On unemployment

content/unemployment/001.md

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+date: 2020-06-10
+weight: 1
+---
+
+What do you do when you base, oh, say 80% of your identity on the concept of being productive?
+
+> Produce, I suppose.
+
+Okay.
+
+So, what do you do when you base, oh, say 80% of your identity on the concept of being productive, and you live in a society that values production for the sake of advancing capital --- one's own, but mostly others' --- above all else?
+
+> Get a job?
+
+Yes.
+
+So, what do you do when you base, oh, say 80% of your identity on the concept of being productive, live in a capitalist society, and then lose your job?

content/unemployment/002.md

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+date: 2020-06-10
+weight: 2
+---
+
+<a class="pulse" href="/burnout">Burnout</a> is a real problem within tech circles. Much of what drives it is the industry, of course. The rockstar developers, the 10x engineers, all these mythical beasts that startups crave are also unattainable goals that so many engineers have burnt themselves to a crisp over.
+
+A lot of that rests on the shoulders of the type of people who wind up in software, though. We're a very needy bunch. We crave the feeling of success that comes with solving problems, and while this is, yes, easy to capitalize on, it's also easy to get addicted to. You wind up with tracked-out veins, living from project to project and hating every minute of it, every bit of yourself.
+
+> Thus you, promising work and yourself that you would take two weeks off over the holidays as an attempt to reset yourself and get more on track with their requirements.
+
+Yes, and thus work, upon those two weeks' completion, wondering why I hadn't gotten more done over the break.
+
+> And you bought into it.
+
+I bought into it *hard*. Why *hadn't* I gotten more accomplished over the break? Why *hadn't* I been the 10x engineer that they wanted for the role? Wasn't that what I did? Wasn't that what I was *for?*
+
+> Apparently not.
+
+Right.
+
+I'd never been fired, and while I think that the record still stands, there, it does so only on technicalities. My contract was up on February seventh, and both work and I agreed that we would not be renewing it. I hated working there, and they hated having an engineer that hated working for them.

content/unemployment/003.md

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+date: 2020-06-10
+weight: 3
+---
+
+> But that's not quite the beginning, is it?
+
+I suppose not.
+
+> You had tried three times to get away from burnout. You burnt out at bConnected. You moved to Canonical, and while it worked for several years, you burnt out there as well. You burnt out at the Archive. And here you were, burning out at New Vector.
+
+Right. The third time, it turns out, was not the charm.
+
+> So, while that comes before the beginning, you still must start at the beginning.
+
+Okay.
+
+I started [Hybrid Ink](https://hybrid.ink) back in 2018 almost on a whim. The idea was to start picking up unique novels that tickled my interest and helping bring them to a light. The mission statement was soon broadened to focus specifically on LGBTQIA+ works, and it seemed like a really good pet project to get working on.
+
+By the time I was getting frustrated at the Archive, I was already toying with the idea of turning it from a pet project into an actual company that I could work for. It'd be easy enough, right?
+
+> Right.
+
+Why do your monosyllabic interjections always sound more pointed than mine?
+
+> Are my barbs too sharp?
+
+I suppose I wouldn't have it any other way.
+
+> So, untangle that.
+
+I say "it'd be easy, right?" with the knowledge granted to me by hindsight that it was not, in fact, easy. It was not easy at all.
+
+My plan was to find a tech job and work there for a year, both ramping up Hybrid quickly and also saving my money to help support me as I delved into a job that would not be making me tech job money. I had it all worked out. I came up with six anthologies that I would publish, staggered across several months. By the time I was ready to leave my next job, the house would have picked up enough steam that it would be able to run on its own right.
+
+> Right.
+
+Exactly.
+
+So when New Vector started falling apart with astonishing speed, I raced to both accelerate the ramping-up and search for a new job. Maybe I could make this work, right? I just needed to land something else relatively quickly. I started looking at tech writing jobs, as I figured those would be more likely to be tolerable --- hell, maybe even they'd make a good long-term career. Writing, right? Even if it's just docs?
+
+And then I started looking at companies I wasn't as fond of. No one was biting, and those that were were swamped with other candidates more credentialed than I. DigitalOcean was super promising, and also super nice about it when they turned me down. 
+
+And then I started compromising my morals. Amazon was an option, right? They're a horrifying company, and I felt slimy and disgusting interviewing there, but a paycheck was a paycheck, right? I could hold my nose for a year or so to get back on my feet, right? I could not.
+
+And then I started digging back into tech jobs. Maybe if I took a more junior position, I would be able to work more easily, That way, I reasoned, I would be less isolated, having to report to someone more senior. My day would be easier to get through without flailing at nothing.
+
+> Compromise is the warp and woof of the world, is it not? Here you are, compromising three times over, racing to find a job during your last few weeks at work, and failing ever downward.

