Tuesday, May 19, 2009

The More Things Change

I have found some work recently doing college commencements. This has given me a strange feeling deep on the inside. I think it was a feeling of happiness for those graduating. Obviously they are full of glee and it seems to fill the air and get inside of you like a virus.

Thankfully I know the cure for such an illness…

Spoke to a friend of mine today and learned that two of our friends had been laid off at the end of last week. Obviously, though things have seemed to be getting better, they have continued on the same pace. This is disappointing for me. These were two smart girls that were a couple years younger than me at University. They both have degrees and have been working in their respective industries for the past few years.

So I spent today helping out with what I remembered from filing my unemployment and giving tips on health insurance and things of that nature. Obviously any help I can provide I am more than willing to.

However, now looking at the commencements I have been doing. The feeling of euphoria turns to dread almost as quickly as the week begins again.

All of these graduates are now going into the work pool that me and all my friends have to fight against. I remember when I was 22 and out of college, I would work for nearly free. I was very proud to work for lunch. Now I, a man with a respectable day rate, has to scrap for a gig against these kids. The trouble is that I think I feel worse for those kids. I can drop my day rate. As long as I can make enough to make ends meat I will do it. With Unemployment insurance helping out until I get back on my feet I don’t have to worry about only taking my normal day rate. I’ll take a cut and,
with my experience, these kids don’t even stand a chance. I guess the question is then posed, what is worse fate right now? To be laid off with skills, or to be recently graduated with only dreams?

Good Luck class of Two thousand and nine… you’re going to need it.

Monday, May 4, 2009

Excel Has Pretty Colors


So I’ve been working on my budget this week.  I’ve been looking forward to the rest of the spring and summer and how the unemployment will work for me throughout the summer months.  The past couple of months have been pretty rough; brother needs a vacation!

I have been surviving very well recently, but I have been working over the past months.  So it always sort of worked out.  I was actually making more money and doing better than I had been when I had constant employment.

It was very strange, but a very empowering feeling.   I would collect my weekly stipend when I didn’t have gigs.  However, when I did have gigs I would suspend my stipend and go pull my day rate and walk away with a very nice paycheck. 

So I wanted to see how much extra I would have every month.  I had started putting some money in savings.  I am being cautious of all my 1099 work and the taxes I’m going to owe in next April.  I would be lying if I said it hasn’t been pretty tight over the past couple months, but I feel like I’m starting to get the hang of it.  

Honestly, the hardest part for me was keeping my head about me when I had a surplus of savings.  I always want to clear off my credit cards and spend a bunch of money on stuff, like jeans and sneakers. (the moms would never buy me that pair of Jordan’s)  However, being the learned man that I am, I knew that the rent and bills were always coming right around the corner.  So I did what every reasonable person would seemingly do and save some of the money I made for the next months bills. 

But I was sick of living like that and constantly saving a few hundred to hope that my bills would be covered the next month.  I have had some work, but one of the gigs I worked is already over for the year.  I have survived these first few months, but I know that I must be smarter about all this. 

So I added up all my rent and bills in a neat little spreadsheet.  I only did house and personal bills like phone and medical Insurance.  I left off food and credit cards on purpose because I knew that was going to fluctuate more than the rest of the bills.  This way, I can change how much I am going to save and pay off some of the extra bills that show up.  (This plan is foolproof, I can’t believe I ever complained about being unemployed!)


Then in the other column I put all my unemployment payments and added all them up.  Excel is a really neat program because I could both of these columns next to each other and that made it easy to then take the difference of the bills and the Unemployment benefits.   However, I’m pretty sure I’m doing something wrong.  The difference came up in red lettering and in the middle of a parentheses. I don’t know what happened because it didn’t do that when I added the other columns up...

I mean, I didn’t change the colors or use any parenthesis.  I didn’t want to make it too confusing, you know?   Obviously something is desperately wrong with the programming (it’s the new version, and we all know it takes “Icrosoftmay” at least 2 years to get it right)

So if someone could do me a solid and call up Microsoft and let them know about this programming error that would be awesome.  I tried it on google docs too and got the same problem, so I’m busy trying to get them to fix it on their end. 

It’s a rough life being a technological Samaritan for these big companies, but it’s obvious this recession is hitting everyone hard.  I know that my position I should be worrying about myself, but I can’t help but be heartbroken over all those beta testers that seem to have lost their jobs…