Good news and bad on unemployment front in U.S.

By Kathleen Kenna and Hadi Dadashian

To paraphrase Charles Dickens, it was the worst of years, it was a better year.

It was the worst year, because we’re both still unemployed, despite hundreds of job applications, job fairs, informational interviews and more.

It was a better year, because we resumed full-time job searches after growing our own company, Ocean’s Edge Media.

Good news: Our small business made more money in 2012 than in 2011.

Bad news: Our revenue still puts us below the poverty line — even before expenses.

Best news: We landed our first cover story for a Canadian magazine, and Kathleen landed her first major magazine story (Condé Nast). Our newspaper and online assignments ranged from mental health research to travel stories in California, Arizona, both Washingtons, and Canada.

Our public speaking and photography gigs increased.

It was a better year for three reasons:

1.  We expanded our reach with writing and photojournalism, tapping new markets and making a lot of new contacts. Already, our advance assignments portend a better financial year in 2013.

2.  We cut costs by moving to a smaller city.

3.  Kathleen finished her training as a CTP (Certified Trauma Professional) and became a U.S. citizen.

The latter is key, because she began to get interviews from dozens of job applications after her citizenship ceremony. In the previous 18 months as a Green Card holder, Kathleen had only a couple of interviews in her rehabilitation counseling field, despite more than 200 applications.

Investment in lawyers, paper work, etc. for Green Card and citizenship: About $7,000.

How we know the economy is really recovering

We both had more serious job interviews in the past four months than we’ve had during job searches in the past two years.

Kathleen was so excited after an Oregon state interview for vocational rehabilitation counselor, she posted at living in gratitude that it was “the best job interview in my life.”

Hadi is encouraged that there appears to be more growth in his field, optical, possibly because Americans are feeling confident enough to spend money on their health and eye care again.

(While some analysts were heartened by a dip in consumer spending on health care during the recession, we suggest it’s because people who are unemployed stop spending money on doctors, medical tests, dentists, and filling optical and other prescriptions because they’ve lost insurance. Other essentials — like food and shelter — claim any household funds before health care. It’s astonishing that 47 million Americans survive on Food Stamps, a U.S. record.)

The White House soothes some Americans with the news that the economy is recovering, and our success in landing more interviews confirms that it’s improving.

But it’s such a slow improvement that we believe the U.S. is still in a recession — a psychological recession. GDP growth of 2-3% makes us, as President Barack Obama likes to say, “cautiously optimistic.”

At job fairs this fall, we spoke to other job seekers in our age group (40s, 50s), and realized that long-term unemployment is, sadly, far too common still for people who have worked decades without ever being jobless. (In Hadi’s case, that’s working decades without any sick days or “personal time” off!)

So we’re encouraged that the national unemployment rate has dropped to 7.9% after starting 2012 at 8.3%. As we’ve written many times before, however, those stats don’t mean much to people who haven’t collected unemployment benefits and aren’t on national rolls.

Those stats don’t reflect so-called “discouraged workers”, who aren’t conducting full-time job searches either. Washington defines discouraged workers as people who have stopped looking for work. Since the Labor Department also defines discouraged workers as people who haven’t looked for work in four weeks, we don’t fit that official definition either.

Judging from the comments of other job fair participants, we’re all discouraged — no one is filing job applications full-time when they land freelance work (like us) or temporary, under-the-table work (like many engineers, carpenters and others finding sporadic work as housing starts improve). Even 23 million unemployed Americans have to pay their bills somehow.

Unemployment has decreased to 8.4% in our state of Oregon, so we’re at #40 in the U.S. All the new jobs are in the midwest, from the Dakotas to Iowa and Wyoming. North Dakota has the lowest unemployment rate in the country, at 3.1%, followed by Nebraska at 3.7%.

Worst unemployment? Nevada still leads the country at 10.8%, followed by Rhode Island at 10.4%, California, 9.8%, and New Jersey, 9.6%. Our state, Oregon, is ranked #40 out of 51, with an official jobless rate of 8.4%.

