Another day, another tale of frustration with the state Employment Security Department. Yesterday an unemployed construction worker dared me to call the state’s unemployment hotline and get a real human. I called, and I couldn’t. Today Schuyler Bagwell, an unemployed former city worker who has already tried the game of using the media to get the unemployment department’s attention—well, he tries again. Schuyler used to work for Seattle Community Court, trying to help homeless, drug-addicted, and chronically incarcerated people, and was laid off in October.
Instead of immediately looking for another job, I retreated to California where I smoked lots of pot in my old bedroom at my grandmother’s house and lived off of my savings account until Christmas. I casually looked for work in November, called in a few favors, but no dice. December was when I called in the troops for an all-out assault on the job market. I would send at least three resumes every working day. Christmas was less than lucrative and I still had to drive back up north. Craigslist was full of nonsensical postings that require an M.A. and five years experience for $28k per year. Monster and CareerBuilder were no better, but I carried on, despite my discouragement.
The new year happened and still no interviews. It had been two years since I’d made a latte or waited a table, but I escalated my resume distribution and went after cafes and restaurants. Nothing. Nobody would even interview me. I tried to apply for unemployment but, as you’ve heard, it’s like Russian roulette trying to talk to a human being over there. I applied for food stamps. I sold my mountain bike, a microwave, and a dead MacBook for some extra cash on craigslist. I wrote depressing fiction and sent it to some small magazines, dreaming some agent would discover me and offer me a six-figure book deal. I applied for some sketchy clinical trials at some place in Tacoma. I reached a point where I was spending more time calling unemployment’s 800 number than sending out resumes. While repetitively dialing, I wrote an email to the dailies and the TV stations, hoping some foul media exposure would help me get through. It worked. I had both Rep. Jamie Pedersen and Sen. Ed Murray apologizing profusely to me on the phone the morning after my story aired. ESD told me to fax them some pay stubs and they’d get back to me with their decision. That was three weeks ago. I haven’t seen a dime.
My former colleagues downtown wish me plenty of luck and have given me great references, but luck doesn’t pay the rent. My contract position was Community Court’s first victim of the Financiapacalypse, but annoyingly, they’ll always be hiring new cops and jail guards. I had a few good interviews in January but my half-finished college degree and relative lack of experience usually mean I end up at the bottom of the stack. I’m doing my best to fend off agonizing despair and outstanding debt, but time is seriously running out. Out of necessity, I spend hours writing a nauseatingly pandering resume only to get a postcard in the mail two weeks later that begins, “Dear Applicant,”.
I want to believe that I’m creative and self-sustainable and enjoying the freedom to smoke a bowl and watch Judge Judy, but I’m not. I’m miserable, and I would do just about anything for the financial security of a steady paycheck, which is what I imagine my former clients feel like every day of their lives.
Got a story to share? Write to jobless@thestranger.com.
First of all, you don’t wait 4 months to apply for unemployment. You do it the week after you’re laid off.
Second, in a contract position, you’re technically self-employed and not entitled to unemployment. If you get around that one, let me know how. I’d be very interested.
I have been working since I was 14 years old. Full time since I was 17. If I get laid off again (I was laid off last year around this time) I will totally take some vacation time. I mean, christ, you only get 2 weeks a year to have any time to yourself. So I don’t hate on him for taking a little vacation after getting laid off.
“So I don’t hate on him for taking a little vacation after getting laid off. “
Well except he hasn’t been taking vacation time now has he? He’s been busy going on TV complaining about how the ‘man’ is keeping him down. If he was on vacation we wouldn’t have heard his sorry ass tale of self-inflicted woe.
Take all the vacation you want, but if you apply for unemployment immediately you can get paid to smoke pot in humbolt county..
Breaking news: New PBS documentary on Schuyler Bagwell’s quest for meaning in life:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ED4VL7W6V…
Homegirl? Did you used to date this guy or something? You seem overly vitriolic for some dude who just happened to post his story on the internets. Did you wrong you in the past?
Did HE wrong you in the past…is what I meant to say.
Homegirl has some sort of weird vendetta here… but, that being said, if I lost my job, I would freak the fuck out, apply for unemployment that day and immediately start reaching out to people I knew and applying for jobs. In a booming economy, you can afford to take a vacation before diving into a job search, but, this year, there’s no guarantee that you won’t be without a job for a really long time and an initial vacation would only exacerbate the situation…
I have sympathy for this guy, but, I also think it was pretty stupid to air your real name and the fact that you took some months off to smoke pot in your grandma’s basement. I don’t have a problem with pot smoking (even if you’re unemployed), but many employers do. And employers use google these days…
uh, contract workers can get unemployment. Several contract workers in my office were let go in November and they are getting unemployment checks.
