CHAPTER 3: PLEADING WITH STEVIE WONDER

Dear Reader:

As I write, Caterpillar just announced that they were laying off 20,000 employees. To be honest, I didn't think that they even had that many total employees. Late last week Microsoft announced 5,000 lay-offs ----and that company was profitable last year! It seems as if the rate of layoffs is beginning to approach warp speed, Mr. Sulu. No joke, this 'thing' has gotten to be scary and I wonder if there is anybody in America other than Oprah who is not at least a little apprehensive about their employment outlook?I am beginning to think that President Obama and the government might need to take really drastic measures to help all of us get jobs..and soon too!

Last night I had this dream that the government had instituted something called job rationing---sorta like how things were done during World War II with the rationing of sugar and rubber, etc. In this dream of mine, each American could, by law, only have one job at a time ----at least until every American who wanted a job had a job. When I awoke from REM Sleep, the dream was still on my mind and I thought abut the the idea of job rationing. Of course, one of the problems is that there a bunch of people who have about ten jobs apiece.

Take that Ryan Seacrest, for example. Last I heard, this guy has a radio show, a restaurant or two, owns several TV programs and he’s the host of that American Idol Show where they make the viewer work by forcing you to call in and vote (at your own expense too!) so the producers can figure out who they should throw off the show next. Seems to me that ought to be the producers job, but I digress.Anyway, I think Seacrest has even won an Emmy for hosting a parade on TV---with Regis for godsakes! C’mon Seacrest, let someone else have some work.

Or take Martha Stewart. Seems like whenever I turn on the TV---day or night----if Ryan Seacrest is not on the TV screen looking back at me, Martha Stewart is. She’s everywhere reader, selling something or showing you how to do some really silly stuff like making doillies or candles. Reader, who really needs to make candles? Probably only the Amish people and they don't even have television so that see Martha. Hasn’t Martha ever heard of Walgreen’s. Personally, I think that if she really wanted to be helpful to the average American, she would be showing people how to fix the transmission on the car, how to make a good cup of coffee at home for less than $4.00 a pop or maybe how to steal your neighbor's cable-TV feed or at least how to glom off of their Internet.

The point is that there are bunch of chronic overachievers and workaholics out there like Seacrest and Stewart who are hogging up all of the jobs. I bet that if they even gave up a couple of their jobs they even wouldn’t miss the dough and they’d probably be able to get some rest. Maybe even take a vacation. They have jobs that you ---or especially me ---could do. (Hell, I could learn to make candles on TV if I just had the opportunity.)

Stevie Wonder and Will Smith are two guys who could also share a little of the wealth----- or at least one of their jobs:

Pleading with Stevie Wonder

Don’t get me wrong, reader. I am a BIG fan of Stevie Wonder----- ever since Fingertips, Part II wayyyyyy back in the Sixties, when he was a kid running around as "Little" Stevie Wonder. I even liked Fingertips, Part I. I own practically every album that Stevie’s ever made:Talking Book, Innervisions, Fulfillingness First Finale, Songs in the Key of Life You, etc. etc. You name a Stevie Wonder album, I have it. When I was a kid, I even watched those godawful Beach Movies with (the ex-Mouseketeer) Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon just so that I could see Stevie and hear him play the harmonica.

Remarkably, I even share the same birth day, May 13, with Stevie----a little known fact (known mainly to me). There even a few people who say that Stevie and I look alike though I don’t necessarily buy it.

Anyway, Stevie already has a bunch of jobs---singer, songwriter, harmonica player, record-producer and playing apparently every musical instrument ever invented. He ’s sold scads of records, made a ton of money, and won most of the Grammy’s ever manufactured back in the 70's and 80's. (In those days, it seemed as if every time that Stevie fell out of bed, he must've stayed on the floor and while he was down there, wrote a new album----- and won all of the Grammy’s for that year.

Now Stevie apparently is thinking of dancing---on that program Dancing with the Stars. (At this writing, he reportedly is in serious negotiations with the producers of the show about joining the list of competitors for its upcoming spring season.)