Corporate cash stockpiles at $5 trillion

Given the severity of this country’s continuing high joblessness (it was only 2008 when the U.S. rate was 5%), we had hoped the November election would help calm markets and spur corporations to start creating jobs with their estimated $5 trillion in cash stockpiles.

But “fiscal cliff” negotiations have agitated markets and affected consumer and business confidence. At Hire Your Neighbor, we want to be certain that unemployment benefit extensions are approved for those who need them most.

We’re optimistic that 2013 will be a better year for us and other under/unemployed workers seeking real jobs. We’re not so optimistic about Washington overcoming its partisan divisions to tackle the real issues affecting job growth in this country: deficit reduction, government spending, and significant tax reform.

We are certain that the next debate, about the U.S. debt ceiling, will do little to calm fears of Americans, employed or not.

NEXT: The good news about full-time work after 3 years of unemployment

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.

Open letter from a jobless job counselor to Michigan Governor Rick Snyder

Dear Governor Snyder:

Let’s cut the niceties and be straight:  Cutting unemployment insurance (UI) won’t create jobs.

It will create more misery.  It will lead to more poverty, more hunger, homelessness, and worse.

I understand your state is suffering, with official unemployment at 10.6%, compared to the national rate of 8.6%.

You and I both know those numbers are inaccurate:  The jobless rate in Michigan, like the national rate, is likely double that, since “official” numbers only tally those collecting UI.  They don’t include so-called “discouraged” workers, and the long-term unemployed.

On the other side of the country, I can’t pretend to know how to convince Michigan employers to create jobs when they’ve already had tax cuts, and you’re about to slash billions more from their taxes.

But crushing the vulnerable isn’t the answer, governor;  it’s never the answer.

Tax cuts for U.S. employers and the wealthy in the past decade haven’t helped the country much.  If they did, where are the jobs?

Governor, I worked as a job counselor for five years in two states — including two years in a city with the highest unemployment in the U.S. — so I know a little about this misery.

Americans are begging for work.  Offer many job seekers $10-an-hour jobs, and they’ll take them, with gratitude, no matter how much abuse they must endure to keep it.  (And from what I saw, the lower the wage, the more abuse.)

You intend to force almost a half-million job seekers off UI and into $10-an-hour jobs.

Really?

Does the $50,000-a-year social worker benefit society by taking a job away from a lower-wage worker?

Where do those workers go if employers decide they’re easily replaced by jobless workers with degrees?

Did you consider the single-parent nurse who won’t have time to seek work in her career or afford child care at $10-an-hour if she’s forced to work outside her helping profession?  Who does that help?  Who gets hurt?

Governor, when you announced these cuts last March, you said, “Let’s start the job creation process.”

What have you and Michigan’s politicians, employers and big thinkers been doing since then?

You said, then: “I wanted to make sure we could do whatever to help these people to continue on a path until they can find a job.”

Sounded more like you were blaming the jobless for being out of work:  “Let’s focus on bringing our unemployment rate down so we don’t have people on unemployment that’s going on for 20 to 26 weeks or 99 weeks.”

The U.S. Labor Dept. reports that average unemployment for U.S. workers collecting UI is more than 40 weeks.  It’s getting worse, despite tax cuts and bailouts and other aid to employers and financial institutions — that’s why Washington grudgingly agreed to those 99-week extensions.  Income disparity in this country grows wider too, amid more calls for more tax cuts and record profits in Corporate America.

Oh, and average unemployment for U.S. workers not collecting UI?  Estimates vary, but it’s edging up to two years.

You said this week that Michigan’s UI slashbacks (to a max of 20 weeks) are designed to “encourage people to work.  It’s not to have them go backward.”

That’s encouraging.  You must be certain there are plenty of $10/hr jobs, available now, for every jobless person in Michigan.  You sound certain that employers will use their tax breaks to create so many new jobs that Michigan will no longer have one of the highest unemployment rates in the U.S.

Please post that jobs list asap.

“It’s easiest to find a job when you’ve gotten a job,” you said this week.

Again, really?

Spend some real time with job seekers, trainers, counselors and others at Michigan’s job offices.  Spend some real time with long-term unemployed workers.  Listen to them with the same time and attention span you gave the state’s big employers.