So much hate from the Employed going off on the Unemployed. The fat chicks always hated the skinny, pretty chicks, too.
@54: I was born in Humboldt County. The medicinal pot dispensaries are weathering this economy just fine.
For all you children so concerned about my pot habit, get over it. You’re the reason Michael Phelps’ bong hit heard ’round the world was breaking news. I paid for my own college by waiting tables. I bought my first car in cash from working at Krispy Kreme in high school. I had my dream job at the city until the city ran out of money. And I smoke pot a few times a week. It helps me get the creative juices flowing, it doesn’t cost me more than $50 a month, and it’s a lot more healthy than alcohol, which is legal. I’d like to believe I’m fairly accomplished for being born during Reagan’s second term.
So, that said, would anybody like to hire a well-spoken pot smoker dedicated to social justice and undoing institutional oppression? I’m ready for this “vacation” to be over.
@44,
He didn’t keep ecce homo away.
But I do agree about this degree bullshit. If this guy can’t get any job with an incomplete degree, what do you guys think is happening to people with a degree? They’re taking shit jobs, for shit pay, which are now requiring far more education and experience than makes any kind of sense. I’m almost glad that I have a general liberal arts degree and am mostly at the beginning of my career. I can only imagine what it’s like to be a 40-something with a specialized career who’s now looking at taking a fucking receptionist job.
Anyway, good luck, Schuyler. You might as well start looking for loans and education grants while you can.
Yeah, he bogart my joint once.
The problem I have is that people like Bagless give sensible pot smokers like myself a bad name.
Crap. All y’all are a bunch of ass-hungry midgets on a crowded train.
How about SKILLS, Sky? There is this magical thing called self-education. (I belive our sweet dark lord had somehting to say about it.) Learn SQL, learn Ruby, learn PHP. Learn French.
There are no excuses and no rights. Have a day.
@61, you are gross. you took MONTHS off to smoke pot and leech of your relative. no, i don’t want to hire you. i don’t have anything against potheads, i would just rather hire someone else. i wouldn’t hire an admitted alcoholic either.
@61, you are gross. you took MONTHS off to smoke pot and leech of your relative. no, i don’t want to hire you. i don’t have anything against potheads, i would just rather hire someone else. i wouldn’t hire an admitted alcoholic either.
“dedicated to social justice and undoing institutional oppression?”
They pay people to do that sh*t? Herein may lkay your problem,. Evergreen College’s school of envrio oppressions grads aren’t exactly hot property in the best of times.
Maybe you should get a job that helps society, you know start a company and hire the downtrodden and actually help them?
And please, don’t compare yourself with Phelps. I see him on a medal stand with 8 golds around his neck. I see you huddled in grannies basement toking a blunt and cursing the ‘man’ for keeping the downtroden oppressed.
FYI Sky, last week I saw a help wanted sign at the Wendys in Ballard on 15th, at 53rd I believe.
Number is (206) 783-3575
Good luck, let me know how it goes.
Hey dummy, go form a band, get some gigs, get popular, go date some drugged out crazy broad who always comes to your shows, get signed to a major, but a big mansion in Madrona, then once you hit it big blow your brains out with a shotgun!!
At least you’d be doing something instead of smoking doobies in your grandma’s house.
You have got to be the dumbest motherfucker out there, especially for someone who grew up (have you grown up?) in the internet age. You just limited your job options to the Stranger and waiting tables. Nice one. The best part is that you keep pushing it. Be sure to give us an update on how accomplished you are in another 6 months when you are once again living in your grannies basement and giving handjobs @ $5.00 a pop.
On second thought, don’t.
$5 handjobs? sweet! i love depressions!
Homegirl sounds like an bitter, obese, pringles muching cow that hasn’t had a root in 7 years, and is probably a repressed lesbian. She certainly has a lot of company in this town. Seriously, you sound like a sad, pathetic twat.
Oh and also, that sign at Wendy’s has always been up. It doesnt mean a thing.
homegirls got fuckability all over Sky. sorry. case closed.
Thank you, mrbanana, for singlehandedly saving this rapidly-spiraling-further-into-ugliness thread.