Enough already, Stevie. Back off! I'm pleading with you. Let someone who needs a job be on Dancing with the Stars instead. Like me!

Now, I have no doubt that Stevie can dance and will do well on the show. For one thing, he’s has to be better than Master P, who was on a couple of years ago. He was awful, reader. Just awful. Stevie is probably also a better dancer than Cloris Leachman, who is a great actress but a really lousy ballroom dancer. Last fall, her partner had to drag her old butt all over the floor just to keep her on show for a couple of weeks. In fact, my grandmother would have been better than either Cloris Leachman or Master P…and Nana was in a wheel chair.

Anyway, I think that Stevie will do a better job on the show than most people might think. The reason for this reader is that as much as I admire his creative talent and as much as I admire Stevie himself, I’ve always had the suspicion that maybe his 'visual acuity' might be better than he has been leading us to believe. There are a couple of reasons for this theory of mine:

For one, Otis Williams, the founder and boss of the legendary R&B group, The Temptations has related some stories about Stevie, when he was just a kid. It seems that in the early years of Motown, Stevie was about 12 years old and was ALWAYS hanging around the offices and studios of Motown playing the damn harmonica, playing with all of knobs on the moog-synthesizer and popping his fingers. According to Otis, Stevie loved being around the music studio---just loved it. Just loved being around the Motown offices and studios. They couldn’t make Stevie go home. They'd actually have to call, his mother, Mrs. Wonder, and say "Please come get this kid. He's good but he's getting on everybody's nerves with the finger poppin and all. Please come get him and take him home until tomorrow." Anyway, apparently, Little Stevie was constantly underfoot and according to Otis, when he or one of the other Temptations would silently come into the room (I figure they were trying to sneak up on him and maybe give him a hot foot or something), Stevie knew exactly which one of the Temptations had just walked in. He’d say, “Hello Otis”, or “Hello David”, or “Hello Paul”, “Hello Eddie”, or “Hello Melvin”------and he'd be accurate! For the most part, all of Tempts were more or less about the same height, weight and had similar facial features. Hell, it was kinda hard for a sighted person to tell them apart, sometimes. But Stevie could tell them apart...supposedly by sound of their footfall. Yeah right, Stevie.

The other reason that I figure that maybe Stevie has been skinnin' us is that "back in the day" , there were many visually impaired people who sometimes used their hands to 'feel' other peoples faces ---and if they were really sneaky, sometimes their bodies----- so they could 'sense' or feel how the entire person looked. It wouldn’t surprise me one little bit if 'a' 12 year old Little Stevie Wonder used the visual impairment scam to 'cop a feel' on Diana Ross and The Supremes, Mary Wells, Martha and the Vandellas, and a few of the other female stars too. It’s exactly the kind of scam that a young, precocious 14 year old boy pull. I figure that maybe Stevie started this whole thing when he was younger and it just kinda mushroomed.

Another reason that I have my doubts about Stevie is that I myself, “....as a precocious 14 year old boy” carried out a similar caper at All Saints and Sinners Catholic School. For the first month that I attended the school in Philadelphia, I wore sunglasses and made it my business to 'accidentally walk into' a couple of walls about every other day. This whole act helped my social life immeasurably and I got to know a couple of attractive but sympathetic girls in a more', er...biblical' way. This act worked pretty well until Sister Ursula caught me determining just how much a girl named Darlene's chest had developed over the previous summer.

If Stevie wins Dancing with the Stars it will be, at least in my opinion, verification that my inklings about him have been correct for all these years. Of course, being unemployed myself and badly needing a job, I am hoping that he’ll demur (i.e. a fancy word for “ saying no”) and let some one else who really needs the gig---me, for instance---- have it. Come on Stevie, I'm pleasding with you. Don't take the Dancing with the Stars gig. Let me have some work.