There are other solutions, Gov. Snyder.  It’s going to take some hard work and big thinking to get there — not little jobs and big tax cuts.

And please, let the rest of us know how that goes.

Respectfully, Kathleen Kenna

Related story:  Snyder among least popular governors in U.S. 

This is how democracy works, one call, one email at a time

By Hoover Wind, Hadi Dadashian and Kathleen Kenna

We urged Americans yesterday to call the White House and members of Congress to fight for an unemployment benefits extension.

And today, it worked.

Phone lines to some Congress members were jammed (we know; we tried), and so many Americans emailed President Barack Obama (including Hire Your Neighbor) that the White House website couldn’t accept any more comments for awhile.

This is what we mean when we say, Get Occupied!

When residents of the United States call their politicians, good things can happen — and in bipartisan strength.

It’s only a two-month extension for unemployment benefits and payroll tax cuts, but it’s a start.

Both the President and House Speaker John Boehner announced today that a two-month deal will protect both the tax cuts and unemployment benefits.  It’s likely to go to a vote Friday.

That means almost 2 million Americans won’t lose their unemployment benefits in January.

That might not mean much to Wall St., but it obviously does to Washington.

The news: Unemployment benefits extended (ABC News)

Call Congress. Call President Obama. Urge them to extend unemployment benefits

By Kathleen Kenna, Hadi Dadashian and Hoover Wind

We’re ashamed and appalled that members of Congress are going home to holiday feasts and celebrations and denying the rights of people without jobs.

We’re ashamed that unemployment benefits are again being used as a pawn in Washington’s chess game. Hurting the vulnerable is always the path Congress takes when it refuses to do the work that we, the people, expect.

It’s estimated 1.8 million workers will lose their unemployment benefits within weeks, and another 6 million — equal to the entire population of Missouri — face losing this safety net next year.

Yet unemployment benefits are so critical in this lame economy that 18 million Americans have relied on them since the 2008 recession.

As workers who have subsidized these benefits in good faith, we demand that Congress use our contributions for the purpose they were intended:  Helping people who are unemployed survive while seeking work.

American employers pay into the system believing it will be a safety net if they suffer layoffs, shutdowns, terminations or downsizing.  Workers indirectly pay for this protection too.

(Check the House of Representatives website for FAQ about how unemployment insurance is funded in the U.S.)

The economy is so rough on so many — with and without jobs — that the jobless are demonized for using unemployment benefits to support their families when they’re forced out of work.

We hear about new job losses every day, from police on the east coast to 30-year IBM workers on the west coast.  The national unemployment rate, officially at 8.6%, is far higher than Congress admits, because so few jobless people are actually collecting or seeking unemployment benefits.

There are an estimated 25 million people out of work in this, the richest nation on earth.  That’s equal to the population of Texas.

Worse, unemployment is lasting longer:  New stats show the average duration of U.S. unemployment is 41 weeks.  Most who lose their jobs involuntarily are out of work for months. The U.S. Bureau of Labor reports that 59% of jobless people in America are unemployed for 15 weeks or more.

Despite signs of improvement — house construction is up almost 10% — economic growth still lags, and jobs are not being created at a pace that helps most unemployed Americans.

The Salvation Army, food banks, faith groups and other selfless Americans across this country report that demand for the basics of life — food, warm clothes — has soared since the recession hit.  Need has not diminished in this so-called jobless recovery.

And shelter, in the worst foreclosure crisis in this nation’s history, remains a worry for millions.

To reduce unemployment benefits at a time of high unemployment is unconscionable.

It’s immoral.

People of all faiths are pressuring Congress to do the right thing.

Interfaith Worker Justice has held public prayer vigils in Washington, seeking help for the jobless. Echoing Occupy Wall St., they’re asking the 1% to share more of America’s wealth with the 99%.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops sent a letter to Congress this week urging politicians to extend unemployment insurance.