Sky, weren’t you an AmeriCorps Volunteer at community court? I’m pretty sure that means you weren’t “laid off” and the city didn’t “run out of money”, but your 11 month volunteer service commitment was up. When i was in AmeriCorps most of us were looking for jobs well before our 11 month commitment was up. I don’t remember anybody taking off to grandma’s house to smoke pot for the next six months. Good luck, though.
“that sign at Wendy’s has always been up. It doesnt mean a thing.”
Yes, meaningless to the terminally self-oppressed. Another film of Bagful at work, the ideal, model employee: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o76WQzVJ4…
Sky, have you called Wendys yet? Seriously, I want to help you. I also saw a sign at the Kinkos in Ballard. I’ll even give you a reference and if the manager Googles your name (very common these days for HR folks to do), just tell them you were misquoted by that awful liberal press and no, you’ve never the munchies for a greasy square burger and fries at 2am.
@56 – I was thinking the same thing. Either she dated him or someone just like him, or she’s the neurotic, rage-addled mother of someone just like him.
” I’m pretty sure that means you weren’t “laid off” and the city didn’t “run out of money”
Pot head and fibber. Your resume grows Bag-o-nuts!
Called Wendy’s yet?
No?
Thought you were looking for a job?
Is “Sky” really the best person to use as the face of unemployment though? I think that’s what makes some of us prickly. Seriously, out of all the people, you picked the hapless, pot smoking, living with grandma, social services college drop out?
“Seriously, out of all the people, you picked the hapless, pot smoking, living with grandma, social services college drop out?”
That’s because all the illegals are too busy working.
Maybe we should start sending the ‘pot smoking, living with grandma, social services college drop outs’ to Mexico in exchange for people willing to work ANY job for a living? Seems unfair that Latin America only sends people up here who will take any job and we get stuck Bag-o-nails here.
Pot smoking and leaching off of the elderly aside, would you really want to hire someone who goes crying to multiple media outlets when he doesn’t get what he feals he is entilted to?
If, IF, you ge that job at Wendy’s, are you gonna call KOMO if the 16 year old gets promoted to front counter from the fry station before you do?
http://www.seattle.gov/communitycourt/do…
2007-2008 Americorp Community Court team. You weren’t laid off, your contract expired with you knowing full well it would and when it would.
And the contract expired in August! August!
So Homegirl, you run your own business, huh? How do your employees feel about you spending all your time maniacally freaking out over a complete stranger (although the more you post the more likely it seems you’re an embittered ex or similar)? Are they doing your work for you?
Schuyler would probably make more on unemployment than he would at Wendy’s or Kinko’s. Even if they hired him, he’d have to put in ridiculous hours to make ends meet and the search for a longer-term or, more likely, additional job would not end. It would just get harder, because all that time he’s spending flipping burgers is time he’s not spending job searching and sending out resumes.
Frankly, I have to hand it to Schuyler. I was unemployed from late November until this Monday (when I was rehired on a temporary contract by the same company – god bless them) and there is nothing pretty about it. He found three jobs a day to apply to? He had savings and thought he’d use them to take what sounds like a well-deserved vacation? That’s awesome and I wish him the best of luck. To me, he sounds like a driven young man with his heart and mind in the right place.
Wow, a lying sack of sh*t…thanks dude, you just made us hard working pot heads look bad!
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! Let’s meet the real Bag-o-Pot:
“During this AmeriCorps year
(September 2007 – August 2008), we
had the benefit of working with four
wonderful young people from the
AmeriCorps program: My-Lan Dodd;
Christopher Thomas; Andrew Sontag;
and Schuyler Bagwell provided
outstanding service to our program. As
a result, we were able to partner with
the Belltown Business Association and
Community Council in our Belltown
Cleanup Corps project. (See Spotlight,
this page). Each Wednesday and
Thursday, defendants help clean up
Belltown side-by-side with our
AmeriCorps team. In the true spirit of
community collaboration, the Millionair
Club generously donated use of their
facility as a meeting place, service site,
and space to store our equipment. They
also feed our participants a hot lunch.
Litter-removal equipment is provided
through a partnership with the City of
Seattle’s Adopt-a-Street program.”
Of course, they did say you were ‘wonderful’. Did you offer them a hit for the compliment?
@84, Is he really the best person to represent the hardship of unemployment?
Homegirl, you have serious issues if you’re this obsessed over a story on a blog of some random guy you’ve never met. You’ve made your point.