Will Smith

Will Smith is another overachiever who has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to jobs. Will has been in a ton of movies over the years. The guy is box office magic and even his bad movies make gazillions of dollars. Seems like he’s always making a movie. His wife, Jada Pinkett, is also a movie star and lately these people have even gotten their kids into the, er "act". In these tough economic times, when we all need to work, I say “Will, baby, let somebody else---- like me---- have some of that work.

A perfect opportunity, had Will been a proponent of job rationing, would have been the movie, The Pursuit of Happiness. In this movie, he and his son played Christopher Gardner and his son. Gardner was a real life guy, mind you, who had been really down on his luck. At one time, he had been a homeless, single parent, living in the bathroom of a subway station. (Through sheer persistence, drive and talent, Gardner "pulled himself by his bootstraps", to become the owner of an investment company and also become "ridiculously" wealthy. (His is a uniquely American story, sort of like Barack’s , except that Chris is extremely wealthy, single, and can go home with a lot of really good looking babes.)

Anyway, it would have been nice if Will Smith had given the job to me. For several reasons:

1. We have the same first name. The movie company would not have needed to buy any additional billboard space for my name than they did for his.

2. I actually met Chris Gardner after he was wealthy and I look a lot more like him than Will Smith ever did.

3. I could have at least played Chris Gardner’s 'down' years and it would not have been acting.

Heck, the producers wouldn't have need to pay for a script for that part.

Anyway reader, call me crazy, but I think that this job rationing thing might have some potential. Maybe I should try and send Barack and e-mail and suggest it to him. It would definitley get him the unemployed vote.

Once again, reader, I gotta run. I can hear the wolves gathering at the door.

Still jobless in Atlanta...but hoping
JustPlainWill

CHAPTER 2: THE O WORD

Dear Reader:

The good news is that when I awoke this morning and stumbled into the bathroom to relieve myself, I didn’t piss any blood. Not that I was really expecting any, its just that given my current woes---unemployment, impoverishment, insolvency, and the worry that Barack is seriously considering bringing a Labradoodle into The White House, it would be just one more of a million possible things that have gone recently awry. I am not complaining mind you, its just that given recent events, I count myself lucky when I can exit the car, and go to the front door of the house without being hit by a falling meteorite.

On a serious note, “…without being hit by a falling ex-employee” is perhaps more like it. It seems like American companies are laying off and discarding employees in droves. See http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm. The bad news is that last count, there were more than 11.1 million Americans who were unemployed---and that’s not counting the millions who have gotten discouraged from even looking for work and just said “screw it! The number seems to growing exponentially, with every passing day. In the past month or so, Caterpillar, Microsoft, Bank of America, Sony, and Boeing have all added themselves to an already long and frightening list of companies who have laid off employees like there's no tomorrow. http://www.forbes.com/2008/11/17/layoff-tracker-unemployement-lead-cx_kk_1118tracker.html. This whole situation is getting to be seriously scary. At this rate, I am beginning to wonder if anyone in America will still be working a couple of months rom now.

The worse news ---at least for me -----is that I still am one of the 11.1 million great unwashed.

THE “O” WORD

I got a phone call early this morning from the Acme Products Company. (That's not really their name, reader. But in order to protect them from ridicule and the millions of cards, letters, and e-mails with which I KNOW that you would bombard them I used their real name, I figure I'd better give them an alias. It's just the considerate thing to do.)

It was a little unnerving to receive an incoming cell phone call at exactly 9:11 a.m. I’m not really superstitious or anything, its just that I figure that nothing good can come out of phone call that comes at exactly that time of day. (It’s almost like looking upon the scene of a drunken sailor, one who has been at sea for six months, both arms draped around two 22 year old morally challenged blondes, hundred dollar bills hanging out of his pocket, and its only 8:00p.m. You know that nothing ‘good’ can come out of that situation. Nothing! But I digress…)

“Good morning, Will, this is Margaret Shirkman at Acme Products. We were delighted to have you come in yesterday and spend the day interviewing and getting to know us.”
“ Ms. Shirkman, it was my pleasure”, I said.
“Will, everyone that you interviewed on yesterday was very impressed. You have a great personality, your aptitude test scores were off the charts, you have great skills, a great resume, a really good education, and you are probably the most articulate person that we’ve interviewed in the entire history of Acme Products. Quite frankly Will, the president of the Acme, Mr. Crankly said that he wishes that his own sons were more like you.”

