Down-sized but not down: ‘Better days are coming,’ says Boston medical librarian

By Kathleen Kenna

Peter Droese was “down-sized” last spring, but he’s not down.

Peter Droese

The 39-year-old medical librarian has overcome so many challenges in his life, that he’s viewing unemployment as an opportunity.

Droese has returned to school to get a degree in vocational rehabilitation counseling, to work with returning veterans and other people with disabilities.

He’s had a strong career as an information resource specialist as the University of Massachusetts Medical School, senior faculty at Cambridge College‘s grad school of management, and health policy librarian at the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

“I need a real job, just like everyone else,” he says from Boston. “It’s been tough these last few months. My unemployment will run out … and I don’t know how much longer I can drive.”

Yet, Droese emphasizes, “Better times are coming.”

There’s no particular reason for this optimism, except Droese’s strong resilience.

Born premature, he had open-heart surgery at only 10 months of age. He was very ill before he learned to walk. His family was cautioned that cerebral palsy would prove so limiting, that Droese wouldn’t be allowed to go to school.

“My mom led a campaign for educating children with special needs,” Droese recalls.

Such tenacity is obviously in his genes. As a youngster, Droese dreamed of becoming a Boy Scout, despite multiple incidents of detached retinas that threatened his vision, and an early diagnosis of hydrocephalus, a potentially brain-damaging condition.

“My only dream was to see Eagle Scout,” he says.

Droese reached that goal by Grade 7, the highest honor for any Scout.

“I did it because I wanted to prove I could do anything,” he says, adding that his greatest high school achievement was going to Russia as an exchange student.

Considering his family was warned that Droese wasn’t worth educating as a boy, he went on to earn degrees in human studies and human services (Bradford College), then a Masters in library and information science (Simmons College).

Yet college was interrupted by a traumatic brain injury and infections as a result of the hydrocephalus, and Droese had to learn to talk again. His solution? Toastmasters.

“I went to Toastmasters as part of my rehabilitation. I used public speaking to retrain my brain,” Droese says. “I used it to practice for job interviews.”

His determination paid off: Droese became so skilled at public speaking, he was asked to deliver the keynote address at a national library science conference.

“It is what it is,” Droese says matter-of-factly. “You just go forward.”

After losing his job at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in April, Droese says he applied for the Masters program in vocational rehabilitation counseling at Assumption College because “I’m ready for my next challenge.”

He adds, “I view it as a protective measure, to deal with the layoff.”

Droese recalls meeting someone professionally who had been involved in one of his brain surgeries, and realizing what a difference that one specialist had made in his life.

“There are so many veterans returning from war with hydrocephalus,” Droese says. “If I can make that kind of difference in just one life, it would be worth it.”

He’s seeking work in vocational rehabilitation as a result, that combines his skills in case management and project management, information services and career counseling.

Droese admits that a job search can be discouraging in a market like Boston, despite sending out resumes and cover letters, and tapping his network daily.

“It’s been a roller coaster these last six months,” he says. “This recession we’re in now is just as bad as the last Depression. My students would tell me there are no bread lines, and I would say, ‘it’s just hidden.’ ”

Job searching is more difficult now, “especially because employers are looking for the perfect candidate,” Droese suggests. “They don’t know what they want — maybe the last person in that job. He doesn’t exist anymore.”

Droese credits his optimism to a good support network of family and friends. Married eight years, he has one son, six-year-old Luke, and says having a close family “has really been amazing.”

See Peter Droese’s profile at LinkedIn.

It’s not about us and them, it’s about sharing — just ask Mark Zuckerberg

By Hoover Wind, Kathleen Kenna and Hadi Dadashian

It’s not about us and them.

As much as we honor the peaceful intentions of the Occupy movement, it’s not just a simple formula of 1% versus 99%.

It’s about all Americans, as Sarah Palin reminded us at the CPAC convention this weekend.

Let’s look at Mark Zuckerberg, sometimes reviled, sometimes beloved founder of Facebook.

It sounds outrageous that the social networking giant could raise $5 billion in its public stock offering.

We want all American companies to raise that kind of cash in their IPOs.

We want all American companies, all Americans — from the wealthiest to the lowest-income  — to share.

Zuckerberg, hopefully, is about to show us how this is possible.

Say Facebook raises $5 billion.

This means as much as $1 billion for the rest of California.

How? That five-letter word in the current election campaign: T-A-X-E-S.

