret that I was unsatisfied with the company and had been sending resumes off for sometime now. During five and half years I languished under the direction of multiple bosses, the workload of two designers, a fundamental culture shift from a tight-knit family towards a huge, worldwide mega-corporation, watching as good people with great ideas quit or were vilified, bad people with political agendas took over, consultants we could not afford shuffled in and out the door and morale plummeted. I was also blessed to work with some of the most awesome and genuine people I have ever known. A more complete collection of perverts, jackasses and alcoholics I have yet to come across and doubt I ever will again. I appreciate the excellent camaraderie (some days it was all that kept me going), the long-lasting friendships that will endure long after the company closes its doors and the near uprising that was launched when my crew first learned of my fate. I wish those other unfortunate 10% well as their severance packages were not as healthy as mine and more akin to a smack in the face with a ballpene hammer. Where do I go from here? I have no clue. I plan on doing a lot of soul-searching, painting, reading, job hunting and reveling in the fact that I do not have to work at that fucking place anymore.

Labels: l-i-v-i-n, unemployment