At this point, dear reader, my chest was sticking out with pride and there was a bright smile on my face that would have lit up the Atlanta night, had it not been just after nine o’clock in the morning. I figured that finally(!) here was one company who had the good sense to recognize great talent and that I was the best executive that they could hire. I had finally won the "job lotto" in this god awful recession.... and that Margaret Shirkman was going to offer me the job that I had been longing for…for months. The job drought was over!!!

“Ms. Shirkman, I can start work tomorrow morning...this afternoon, if you'd prefer. Should I come in a few minutes early in order to complete all of the HR forms?”
“Will, there is a problem”, she said.
“Problem? “But I thought you just said that…”
“Will, we discussed it. Yesterday. After you left.”
“ Do you want me to take less money? I've learned to live on very little money this last year". In
fact, I can live on practically nothing.
“No, Will, that’s not the problem. We can afford to pay you.”
“Do you want me to move to corporate headquarters in Boise? Just say the word. I hear that
there’s great trout fishing in Idaho.”
“No, Will, that’s not the problem. The problem is that you’re over- qualified. You’ve got too much education, too much experience.”
“Quite frankly, Will, you’re very smart and you're clearly too good for Acme Products.”
“But, Ms. Shirkman…”

I tried to get Margaret Shirkman to change her mind by telling her that I wasn’t nearly as qualified or as good as I appeared and that I just happened to ‘interview’ well---sorta like those underachieving kids in school who just happened to ‘test’ well----- and that I was really quite mediocre when you got right down to it.

Margaret Shirkman wasn’t buying it. I guess that my talent and vast experience just seeped through my pores and despite my best efforts to cover it up, had given me away.

“No, Will, you’re good. Real Good. We’ve discussed it. Mr. Crankly has a sixth sense about these kind of things. He knows a real smart person when he sees one.

I wanted to say, "Ms. Shirkman, I’ve been unemployed for what seems like an eternity and I really need this job and I’m sure that when all is said is done you will really find me to really need some room for improvement. I can really come up lacking, if you’ll just give me a chance."
That's what I wanted to say. I didn't, of course, but before, I could say anything, she cut me off.
“Will, I heard that Stew's Used Car Emporium is hiring and quite frankly, they have a better pension plan than we do. More holidays too. Call Stew. Their number is in the book. Good luck in your future career endeavors.” The next thing that I heard was a dial tone. Margaret Shirkman was gone from the phone.


I’ve heard the “O” word before… too many times. Overqualified! Quite frankly, reader, I thought we’d gotten past such epithets in this country. It’s a good thing that Margaret Shirkman had been on the phone when she was miles away and talking on the phone . I betcha she wouldn’t have said the "O" word to my face, dammit! There was a time in this country where just the mention of the "O" word to the wrong person would get the person uttering the word a serious thrashing---- or at the very least a real good cussing out.

That's what I felt like doing ---calling her back and giving her a cussing her out. But I didn't because I guess that Ms. Shrikman was only doing what she was told to do. She was just a pawn in this whole thing. But it is frustrating to be constantly told that you're overqualified...especially when you're starving to death. It’s like telling Hallie Berry that you don’t want to date her because she’s too beautiful. Or that you don’t want to be Bill Gates’ friend because he has too much money. Overqualified. The very nerve…

After the phone call and a couple of hours of fuming, I went back to the business of finding gainful employment, secretly wishing that Margaret Shirkman and her friends at the Acme would be hit by that falling meteorite that I, so far have eluded, and looked up the telephone number of Stew's Used Car Emporium.

Reader, I gotta sign off again. There's another wolf at the door. Looks like he's brought a couple of friends.

Overqualified but starving in Atlanta, USA,

JustPlainWill

CHAPTER 1: THE UNWANTED ADVENTURE

Dear Reader:

Welcome to the inaugural post of "Notes from the Recession".

