“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.

ME.jpgI’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.

Eli Sanders was The Stranger's associate editor. His book, "While the City Slept," was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. He once did this and once won...

54 replies on “Notes from the Unemployment Line”

  1. damn i love the internets and their fullness of haters.

    even anonymous grenade throwing ones.

    face it, most everybody hates their job for long periods of time, and yearns for a sabbatical.

    which is what unemployment is. a fucking sabbatical.

    there is no self/other split any longer. we hate ourselves, we hate others.

    that said, a public inventory taking is never too fun.

    carry on.

  7. I dunno – it looked to me like most of the comments were sympathetic to Sven or critical of his haters. Methinks he overreacted a bit.

  14. your posting your stories on the slog. what did you think was going to happen? let the anonymous shit talking slide, or just let yourself get unnecessarily worked up to post more articles on slog so that more anonymous shit talking can commence.

    welcome to the internet dude.

  15. if he put half as much effort into finding a job as he did writing that response, he’d be happily employed again.

  18. Oh Jesus. Sven, Sloggers are the meanest people on earth. Ignore those fuckers. You sound like you’re having a perfectly normal, acceptable reaction to a shitty situation – I’ve been there, and I didn’t do half as well as you.

    If you want to make the trek to eastern Washington, you can live with me and pay room and board in sex. Call me.

  19. People are still SURPRISED when idiots comment with idiocy in response to their internet postings? Sven, did you hear the one about the Nigerian guy who needs to send you millions of dollars (you get to keep some!) so he can get it out of his country? Also, I have this device that can make your penis really, really big. Call me!

  20. I was interested in these stories until you guys started posting multiple letters from the same people giving weekly updates on the minutiae of their job hunts and giving them a platform to respond to internet trolls. If I wanted to read people responding to trollbait, I’d spend more time on youtube.

  24. Oh, Sven. As I said, the reason they think you live in Issaquah is that they conflate you with me.

    I also said

    All you people that want Sven to sit in a dark skid row tenement, eating dog food? You people suck. How about a little fucking compassion? Yes, this guy’s life could be worse. So fucking what? We all could live in Bangladesh, and make $300/year. We all want to try to make our lives a little less painful, whatever our circumstances.

    Perhaps you should reread the thread and look at how many people were actually wishing you well, before working yourself (so to speak) into a hissy fit.

  26. have the “notes from the unemployment line” turned into “notes from unemployed people about slog comments?” or is it just me?

  29. I’m told that organ recovery agencies don’t actually like to introduce grieving families to the recipients of the harvested organs. In theory it’s nice – little Joey might be gone, but now little Mikey has a new kidney and can live a more normal life. The problem is that in reality Mikey might be a 40-something asswipe who lost his kidneys because he refused to take care of himself. He deserves a new kidney, maybe, but it’s not what the family wants to see.

    And I think that’s what was going on, basically. Liberals are confronting a contradiction between their views on social spending and the fact that unemployed people do just as much stupid shit as everyone else. It’s not a crime to eat at restaurants a lot, but it is pretty ridiculous if you’re unemployed. Plenty of people will never make use of the social safety net precisely because they choose not to spend money on themselves when they can’t afford it. These people end up subsidizing the less responsible who, it turns out, continue to be irresponsible. Liberals hate acknowledging that, but it’s clearly on display in this series (along with plenty of other stuff – it’s not a brief for conservatism).

    So what it comes down to, I think, is: Conjugal visits? I’m a free man and I haven’t had a conjugal visit in 6 months. You want I should pay higher taxes so people can continue living better than I do while not working?

    And then, yes, there are a bunch of assholes on the internet. They tend to scuttle away once you pay attention to them, though, so that’s solved.

  31. It’s OK, Sven. Just go take yourself out for dinner again and then bitch about how poor your are.

    It’ll make you feel better.

  32. “trying to keep from lashing out at every fucknut with a computer, an internet connection, and a shitty attitude”

    Trying and failing, it would seem.

  33. You know that you have total self-confidence when you can read those comments and they don’t bug you. I was torn apart on Slog once…and it made me laugh. But it took months of getting torn apart on another site to get comfortable with that level of anonymous criticism.

  35. Fuck Sven, he is a pussy. He is soft. He IS a coddled little child.

    He could only wish he was black. At least blacks take being unemployed for granted and don’t whine about it like little bitches.

    Fuck you Sven, you little bitch ass cunt… Sell some shit. That is what REAL people do. Sacrifice some of your vacuous possessions and own your own life.

    And spare me the encounter group, namby pamby, pussy talk about discovering your “process” going forward. Grow a fucking pair, ya little girl…

  39. If you want advice, take the top useful suggestions and have the Stranger host a SLOG Poll.

    Make sure you have “Buy a kitten” on the poll, though.

  40. And it’s THIS kind of bullshit that prevented me from sending in my UE story. And it’s a GOOD one, too, fraught with moral quandaries, heartbreak, friendships won and lost, and, well, (I hope) with a “prodigal-son-returns” redemption. But we’ll see.

    Well, Slog won’t see, because everyone’s an asshole. But I am, too.

  41. From my admittedly unscientific survey of the comments, I’d say they were 75% supportive or at least not flaming dickheads. Blow off the 25% flaming dickheads; no one actually reads their shit anyway.

  43. @29 – When I read bullshit like this, I’m wondering what kind of person you picture in your mind when you think of a “Liberal.” I wonder if they have horns and are fucking your mother in the ass.

  44. I was one of the “trolls” but I always prefaced it with a gentle vibe. My point was that if you can’t go out to dinner and you’ve never budgeted before then you need to check your head.

    We’re paying unemployment to this guy (which on the whole is a good thing for society and needs to be kept around) but good lord. If it takes losing a job at 34 to actually learn to live within a budget, and if you as a 34 year old think you can get 80 bucks for a PS1 then man, I don’t know what to say.

    It’s good to see you’re getting our money’s worth for the internet service though.

  45. I was one of the “trolls” but I always prefaced it with a gentle vibe. My point was that if you can’t go out to dinner and you’ve never budgeted before then you need to check your head.

    We’re paying unemployment to this guy (which on the whole is a good thing for society and needs to be kept around) but good lord. If it takes losing a job at 34 to actually learn to live within a budget, and if you as a 34 year old think you can get 80 bucks for a PS1 then man, I don’t know what to say.

    It’s good to see you’re getting our money’s worth for the internet service though.

  47. Uh Little Sven, I hate to tell you this, but your response to people pointing out that you are a whiner was proving their point.

    You are a whiner.

  50. Sven, if you are still looking for work, you can lick my balls clean while I punch you in the ear hole. My grandfather got turned out at 12 years old during the depression. He had the clothes on his back, a .22 caliber rifle to hunt for food and 35 cents. You couldn’t hold his jock on your best day.

    Are we supposed to feel sorry for you because you just got responsible. I’ve been out of work since July, never received unemployment because I have been an “independent contractor”, and I have made it work because I am a tough fucking hillbilly. I grow what I can of my own food, harvest shellfish where it’s reasonably safe and try to snag a salmon here and there. Craigslist provides some cash work and I do shit you wouldn’t believe for having an MBA.

    Whole foods~?~?~? Are you shitting me? Try grocery outlet and cash and carry you crybaby.

    Keep the PS2, it will make you the life of the party at the union gospel mission.

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