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”?

Ask a job counselor: Is volunteer work good or bad for your resume?

By Kathleen Kenna

I have a one-word solution for everything:  Volunteer.

Fed up with the state of schools in your neighborbood?  Volunteer to help students learn to read, write, find their way.  If you really want to make a commitment that helps, become a Big Sister/Brother.

Ticked at government?  Volunteer for some community service that taxes no longer cover but people really need.

Does your community need a clean-up?  Do it, and others will join you, voluntarily.  It just takes one to start.

I’ve volunteered most of my life because that’s the way I was raised:  Give back.

My first volunteer job, at 15, was writing for a local newspaper.  It was so much fun, and so well-read (we lived in a small farming community), my weekly column was soon picked up by another paper.

Volunteering then taught me critical lessons I needed for the rest of life:  How to meet a deadline. How to show up on time.

Forget the fancy stuff, like creative ideas — that first volunteer job taught me the most basic rule of working:  How to be dependable.

I never forgot my editor storming down to the track where I was training for an 800-metre race.  He was steamed because I had missed my first deadline.  (I was too busy training for a track meet and, as a self-absorbed teen, didn’t bother to call him).

Too bad.  He had a space to fill.  That space had my name on it.  And I wrote my piece, post-deadline, to fulfil my obligation.

Never missed another deadline.

As a rehabilitation counselor, working with people with disabilities, I always recommended volunteer work for job-seekers.  As a job counselor, working with people with all kinds of disadvantages, I always suggested volunteer work as a way of building a resume.

My advice?  Do whatever you are able, as much as you can, wherever you can.  I guarantee you’ll take away more than you give:

1.  You’ll learn new skills.

2.  You’ll meet new people.  This is good for socializing — especially if unemployment is making you depressed — and it’s good for networking.

3.  You’ll explore new work environments, whether it’s at a non-profit or office or government.

4.  You’ll boost “soft skills”, such as getting along with others.  Hopefully, you’ll improve executive skills, such as problem-solving, perhaps in a crisis.

5.  And you’ll fill unemployed time with productive work.  You’ll feel more useful; you will be more useful, to many others (likely more than at a paid job too).

This is great for some resumes.  Do a good job as a volunteer, and you’ll get good references.

Do a great job, and it might lead to a paid position.  My two-year newspaper volunteering helped land my first salaried job, at 17, at a larger paper.  That was the modest start of a successful career in journalism.

My second volunteer job was as a nurses’ aide at a seniors’ home, during my first year of university. I learned two things:  (a) Many elders are wonderful, warm people with the greatest stories to tell; and (b) Many old people scare me. (I was 18.)

After university, I volunteered as a writing tutor, “big sister”, soup kitchen worker, and a food bank runner.

These last two jobs were something I did when I was earning my highest salary. I worked so many hours at my salaried job –and exercised so much to stay fit to work so many hours — that I figured volunteer work outside my comfort zone would be a much-needed diversion.

I wanted to give back more when I was getting so much. I wanted to do something physical (hefting food boxes, for example) that would help my community.

I learned more about other people, working in a soup kitchen and a food bank, than I ever did at my high-pressure, high-paid job.

Over the years, I’ve done a lot of volunteer work, in several countries, so I created a separate, volunteer work resume. I put one discreet line at the end of my “awards, achievements” section, indicating this other resume was available.

No one has ever asked to see it.  No interviewer has ever asked about the lifetime achievement award I received from a national non-profit.

And no one, at a non-profit, or government, or business, has ever asked me about the value of volunteering.

The only ones who have asked?  Workers who need jobs.

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.)

Why I spent $3 for the chance to have dinner with the First Lady and President Barack Obama

By Kathleen Kenna

I’ve been unemployed more than two years and I admit it, I just blew $3 on a big gamble — dinner with President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama.

I’m not a gambler, but I couldn’t resist the tease that came with an email invite.

“Want to meet Barack and Michelle?”

This was in bold face, so I’m trying to reproduce its breathless appeal.

Yes, yes, yes I do!

I admire the couple, because they’re smarter than me.

I’m a huge fan of Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign.

I admire her muscles.  I like her style, especially when she’s harvesting organic vegetables from the garden she planted on our White House grounds.

I’m grateful to President Obama for fighting for universal health care in this country, a place that not only has rejected me — a victim of terrorism — for health benefits, but also denied insurance to two healthy Americans, aged 26 and 28, half my age.

I believed then-Senator Barack Obama when he campaigned on promises of “hope” and “change.”

I’m still waiting for positive change.  (We began Hire Your Neighbor because of negative change in the U.S.)