The naked truth is that I’ve always wanted to be a writer. A published writer, that is. (Hell, I figure that just about anybody can write a few words on any old piece of paper and not be published. I think that such things are commonly called 'grocery lists'!) Before the recession however I just did not have enough free time to embark upon a serious writing project. My time had been devoted to other wholesome American pursuits such as 'family', career, seeing if Phil Mickelson was ever going to win another major golf tournament (especially if Tiger were playing), waiting in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles as well as trying to figure out just who had invented such things as the box lunch as well as who came up with the idea for granola. As I begin the fourth quarter of life, however, I figure that if I'm ever going to be a writer, I'd damn well better get started-----especially since, as a result of unemployment and the recession, I now have more a lot more free time than I ever wanted.

It seems as if most all of the books on the subject of writing as well professional writing instructors advise inexperienced and still impressionable young authors to get started by "...writing about stuff that you already know about." Unlike some of the other subjects that teachers often lecture on (such as say, calculus, existentialism, or Einstein's Theory of Relativity), this concept makes complete sense to me. It is a much easier approach and you don’t have to waste a lot of unnecessary time learning how to be an expert on something such as say thermodynamics, “The Sex Life of the Tsetse Fly”, "Understanding the Mind of Your Ex-Wife (or Husband)", or "How to Cure Cholera for Fun and Profit". And while I have had formal training and even, for a while, a modicum of success in real estate finance (having actually been employed in this industry for decades) it seems that the topics that I really know about these days ----and in which I have unfortunately become too well versed --- are (1) coping with unemployment, (2) living on next to nothing, (3) living on actual nothing, (4) avoiding Rupert, the repo man, (5) dodging bill collectors, (6)forced dieting, and (7)explaining to close family members, friends, and the landlord for the umpteenth time why I am chronically as well as acutely broke -----and of course, (8)trying to find gainful employment. All of this knowledge has been garnered---- painfully and without the benefit of any anesthesia or even a single Tylenol.

I also recall having read in one of those same books for fledgling writers and budding novelists (I think that it was either "Writing Books for Dummies" or "How to Make Untold Billion$ as a Hollywood Writer") that most of the great works of literature involved some kind of journey upon which the author or narrator had, at some point in his life, embarked upon-----like Melville in Moby Dick. In researching this concept, I found that many of the great journeys in literature did involve actual trips such as crossing the Pacific Ocean in a rowboat or "road trips" to exotic places like Paris, Borneo or Waycross, Georgia. (In the pre-trip planning, most of the same writing books advise would-be authors to travel a sufficient number of miles from home----say,at least ten. It seems as if there is more allure, suspense, and invariably, adventure in places that are a greater distance from one's home as opposed to a half-mile trip down to the local Wal-Mart.)

At other times, the writing books advise that the literary journey can be the emotional or the spiritual kind on which the protagonist (that's writer talk for "hero" of the story) goes on a journey of self-discovery in an effort to, er... "find himself" ---- thus building character and/or "coming to terms with the universe." (I think that this phrase "coming to terms with the universe" is the average English Lit teacher's code phrase for the failure of the hero to make it back home due to death, romance or just getting lost. Sometimes its all three, but I digress...)

In this case, your protagonist (i.e. me) currently finds himself out of work and my daily journey is one of actually trying to find the recession's Holy Grail ----- i.e. paid employment. My journey is definitely one of more than ten miles especially since any job interview or job fair is invariably on the other side of town. If the interview takes place on one of the top floors of a tall enough building, you can look out of any window with a Southerly exposure and generally see the curvature of the Earth between my house and the location of interview. (I'm pretty sure that the inverse relationship between one's need to minimize the travel expense and the actual travel distance to said job interview is one of the Immutable Laws of the Universe.) On an interview that I recenly had it would have been easier -----and cheaper---- to actually take the Space Shuttle to the interviewer's office.