“Even if they hired him, he’d have to put in ridiculous hours to make ends meet”
So what? Jesus you fu*cking people are spoiled. It’ll build some character,. Character it looks like he desperately needs judging by how he lied about getting laid off, lied about his work. Seriously, it’s all right there on the web. He was working at Americorps, an 11 month contract job that ended in August and because it’s contract work, he’s ineligible for unemployment benefits. Maybe while smoking all that splif at grannies, Bag-o-lying-sh*t should have been made a effort to understand the true nature of his employment.
“your employees”
I’m a consultant. Take most Friday’s off to torture and expose social services cretins.
@88, While I’ve agreed with you on premise, now that Julie has admitted you made your point, now might be the time to move on to other things. Like writing nasty letters to EA for delaying Sims 3
Or move on from commenting on people that haven’t moved on.
Or move on from commenting on people who comment on people who haven’t moved on.
Holy shit, I just blew my own mind.
I should see if grandma made any cookies this afternoon.
@all the haters: I was a contracted, paid AmeriCorps member for 11 months. Excellent research. I was promoted to Volunteer Coordinator in July. I signed a new contract making lots more money. Lots more. Then, the economic shit storm happened and the City of Seattle got rid of every and any expendable contracted position. The nature of my work fell into that category. The second issue of the newsletter, which I designed, might mention that.
@Homegirl: You’re pretty set on this Wendy’s thing. Are you the GM or something? I’ll send you my resume. Maybe I could troll Slog all day and leave comments for you. You could get to work on all that serious business you’ve been putting off, like fixing the Frosty machine. No, but really, you sound exactly like my ex. Jessie? Is that you out there in Internetland?
“I’m a consultant.”
You’re next on the chopping block, honey. You watit and see.
Wow, Homegirl (if indeed you are a “girl”) things must be really SLOW in the home office today, huh?
I don’t think Sky is the only one around here in serious need of some THC-adjustment…
@86 That’s a good question (and I say that without a hint of snark, truly). I assumed the point of Notes from the Unemployment Line was just to see who was out there and tell their stories, not necessarily to repeatedly illustrate the way the rug has been pulled out from under unsuspecting, hard-working, law-abiding people’s feet.
In autumn 2008, it wasn’t unreasonable for Sky to believe he could live off savings for a bit and get a new job pretty quickly. I don’t get the anger over the AmeriCorps contract, but he’s already defended himself so I won’t go into it.
Sky – I don’t know that you’re really ineligible for benefits. Take a look at the “lack of work” clause. Actors – who work on contract – use it all the time.
Every single school district in the area has help wanted ads for substitute food service, sweepers, bus drivers, etc. The pay isn’t much, but it sure as hell helps extend unemployment if you work when you can.
WHO the fuck are all these junior high school students now posting on Slog, and where the fuck did they come from?
The discourse on Slog has never been very high, but lately it’s started turning into the comments section at Perez Hilton…
yech.
“if you work when you can.”
Ahhh, but our friend, Bag-o-dope wants to write the Great American Novel and wants us, the taxpayer to pay for it and his weed supply.
BTW Bag-o-fun, how long did you work the next ‘social services’ job? If it’s less than a year (or 6 months?), you get no benefits.
But Wendy’s awaits.
@86 I don’t think the major problem is the catagory of work but getting into the system to begin with. I think “under contract” means something different when you are working for the city. It means “temp” not 1099/contractor. The inital intake at employment can be a nightmare. To those of you who have never had to do this before, when you are first opening your claim its worth the fight to get it started. My heart goes out to you. I have never had to do it in an economy this bad and I always got my claim approved right when I was about to go postal. Once you get your claim open its pretty easy to keep the checks rolling. To get a decent check you at least need a good six-month stretch of on the books employee work. With less you may qualify but your check will be pretty small.
Unfortunatly learning how to successfully open an unemployment claim is one of those life skills that many people don’t have the first time they need it. Even if you don’t get to draw more than one check it is a good survival skill that is better learned sooner than later.
Sky,
In my place of employment we hire temps for a pretty crappy work assignment for $12/hr on a highly variable schedule. Its not choice but if nothing else it could help you build up a base year and put some change in your pocket. I’ll call the guy in that department and see if we are hiring. If so I’ll send an email.
Oh, that crappy temp job that I mentioned. No openings for now.
@10
The phone line for unemployment benefits operates 24/7; so, rather than trying to call during the peak daytime hours like everyone else, try calling late in the evening or at night.
After the first 5 or 6 times you get “outplaced” due to mergers and downsizing, you learn a few things.