Top 5 benefits of being unemployed
Initially, getting laid off kinda blows, but a few weeks later you grow used to the lifestyle and start noticing some aspects of the unemploymentality that are actually quite nice. Here are my top five:
1) Breakfast
This delicious meal has been neglected by throngs of employed people for far too long. I used to only make time for a quick bowl of cereal before running out the door for my 45 minute commute. But now, I have time to do breakfast right! Yesterday I made a 3 egg scramble with sautéed onions, mushrooms, garlic and olive tapenade. I topped it off with some wonderful home-brewed coffee and an hour of Michael Krasny’s Forum on NPR. Perhaps we need this recession to last a little bit longer so more people can learn to enjoy this wonderful time of day again.
2) You can relate to your cheapskate grandparents
Remember all those stories about how tough it was during the great depression? Remember how, 50 years later, your grandmother was still hand-ironing aluminum foil and ‘saving it for later?’ Well, now it doesn’t seem so crazy anymore. If my grandmother was still alive to add water to the dregs of a bottle of ketchup, I would shoot her an approving look and nod, “hell yeah, nanny! We can stretch that ketchup out for at least 2-3 more days! For dinner we’ll have some good ole’ fashioned ketchup sandwiches like back in the dust bowl days.”
3) You’re not lying when you tell the homeless that you don’t have change to spare
I used to feel really bad when a homeless person would ask me to “spare some change.” I would try to sound sympathetic as I lied to his face, “Sorry, I don’t have any.” Well those days are over. Without employment, quarters, dimes and nickels have become a hot commodity in my house (still don’t give a shit about pennies, but give it a few more months). Today when a homeless person asks me for change, I still give him the same crap about not having any, but now I actually mean it! Or if I DO have change, I need it, so I’m not sparing it.
4) The Siesta
You know that feeling you get when you sit back down at your desk after lunch? You start going through your email and all the blood is rushing to your stomach and your eyes start getting really heavy. Food coma, they call it. Well I used to resort to an afternoon cup of coffee to stave off those tired feelings. Oh but not anymore! Now I take a nap. And not just any nap, I siesta. Yes, I try to get at least one full cycle of REM sleep after lunch so I can get up feeling refreshed and able to handle my important afternoon tasks, which include such stressful activities as taking out the trash, walking the dog, and playing online battleship.
5) Texting your employed friends and asking them if they want to do cool things with you
I like to read the paper in the morning and learn about all the interesting exhibits or activities that I can attend during what used to be my work day. I normally don’t attend these events, but I could if I wanted to. So it’s always fun to text my friends at work to invite them to tag along. That way, they feel bad that they have to work instead of doing fun things, and I feel better about being unemployed.
Sux only the chick got a job offer via your publicity stunt
You make being unemployed sound appealing. I wish I had a siesta… Seriously… I am effectively asleep after lunch, just my eyes open staring at a computer screen and my hand randomly moving the mouse. Nice blog. I am going to read it to come up with a list of things to do when unemployed. Post some of the things you do for fun. I am assuming they are cheap/free…
hi from china.
only read the first benifit,i’m totally agree with that hahaha.well,i always eat good breakfast,but i’m sure ,as u said ,employed people never have time to make a good one for themselves.what a loss.
wanna read the left four benifits,but …^^ hope you and ur friend find a job soon,but don’t forget to make time for a good breakfast^^
Best and inexpensive breakfast on the go, (in my humble opinion) Packet of instant oatmeal in large coffee mug. You can add raisins, cinnamon, soy milk etc. Large spoon–out the door. I eat it on my 35 min commute. Just secure it so it doesn’t spill, it makes a big mess..I should know. By the way I work outside so no caf or kitchen around. But Ill take this breakfast over an “Egg”McMuffin any day
Hi, greets from old germany. It´s really true: the united states are the holy eldorado, even in such economic trouble. You can have a nice breakfast, a siesta also! Unbelievable for the enemploymentality here in our country. Even when we are unemployed, we have to leave the warm bed early in the morning, we had to leave the house without a breakfast like in the recent days of prosperity. After writing our names and numbers in different presence-lists, we are “going to work”. That means, we are counting cars or cyclists, or we are counting moths on the chestnuts. Or we walk through our parks and list the rubbish wich lies about in small black books. So we are not enemployed, only disconnected from useful jobs and our income. Without to obtain any benifit in exchange for this disconnection.
So, be happy to be in America, I also want to be in America and to know the true promise of enemploymentality!
solidary greets from the dark and cold side of the planet, Angelika