Accordingly, it seems to be an obvious choice that I write about "my journey through the recession" and to chronicle my efforts ---and ocassionally, those of others----to "come to terms" with it (i.e. the recession) , survive and come out alive. To be sure, the hard times that many of us are experiencing are serious, real, and urgent. You will note however that sometimes the blog will take on a seriocomic slant or the approach of a “dramedy”--- i.e. part drama, part comedy. On many recent occasions, I have had to laugh in order to keep from crying or downright sobbing uncontrollably. Hopefully though, the reader will find some useful tips or nuggets that will help in your attempts to survive the economic downturn even if those tips relate some of my false starts, misadventures, and things that I have found out that absolutely don’t work -----and that you should “not try at home”. I also hope that you’ll also get a chuckle or two. The media and President Obama tell us that things are going to get worse before they get better. Thus, if your situation is even remotely similar to mine, you’re going to need a chuckle or two.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I can’t take all of the credit for the idea of writing about my adventures in the recession or my journey through it. I really didn’t pick out this particular journey on my own. You can be sure that if had been left completely up to me, I would have picked out a completely different kind of adventure in which to participate and write about. Running the bulls in Pamplona; hurdling Class VI rapids on the Colorado River; searching for Osama bin Laden, alone and unarmed in the mountains of Afghanistan; or maybe going to a Philadelphia Eagles football game and sitting in the home stands wearing the visiting team jersey---all would have been "sufficient enough" adventure for me. I suspect that any of these escapades would have been far less stimulating, less terrifying and less perilous than constantly living on the edge of disaster, being unemployed and looking for work at near sixty years of age in the midst of a real live, honest to goodness recession.

Unfortunately, the choice was not completely up to me and was influenced greatly by the the collapse of the mortgage and housing industries, unemployment, the recession and presence of various and sundry "wolves at the door".

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THINGS I"VE LEARNED IN THE RECESSION or SOME FREE ADVICE TO NEW "MEMBERS OF THE RECESSION CLUB"

1. Do not, for one minute, try to con those people over at power company ( the telephone company, the city water department, the gas company or similar types of “for profit” institutions). I know from personal expereince that they WILL cut off your services for even the slightest of provocations such as and including not paying the monthly bill. All of these folks know exactly where you live, are relentless and they have already heard all of the excuses for non-payment that you could ever tell them, as well as a few that have not even been invented yet. Some of these folks at the utility companies are nice enough and some of them are even worried about being downsized themselves. But there are some of them who actually delight in chuckling at any and all excuses and will not accept temporary job lay-off, permanent job-loss, poverty, hangnail, volcano, avalanche, leg amputation, or even death as an excuse for non-payment. Don't even try it.

2. Do not get cocky or delusional about how well things are going a few days after your lay-off or terminiation. Sometimes new members of the recession, those that have been laid off for less than 60 days will get lulled into a false sense of security since they still have money. However you will soon find that at the most inopportune of moments, some heretofore reliably functioning piece of equipment such as your car's transmission, the refrigerator, the furnace, or a kidney will suddenly quit working…and be in immediate need of expensive repair or total overhaul or complete replacement. I’ve learned this axiom over the past year or so and while it was not postulated by Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Jonas Salk, Neils Bohr or some other famous scientist, I know this to be true. Count on it.

The good news is that these ‘yet another crisis’ events are the mother of invention, innovation, improvisation and can be be the precursor to the learning of new skills. For example, just last weekend, the brakes went out on my car (in Atlanta traffic). Since I could already afford for ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE to break or go wrong in my life, I was forced to learn how to replace the brakes myself through a DO IT YOURSELF Manual and some guidance from my good friend, Fred Bailey. While I am mildly appreciative to fate for forcing me to learn a new skill, I do not suggest that you attempt DO IT YOURSELF kidney replacement surgery, however. (While Fred is an absolute whiz at fixing almost everything, his services are not available to the general public. He also has not yet learned how to do kidney replacement surgery.)

