How unemployed are you? Would you exploit a charity for $100?

There are a lot of people out there that have been unemployed for months, or worse, years.  For these people, the novelty of unemployment and its endless hours of free time, with no bosses and no clocks to punch has long since worn off.  These are the people that have hit what I like to call the, Welfare Wall.

In a word, they’re broke. 

I call it the Welfare Wall because it’s usually hit when the unemployment checks stop coming.  It’s that moment when you’re reduced to competing with teenagers for summer jobs dishing out soft-served ice cream to throngs of thankless kids who are lucky enough to still have a season’s pass to Six Flags.  But you can’t even get this job.  At that moment you think to yourself, “Oh my God, I might have to apply for welfare.” An animalistic survival instinct replaces the malaise that you had been living in for past six months while receiving the bi-weekly checks that you had convinced yourself that you earned.

So now it’s not so much a ‘job’ search anymore as it is a ‘how am I going to make enough cash to keep the water on this month’ search.

Among the one-off gigs you’ve considered are donating plasma, lying about your personal history so that you can qualify for a methamphetamine study you found posted on Craigslist or breaking into abandoned buildings to harvest copper piping (there’s actually pretty good money in this).

For those that have already hit the Welfare Wall, all we can do is pray that they score at least something semi-regular before they have to do something unthinkable (like working at Gymboree).  For the rest of us that haven’t hit the wall yet, we need to decide where we’ll draw the line and how far we are willing to lower our standards before this animalistic, survival instinct permanently clouds our judgment. 

For myself, I realized where I would draw this line after a friend sent me an article by Rick Reilly in ESPN Magazine. 

The article was about an interesting discrimination lawsuit filed against the Oakland Athletics and Macy’s Department store.  The case is based on a Mother’s Day promotion held in 2004 where the Oakland A’s sponsored a pre-game 5k run to raise money for the fight against breast cancer.  As part of the promotion under-served woman in the community were given free mammograms and Macy’s gave away floppy sun hats to the first 7,500 woman through the gate.  But a ‘man,’ Alfred G. Rava, was so upset that he wasn’t allowed to have a floppy sun hat as well that he sued. 

And guess what?  He’s pretty much won the case.

As Reilly reports:

“A judge has given preliminary approval to a $510,000 settlement — roughly half to lawyers and the rest to the “victims” — the poor, downtrodden gender-disadvantaged waifs like Rava who didn’t get their floppy Mother’s Day hats. This is where you come in.

If you can prove you were one of the first 7,500 people there that day, you get $50 in cash, two-for-one A’s tickets and a $25 Macy’s coupon. It won’t be hard. All you have to do is (A) state under oath that you are a male, (B) show some kind of receipt for your ticket and (C) swear you were there early. That’s good enough. There’s no video, and nobody’s going to spend $5,000 deposing you about $100.”

To be clear.  Alfred G. Rava is not ‘one of us.’  He’s a lawyer; a lawyer with a bug up his keister for cashing in on his own uber-literal interpretation of sexual discrimination laws.  He’s the guy that has sued clubs for having lady’s night specials.

So Lame.

But for those struggling through the darkest days of their unemployment.   But for those that have hit the Welfare Wall, people on the verge of performing acts that they never thought they would have to, Albert G. Rava’s victory may seem like low-hanging fruit.  That 100 dollars of cash and coupons could go along way.  And I’m sure it wouldn’t be too hard to get around the fact that you don’t have a ticket stub from the 2004 game in question either.

But with the luxury of time comes perspective.  And after reading this article I realized that this is where I will would have to draw the line.  If I should hit my personal welfare wall I may break into abandoned buildings for copper, I may just subject myself to narcotic or cosmetic studies for cash.  Hell, I may even work at Gymboree…but I will never ever exploit a charity event for $100 in cash and coupons on a bogus sexual discrimination charge.

Even when it seems like you’ve got nothing left you can still have your pride.

Long live lady’s night.

 

What about you? How far would you go to make a buck and where would you draw the line?