“When the economy fails to generate sufficient jobs, there is a moral obligation to help protect the life and dignity of unemployed workers and their families,” wrote Bishop Stephen Blaire. “Therefore, I strongly urge you and your colleagues to find effective ways to assure continuing Unemployment Insurance and Emergency Unemployment Compensation to protect jobless workers and their families.”

Rev. Blaire’s letter to Congress cites Pope John Paul II’s 1981 encyclical: “The obligation to provide unemployment benefits … the duty to make suitable grants indispensable for the subsistence of unemployed workers and their families, is a duty springing from the fundamental principle of … the right to life and subsistence.”

The National Employment Law Project is among a growing chorus demanding Congress extend unemployment benefits and payroll tax cuts to help workers.

Starting today, Hire Your Neighbor is calling every member of our congressional delegations to urge them to stand up for people who are unemployed.

Then we’ll contact every Senator and every member of the House of Representatives, regardless of party, to demand that unemployment insurance benefits be extended.

We’re contacting each to urge that payroll tax cuts — helping so many underemployed and underpaid Americans pay their bills — be extended.

With no strings attached.

We are emailing President Barack Obama to ask, politely, that he lead on both these issues, and lead the country in finding ways to create good jobs again.

Hire Your Neighbor is urging Americans to join us in this national conversation about unemployment.

Call Congress and tell politicians to get back to the work of the people.

Don’t know the number of your senators and members of the House?  Call toll-free, 888-245-3381, and people fighting for the rights of unemployed workers will connect you with the right office.

Contact the White House — use this form — and urge President Barack Obama to stand up for the rights of people without jobs.

Related stories:  “Unemployment Insurance Under the Knife” (The Nation)

“Catholic Bishops, Other Religious Groups Lobby for Unemployment Insurance Extensions” (Huffington Post)

Volunteering fills gap for worker with ‘too much free time’ after 30 years

By David M. Lieberfarb

I’m one of the lucky ones. Three years ago, my final days at The Star-Ledger in Newark, NJ, were winding down after 30 mostly happy years as a copy editor. My buyout package included a year’s pay, medical coverage and a decent pension. Unlike many of my younger colleagues, my children are grown and no longer my responsibility, and I’m old enough to start collecting Social Security.

I tried a few different jobs. The Census Bureau looked promising. I was hired in the spring of 2009 as an enumerator, but it peetered out after about a month. I visited Hertz to drive rental cars from one site to another, but the pay wasn’t worth it.

Finally, I came back home, almost. The Trenton Times, a sister paper in the Newhouse chain, hired me as a copy editor, part-time. I really enjoy the work.

The only problems are:  The pay is less than half of what I made at The Star-Ledger; my schedule is irregular; and the commute is twice as far. And the office — far too large for the tiny staff, which has also been decimated by buyouts — is like a morgue.

I’m probably more productive than I was at The Star-Ledger, but when I’m scheduled to work only two nights a week, I have too much free time. So I’ve done volunteer work delivering Meals on Wheels and preparing taxes for AARP.

Q:  Are you earning enough with two shifts?

My pay at the Trenton Times is $20 an hour, which amounts to about $120 per shift, give or take an hour. So, no, I’m not satisfied. I asked for a raise of $1 or $2 an hour about a month ago, and was turned down. My pension is my main source of income, and I’m trying to put off applying for Social Security ’til at least age 65. (I’m 63.)

Q:  How did you manage after the buyout?

Unemployment insurance supplemented my income throughout 2009 when I wasn’t working for the Census Bureau (for about 4 or 5 weeks, my income was higher than my UI limit, so I didn’t file).  But after I applied for my pension, my income was too high to continue tapping UI.

WRITERS WANTED:  Please contact us at hireyourneighbor@gmail.com.

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.)

Another American loses a job: Edward C. Forst leaves Goldman Sachs

We were buoyed by the news that the unemployment rate has dropped to 8.6% — lowest level in almost three years.

However, we’re still wary of the “official” jobless rate, because it only tracks people who have been collecting unemployment insurance.

Many jobless Americans are not in these numbers, including so-called “discouraged” workers who are no longer seeking work, ill or disabled (and not receiving benefits).

The Labor Department acknowledged Friday that 315,000 people without jobs stopped applying last month.

