2009-04-01 - 10:38 a.m.
When I first moved to Chicago after graduating college, it was a bad employment market similar to this one. So I worked temp, found my low paying dream job, worked temp all while trying to find a "real job" - whatever that means.
There were a bunch of us that all moved here around the same time in 1994 and we had a rotating Unemployment Club where the President was the person who had been unemployed the longest. It was just our acknowledgment of each other's woes associated with living in the big city and trying to find work.
Luckily we'd all look out for one another when it came to needing a couple bucks for drinks or smokes when we gathered in one another's homes to commiserate. Ahh, the Unemployment Club was hours of entertainment.
I was probably president the most of anyone. It's good to be in charge. Hee. I think the furthest down the succession line we ever got was Treasurer - so that would have been 4 out of the six to eight of us core group being unemployed at once. So don't despair, unemployed people, you can have fun without a lot of money and you can always become President (of the Unemployment Club).
Hope!