content/unemployment/004.md

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+date: 2020-06-10
+weight: 4
+---
+
+There are very few good times to be unemployed.
+
+> Most are pretty bad, yes.
+
+Capitalism frowns upon it, but America is outright hostile toward it. Unemployment is, at best, an uncomfortable thing to be swept under the rug. Perhaps if they just disappear, no one will care, right? At worst, it's seen as a moral failing. People who are unemployed have fucked up, and it's a wonder that being unemployed isn't illegal.
+
+> An interesting thought, given how much work felt like prison.
+
+Right.
+
+So there's never really a good time to be out of a job, but there are degrees of badness. There are some particularly awful times to be unemployed.
+
+> Was it the looming threat of world war three that tipped you off? Or perhaps the slow erosion of rights and protections? Ah, or perhaps it was the global pandemic. The volcano? The murder hornets? The slow simmering of racial tensions hitting a flash point and causing riots in every state in the country, and sympathetic protests around the world?
+
+The first six months of 2020 have been the longest decade of my life.

content/unemployment/005.md

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+date: 2020-06-10
+weight: 5
+---
+
+JD and I have been seeing a couples therapist for a few weeks now.
+
+> Hard left, much?
+
+There's a reason.
+
+She's a pretty good therapist. A bit chatty, occasionally prone to anticipating what we're going to say, but that's alright. Still, I've been getting a surprising amount out of the sessions. Surprising in that it's more than I think I'd get out of sessions with just her, and far more than I'd get out of talking with just JD. She's too new to me, and JD and I are too familiar for either one on its own to lead to the amount of learning I'm getting done.
+
+> Greater than the sum of the parts?
+
+By a lot, yes. Perhaps it's the context shift inherent in couples therapy: it changes the way JD and I talk to and about each other. Perhaps it's the fact that such therapy is inherently guided: while my therapy sessions with Jessica --- a delightful therapist I like a lot --- can be a bit mixed because sometimes there's no core thread to chase down, we automatically have a topic to talk about, a project to work on here.
+
+> And so?
+
+And so, given that I'm one of those 40 million unemployed in the US, and given that I've, as of this week, used up all of my savings, and given that I was denied unemployment benefits due to having been an independent contractor, that's featured quite heavily in our sessions.
+
+And so this idea of worth as tied to productivity featured heavily in today's--
+
+> Yesterday's
+
+--right, I've been awake for too long. This idea of productivity as self-worth featured heavily. In particular, the idea that I heavily associate my worth as a person with the things that I produce is not new, though it is particularly evident of late, but specifically the idea that I have a hard time asking for help specifically because that would mean that I am, in some way, failing.
+
+> You are, in a way.
+
+I am.
+
+> You fail all the time.
+
+Yes.
+
+> You're failing to sleep right now.
+
+Yes.
+
+> ...
+
+???
+
+> You fell asleep and are writing this the next day.
+
+Yes.
+
+> You're always failing.
+
+Of course.
+
+> You forgive others their failures. Can you not forgive your own?
+
+Apparently not. Am I worthy of forgiveness?
+
+> Not my department.
+
+Right.
+
+> Let me throw that back at you. That **is** my department. Are you worthy of forgiveness?
+
+Of course I am. That's something I can answer immediately on an intellectual level. There is decidedly more hesitation when asked to answer that on an emotional level. And when it comes to that third-of-three parts, that part defined by negative space and shadow and blind spots--
+
+> My neighbor.
+
+--then no, I am not. Not by a long shot.

content/unemployment/006.md

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+date: 2020-06-11
+weight: 6
+---
+
+And so I continue to fail and I continue to not forgive myself, because that's just the way it works.
+
+> Must it?
+
+Of course not. In fact, it mustn't, but reality --- or at least the mind --- cares little for musts and must-nots. The only unforgivable one is the *I*.
+
+To bring this all together at last, running Hybrid was predicated on me being able to afford to pay authors. Being able to pay authors required a tech job. That I had failed at having a tech job, whether due to the circumstances of the economy or to my own burnout, meant that I had essentially failed at Hybrid.
+
+The company is in limbo now. I can't afford to pay authors, and yet some are under contract, so I'm investigating contract cancellation forms. All but one of the anthologies is likely to be cancelled, and that one only due to the fact that the folks at Furplanet were interested enough in *Genderful* to try and make it a reality.
+
+That I have failed at running the company has killed my interest in running it any further. Jill's book needs editing and a cover. She's under contract, right? I need to do this and yet, and yet...
+
+> And yet you can't because engaging even with the positive aspects of the company mean facing your failures all the way on the other side. It means recognizing the ways in which you've fallen short.
+
+Yes.
+
+> And yet, even though working with Furplanet on *Genderful* is one hundred percent a positive thing, you haven't pulled together the stories and started reading yet or come up with a formal agreement between Hybrid and FP for the same reason.
+
+Yes.
+
+> This is the true failure.
+
+Yes. Not the anthologies failing, not the countless problems involved in running a business, but the complete inability to engage with concrete failures. The concrete failure of the anthologies has lead to the one true failure of being unable to ask for help, even when it is well and truly given, whether by Furplanet or by Scribbles or by JD. It is an abstract failure, and for that, all the more insidious. One cannot escape abstract failures. One cannot solve them through concrete steps.
+
+Unemployment is a concrete problem. COBRA is a concrete problem. Burnout is a more abstract problem, sure, but one with concrete solutions.
+
+The core of the issue is the inability to set aside the requirement for control and engage with abstract failures. The will is there. The desire is there. The *need* is there, but the ability is not.
+
+> Not yet.

content/unemployment/_index.md

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+type: serial
+back: /33
+color: "#eaf5ff"
+background: "#03042a"
+quote: "#dbe4ee"
+---
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