Economists look at the seasonal surge in retail hiring, modest national output, and get excited that the United States isn’t dropping into another recession.

We look at the increase in minimum wage, temporary jobs, and conclude there’s a psychological recession in this country.

The Labor Department reports that the average length of unemployment is almost a year now — 41 weeks.  That’s 21% higher than last year.

Consider this more worrying number:  Only 64% of Americans are participating in the workforce.

That’s an historic low.

According to The New York Times, that’s “historically depressed.”

Even more depressing was the front-page Business news of the retirement, at 50, of Goldman Sachs’ Edward C. Forst, “confidant of the bank’s chief executive and a member of the company’s influential management company.”

No word on Forst’s severance, although it’s unlikely he’ll be one of those out of work who are waiting for Congress to extend unemployment insurance benefits.

Forst’s last publicly disclosed compensation, according to the NYT:  $49.1 million, in 2007.

Forst was one of the early advisers on the government’s bailout fund — he wasn’t at Goldman Sachs then.

(Goldman Sachs collected almost $13 billion, as a result of the AIG bailout, and sent billions out of the country.  It also paid a $550 million fine for misleading investors — “the largest penalty ever assessed against a financial services firm in the history of the Securities and Exchange Commission”.)

On an encouraging note, the Labor Department logged 120,000 new jobs in the U.S. last month.

Most are in small business, retail, and hospitality.

Hire Your Neighbor is a new venture, not reflected in any of these stats.

Hoover Wind on working retail, getting film degree, working at non-profit

I was laid off in ’08 from a retail store where I know my work suffered from my anxiety of having just graduated with a degree in film without any connections to that industry.

As much as I loathe the retail system (it’s wrong to mistreat and belittle people simply because they’re serving you), I don’t blame Wall St., Obama, the banks, etc. for my unemployment.

I was messed up, and trying to get myself together, after graduating, and the end of a toxic relationship.

I try to be a moderate, but after two years of collecting unemployment while I tried to stay afloat, I have to say thanks to the state.

And thanks to all my friends, who were helping me, because they’re taxpayers too — as they were all too eager to remind me.

The job search was muddled, clumsy and never all that comfortable.

Sometimes, I would wear a shirt and tie, and show up for interviews that were nothing more than promotional seminars that took two-hour intervals out of my life.

Other times, I would go to some business student’s start-up; get a vague description of the job, and a vague description of why I’d be suitable.  They wouldn’t seriously consider me for the job, but everyone was polite enough to through the motions.

After awhile, I realized I was not only resting on my laurels (which were nowhere near strong enough for leaning), but I was trying to find suitable work in an area in which I had no interest or skills.

I knew I could write.

I knew I could write, direct, and act, but my skills seemed so anemic, I never bothered to pursue a career in the entertainment industry.

I finally took an internship at a film production company in Philadelphia.  I learned various skills about being assertive and polite with people on the phone, networking, data entry, promotions, merchandise distribution, and DVD copying.

It was character building, and I got to live in an actual city.  (I live near Atlanta, Georgia.)

However, I was painfully lonely, never felt connected to anything, and acquired the general malaise of my old paying job.

I currently freelance for my family’s non-profit, no one hungry, and I do things I could never do in retail or as an intern.

I collect food from the market; take it to our house for sorting; then deliver it to churches, food banks and food co-ops, for women, children and families in transition.

I’m proud that we move a ton of food a week.  I’m the only paid worker (part-time), among a dozen volunteers.

I work as many hours as I want, but I also try to work as many hours as I can, because it never feels like an assignment or a mandate.  It’s just something I should be doing anyway.

Sometimes, I have to make small talk with people, and sometimes I have to play a Honda Civic-sized game of Tetris by figuring out how to get x amount of food in my car.

But it’s always rewarding, because I believe in the cause for which I’m working.  I mostly interact with my family and friends, and I always feel pride in what I do.

My real goal is to be paid to be funny in any capacity and in any medium.

In the meantime, I’m hoping to work full-time at no one hungry or for a company of equal purpose, friendliness and organization.