But I’m a huge believer in hope.  It’s what keeps me going, despite unemployment, despite disability, despite chronic pain, despite discrimination.

(And, as a non-American, I still think it’s great that one of your presidents was born in a place called Hope.  As Jack Torry says, you can’t make this stuff up.)

I admire President Obama for “turning the other cheek”, despite all the public hate that passes as “opinion” in the U.S.

I admire President Obama for having the courage, unlike other presidents, to meet flag-draped coffins when they return home from Afghanistan and Iraq.

I admire him for allowing these sombre ceremonies to be photographed (and not the private meetings with families of dead soldiers, as did one of his predecessors).

So I want to have dinner with Barack Obama and his wife.

I want to thank them personally, for their courage and determination and hope.

I want to thank them for raising strong daughters, setting an example of good health and family joy (and no-TV homework nights!) for all of us.

I want to ask them the same questions our three-person Hire Your Neighbor team is asking all Americans:

1.  How many jobs have you created in this recession?

2.  How many jobs have been lost on your watch?

3.  What are you proposing to get 25 million Americans back to work?  What’s preventing you from doing this?

4.  Hire a neighbor, friends, hire a neighbor.

Me and Hadi and Hoover will have dinner anytime with anyone from any political party, anyone from Corporate America, any small business owner, anyone who has a solution to this country’s historic unemployment.

As long as they pick up the tab.

Obama’s invitation came with an offer of airfare and the meal, for “an approximate value of $4,800.”

Want a chance to have dinner with “Barack, Michelle and a guest of your choice”?

Minimum suggested donation is $3.  You could probably donate less.

Entries must be received by midnight on Dec. 31.

To qualify, you must be an American citizen (Hoover and Hadi), or “lawfully admitted permanent resident of the United States” (me).  You must be at least 16.

And sorry, Stephen Colbert, you can’t be a PAC or lobbyist or “foreign agent” to get in on this.

We suspect donors who pay the max — $2,500 — might get a seat at the table before we, the unemployed.

We’re prepared to be amazed if that’s not so (remembering how President Bill Clinton let fat cat donors sleep in our White House).

Expect a follow-up email, no matter what you donate.

As soon as we put the $3 on our Visa, we got another email, asking for more.

They wanted $25.

Hey, Mr. President, we’re unemployed!

Confessions of an unemployed counselor, writer

I sit around all day and watch Ellen and Dr. Oz.

This is good for my character development and my health.  I’m a huge fan of Dr. Oz — if more Americans listened to him, we wouldn’t be so fat.

Why are one-third of American youth obese, anyway?  It can’t just be the high fructose corn syrup and GMO wheat.

I suspect it’s unemployment.

Sitting around all day, watching soaps and snacking, can’t be healthy.

Kathleen Kenna: unemployed counselor, writer

Being jobless is my new weight loss plan:  I’ve dropped more than 20 lbs.

I try to stay healthy because I’m ineligible for health insurance in the richest country on earth.  (I have a “pre-existing condition” known as disability-as- a-result-of-war-wounds, so insurance firms have rejected me).

So, I exercise.  Mostly hiking, uphill both ways, through the woods.  (We have 20 miles of trails near our Oregon apartment; see those lovely trees in the photo?)

For the past two years, I followed my own advice as a rehabilitation counselor:  “Looking for work is a full-time job.”

When I’m not submitting online applications, paying for university transcripts, paying for background checks, and more, I write.

It’s therapeutic.

It pays some bills.  It doesn’t pay the rent.

How I returned to journalism, after a bomb tried to end it

Blame it on a panda.

Saw a news clip about the first baby panda being born at the San Diego Zoo, and figured that would make a good story.

Called a friend at my old paper — I left journalism after the Afghanistan bomb attack — and he agreed to take a short bit.

Followed the pregnant panda; did a follow-up story when the baby was born.

Became a travel writer.

This satisfies my passion for discovering new places and people.

It also allows me to work with my husband, freelance photographer Hadi Dadashian.

The pay isn’t great, but the fringe benefits — priceless.

I was a political journalist most of my life, so “been there, done that.” (Covered the White House, Congress, the United Nations; worked overseas; covered the Afghanistan war …. )

I’m focusing more on public policy — the environment, social justice, disability issues.

Tough to sell anything on disability, however.

As one of my closest friends, a social worker, says, “No one cares about the disabled in a recession.”

I do.

I am — I was — I hope to be again — a rehabilitation counselor.

My specialty?  The one for which I’ve had post-graduate, clinical training, and four years of experience?

Working with Iraq and Afghanistan “wounded warriors”, especially those with TBI (traumatic brain injury) and PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder).

Can’t be any jobs in that field in this country, surely.