Notes from the Unemployment Line

“Sven,” a 34-year-old former Microsoft contract worker, has had enough of our commenters. After the responses he received on his last post—well, he’s decided to throw down the gauntlet.

I’m going to break a cardinal rule of the internet with this posting. I’m going to feed the trolls. Folks not interested in this sort of thing should probably move on to another article.

So, I made the mistake of reading my previous Note when Eli posted it to Slog on Monday night. Wait, actually, that wasn’t the mistake. The mistake I made was not simply closing my browser when I was done and moving on with my life. Because I chose to read the comments that followed, too. I have no good reason for doing this; I guess I wanted to see if there were any encouraging comments, or at least no-nonsense, helpful advice. While these types of comments were present (eventually), they were mostly outnumbered by comments from self-important, anonymous shitheads criticizing my choices and berating me for daring to feel bad about my situation.

I learned a lot about myself from these comments, and most of the information surprised me: I shop for groceries exclusively at QFC and Whole Foods (I assume without an advantage card or club card or whatever they call them), but only when I’ve decided to not eat out at “Tom Douglass eateries.” Otherwise I stay in Issaquah in my “four bedroom home with hardwood floors, a two car garage with an SUV and sailboat.” I’m clearly a self-absorbed, coddled child with entitlement issues, skinny jeans, and hipster glasses bemoaning my fate before heading off to my den where I’ll watch whatever I’ve DVR’d over the past week on my 86-inch plasma screen television. God, even I hate me.

Except that these fuckwits only know what I chose to tell them. I’m telling MY story on how I’m dealing with being unemployed after years of thinking that it wouldn’t happen to me. And guess what? It happened to me. The choices (or lack thereof) that I made while I was employed are coming home to roost, and I’m learning from them.

I can only assume that the bitter, rage-filled Twinkies that harangued and belittled my thought-process for cutting costs have it all figured out. So fine. Why not submit your stories to Eli, so that all can see what you’re doing to save money during these difficult times? Perhaps you feed your entire family with tomato soup made from hot tap water and catsup? Maybe, after you lost your job, you sold all your worldly possessions and went off to live under the I-5/I-90 interchange? Or possibly you’ve taken the opportunity to realize your life-long dream of driving from Seattle to Tierra del Fuego now that you’re unemployed? I’ll freely admit that stories like the aforementioned would be much more interesting than a story about a former Microsoft contract employee processing his new situation while trying to keep from lashing out at every fucknut with a computer, an internet connection, and a shitty attitude.

But you don’t have those stories. You have mine and others like mine. You don’t like my tone, or my choices, or my topics? Then don’t read my posts. You think you can do better? Prove it; submit an article and then let Eli tell you what he thinks of your story. Any jackass can lob anonymous hand grenades at someone for daring to talk about how he or she is dealing with the hard shit in life, or try to poke holes in what they see as privilege or entitlement.

I await your well-reasoned, articulate, and civil responses with bated breath.

Have an unemployment story to share? Write to jobless@thestranger.com.