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Stigma of the Unemployed

Why does it feel so terrible to be unemployed? It makes you feel lazy and worthless, even if you’re working as hard as you can to find another job. Maybe it’s just me, because there seem to be plenty of people who are happy to collect unemployment for as long as they can. I don’t think it is, though. There’s just something different when you ask a person what they do (like just about everyone asks. I swear, it’s all anyone wants to talk about.), there’s a look in their eyes when they admit that they’re unemployed.

Even the idea that it’s something to “admit” is just humiliating. Even if it’s not in any way your fault that you don’t have a job, you still feel guilty. You still feel like there’s something more you could be doing to get a job. You start wondering if you should apply at the local fast food chain just so that you don’t have to say you’re unemployed. The only thing stopping is you is that it might pay less than collecting unemployment compensation, and the one thing that just might be more humiliating than being unemployed is having to admit that the only business that would hire you is one that rarely says no to applicants.

And what happens when even they won’t hire you? That’s happened to my husband. When we were both laid off from the same company, we searched for jobs. We searched and searched, and we came up with nothing. At the end of his rope, my husband applied to the same chain fast food place he worked for when he was a teenager in high school, but they told him he was overqualified. How’s that for a kick when you’re down? You can’t find a job in your field after getting a four year degree, and then the ones who will hire just about anyone say they can’t hire you because you’re too educated.

Sometimes I feel like there is a serious problem with the way our work force is set up. Employers aren’t willing to train anymore, they want people with tons of experience, but where are you supposed to get the experience if no one will hire entry-level employees? Plus, they don’t want to pay much above minimum wage! They want to pay an entry-level salary to experienced workers, and we put up with that because we’re just grateful to have a job.

Because it’s somehow more belittling and embarrassing to be without a job than it is to be underappreciated, underpaid and undervalued. How does this make sense?

When my family gets together, I often preface the visit with, “I don’t want to talk about work.” Still, they find a way to ask or to bring the subject back to employment. Maybe they love what they do for a living so they don’t mind talking about it, but generally, even when I was working, I didn’t want to talk about it.

Where I live, no one seems to like their job, but they live with it. It’s just what everyone does. That’s why I’m getting ready to go back to school and to move out of this area. I want to love my job, I want to be proud of what I do, and I just want to be happy for once in my life (when it comes to my career)! I want to feel good about what I do and to not cringe when someone asks, “So what do you do for a living?”