The non-partisan legislative analyst’s office in California estimates this single IPO — the largest ever for an Internet-based firm — could bring California millions, and perhaps even $1 billion, in taxes.

This has so excited California’s governor, the sometimes reviled, sometimes beloved Jerry Brown, that his staff has offered to mow Zuckerberg’s lawn in exchange.

“If it is as big as it is being billed, then on behalf of a grateful state, I will go to Mark Zuckerberg’s house and either wash his windows or mow his lawn,” says H.D. Palmer, Brown’s finance spokesman.

This is the great part:  The non-partisan legislative analyst’s office and the Democrat governor’s office have both put one of California’s richest entrepreneurs on notice.

Pundits are crowing that Zuckerberg will pay the most taxes of any American in history.  This is good news, no matter where you stand on tax reform, tax breaks for the rich, or tax hikes.

California is broke.  With a deficit of more than $9 billion, its schools are falling apart, and its streets and highways are filling with garbage.  Social services — for veterans, elders, people with disabilities, children and low-income families — have been squeezed and squeezed and squeezed.

Slashbacks across all levels of government have hit all public services, from policing to economic development, like a tsunami.

To international visitors, it appears that California’s homeless population is growing, in major cities and small towns.

Politicians will fall all over themselves with a windfall like this. Watch for national politicians to argue about how Zuckerberg’s tax contributions should be spent — more prisons/less prisons; more affordable housing/more campaign contributions.

We’ll be watching Zuckerberg and his Facebook workers, many of whom are counting on becoming millionaires as a result of this IPO.

Will they park their new profits outside the country to avoid taxes?

Or will they share, by paying full taxes — however that is defined — to help California’s most vulnerable?

Will they, as Republican minority leaders in California insist, use this newfound tax wealth to “protect our public school students … and pay down the state’s debt service.”

You know — the debt that everyone shared in accumulating during the so-called “good years”?

Advice from a jobless job counselor: Job hunting is a full-time job

By Kathleen Kenna

I’m an unemployed job counselor, so I can offer only the advice I gave to hundreds of clients over five years in two states.

Many of my clients got jobs, from $40-an-hour to minimum wage, from multiple degrees to no GEDs, so I know a few things about success.

Working in government and non-profits, I heard so much about employer abuse, and witnessed enough unethical workplace behavior, that I have learned a lot, too, about what it means to work in the United States during high unemployment.

I learned, for instance, that it’s legal to pay workers to stand on their feet 60 hours a week and pay below minimum wage.

I learned that anyone can be “termed” (the new, upbeat word for being fired or terminated) for any reason by any employer at any time in America’s “at will” states.

So, I offer my job-hunting advice with a harder edge than I ever delivered it as a job counselor, in countless public workshops and private counseling sessions.

The idealistic, earnest counselor:  Job hunting is a full-time job.

The unemployed job counselor:  This is still the best way to find work:  Treat each day as a work day, by keeping a regular schedule, and searching for employment, following leads, rewriting resumes and cover letters for each application, and tapping your networks.  Do volunteer work, if possible.

Job-seekers:  Easy for job counselors with salaries to say.  How do I buy groceries to support children and/or spouse, and/or aging parents, while trying to go to job fairs?  How do I pay for the bus to get to the job center every day?  How can I pay for WiFi, or even dial-up, to do job searches at home, while caring for my family?

Most job counselors are social workers, linking clients to a range of services, from getting unemployment insurance extensions to finding community supports, such as assistance with paying utility bills — especially for winter heating — and free/low-cost legal aid (i.e. for unjust layoffs, workplace discrimination, and unfair workplace practices).

They link people without jobs to training, so they upgrade old skills or learn new ones.  I’ve been fortunate to see this succeed in one of America’s richest cities (San Francisco) and one with the highest unemployment (Las Vegas).

I’ve been especially fortunate to see how job training helps the most vulnerable in our society, from veterans of the Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam wars, to workers with disabilities.

Increasingly, counselors are linking job seekers to food stamps, food banks, and community food pantries.

Here’s a question that we, the people, might consider in this rough economy:

When those with jobs balk at paying higher taxes — and are encouraged in this charade by wealthy politicians and well-funded groups — social services wither and die.  They’re ending all over the U.S., even as the need is mounting.

How to help our neighbors without jobs in the world’s richest nation if we’re squeezing non-profits and public service workers?

It’s called public service for a reason.

(With thanks to Trader Joe’s for another brown paper bag, re-used then recycled.)