3. It is very easy to loose weight while being unemployed during a recession. There is a silver lining to every dark cloud. Significant, dramatic weight-loss is definitely the silver lining of the recession. I know this because I've dropped 75 pounds in the past eighteen months largely as a result of being too broke to buy food and eat on a regular basis. (Just last week, one of my former co-workers, now unemployed himself, didn't recognize the new slimmed-down "me"as we bothgreeted each other in the unemployment line. Of course, he also looked a thinner himself since the last time that I'd seem him.)

During the recession, you will no longer need to buy books and tomes such as the South Beach Diet, the Skinny Bitch Diet, the Nancy Reagan “Just Say No to Food” Diet, the Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich Diet or any of the other diet books currently on the shelves at your local booksellers. Food deprivation, starvation and hunger----i.e. not eating ------have their own “non-caloric” rewards. I know that Oprah Winfrey says that skipping meals is not a good way to shed pounds…something about your metabolism slowing down and as a result you don’t loose weight. I am sure that Oprah is a fine person and means well, but trust me, she’s dead wrong about this one. Food deprivation will definitely cause you to loose weight. I don’t think she’s really tried the “Too Broke to Buy Food Regularly” Diet. (Of course, the downside to this silver lining is that once you’ve lost all that weight, you will need to buy or steal new clothes.)

4. While you are unemployed, you will experience an exponential increase in the number of people offering you jobs in which they essentially want you to work for free, participate in an obvious Ponzi scheme or engage in some supposed income producing activity where “a small investment maybe required”.

I have found in some cases that certain people will actually propose that you engage in activity that is illegal such as car theft, burglary, or even prostitution. As these kind of activities can be unhealthy and can also involve ocassional confrontations with local law enforcement officials, I would strongly suggest that you avoid such activity.

5. No matter how hard you are trying to find gainful employment, you will experience a ten-fold increase in the amount of useless or erroneous advice received from some of your "still employed" friends, strangers, and crazy relatives.

As an example, just yesterday, as I was going to yet another job fair (this time on the bus), a guy sitting next told me that he knew for an absolute fact that Circuit City, Linen and Things as well as Lehman Brothers were hiring people just like me. All of these companies have recently gone "belly up", of course... but I guess the guy meant well.

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SAY IT AIN'T SO JOE (or “I KNEW IT, I KNEW IT, I KNEW IT!”)

You probably suspected that this was going on too:

I ran across this copyrighted story in their January 10th edition, the Atlanta Journal Constitution. It reported that “Sellers took advantage of gas shortage”. The article reports that

“Nine gas stations, including one along Buford Highway, gouged consumers when Hurricanes Gustav and Ike hit last September, the Governor’s Office of Consumer Affairs reported Friday.
The Executive Park Chevron, at 2911 Buford Highway was fined $5,000 ---the greatest amount in the Georgia---and ordered to refund the overcharges if customers if customers can prove, by showing a receipt, they were gouged. Consumer Affairs received a complaint that the Chevron charged $4.69 for a gallon of regular gas on September 15. An investigation showed that the station shouldn’t have charged more than $4.39 per gallon, according to Consumer Affairs spokesman Shawn Conroy. …Another 196 stations across Georgia continue to be investigated, including a Cobb County retailer that allegedly charged customers $8.82 a gallon. Consumer Affairs wouldn’t divulge the station’s name because the investigation isn’t complete.
…If you suspect a station of overcharging, call 404-651-8600
or 800-869-1123. On the Web: http://www.consumer.georgia.gov/.”

Dear reader, didn’t both you and I suspect that these kind of shenanigans were ----and still are---- going on all along?! It wouldn't surprise me if we found that darn Dick Cheney somewhere around that Chevron station. (I can smell the smoke from his shotgun from here.) We’ve got enough problems trying to ‘fight back’ from the recession without this kind of conspiracy going on. I am going to go find my receipt as soon as I finish this note from the recession. You just can't trust those oil companies. The government should've made them bail out the Big Three automakers! They obviously have enough of our dough to do it!

Anyway, I gotta sign off for now, there's a knock at my front door. It's probably another wolf.

Starvingly yours,
JustPlainWill