In July of 2008, I lost my job. This was one month before my
wedding (a fact I knew at the time), and two months before the stock market
crash (an unknown variable). Within a few weeks my Washington Mutual bank
branch would cease to exist, half my parents’ lifetime of 401K contributions
would evaporate, and my neighborhood would become a desertscape of half-built
townhomes and screaming FOR SALE – SHORT SALE! signs.
But at the time, in my boss’s office with the door shut and
the HR director clutching my last paycheck, the devastation seemed markedly
personal.
“We’re eliminating your position,” my boss told me. She
seemed ill-prepared for me to break into uncontrollable, manic sobs. She didn’t
understand—I wasn’t that girl, the
one who got fired from anything. I was the lifetime overachiever, the class
commencement speaker, the college honors queen. The only people I had seen get
fired in my very short business world tenure, from my first high school intern
gig in 2000 to this (now eliminated) Marketing Communications Manager position
at age 23, were as follows: Sam, a guy caught jerking off to Internet porn five
cubicles down from where I sat. Nancy, who decided coming into the office every
day was an optional requirement. Angela, caught stealing company cell phones
and selling them on eBay. If you weren’t a fraudulent, lazy sociopath, I had
gathered, you weren’t going to be here—quarantined after lunch on a Friday
afternoon and given a packing box.
The decision wasn’t personal, my boss assured me. Sales were
down at the land line phone company, and my job was considered window dressing.
Designing postcards mailers, picking out which pens to print our logo on. They
could march on without the fluff. “And we won’t challenge your unemployment
claims,” she added, as if this were some extra-special perk.
What I was in store for was nine months of joblessness, of
feeling like I’d gotten lost in a tunnel with no light or end. Every day I
would roll out of the empty bed—my husband mercifully kept his job through all
of the Great Recession—and start my morning by combing through the Craigslist
job postings. My expectations fell spectacularly, from hoping to snag another
Marketing Manager position to begging for anyone to let me file their folders:
Office Admin. Executive Assistant. Personal Secretary. The interviews, on the
rare occasions I was called, consisted of corralling into a lobby with the
twenty or so other people (90% of which were women) all trying to land the same
$30,000 per year entry-level position. There were some women around my age, but
most of them were in their forties, fifties, sixties; vastly overqualified to
be playing this game again. The job requirements for such positions—Bachelor’s
degree, 1-3 years of office environment experience, a friendly
personality—seemed insulting to people with decades of work to their names. You
could read frustration on every face. These women should have been in the home
stretch before retirement, not dueling with this new batch of twenty-somethings
to start over again.
And yet, I battled. I met with the HR directors and middle
managers, and smiled the shit-fake smile of Miss America contestant teetering
down a runway in a swimsuit and heels. I pretended to be super-excited about
global networking synergy and contributing dynamic solutions to a team. I would
think I’d nailed it, that I could go back to living a normal-person life of
getting up and going to work every morning again. But my phone refused to ring,
and the stock “we’ve hired someone else” email would pop up.
In the meantime, I tried to stay busy and contribute. I put
out an ad on Craigslist and papered the dying neighborhood with flyers,
offering to do personal chef work. I brought home a little cash this way,
catering a dentist office grand opening and baking cheesecake for those hit
less hard by the crisis. The next year I claimed these small victories on our
household tax return, though it was not enough income to qualify as taxable.
Looking at the photos from this era, I can see a physical change in myself. My
shoulders begin to slouch into an eventual hunch. My hair grows stringy and
uneven, like a cartoon crazy cat lady. For the first time in my life, my smile
changes from a huge, gummy grin into a tight, tepid wince. There is a giant gap
of not-me time, not even looking familiar. Desperation and uncertainty takes a
toll, fast and harsh and physical.
Because I was eligible for unemployment benefits, my husband
and I were able to keep our apartment. My $300 a week was the small save that
kept us from losing our cars, from defaulting on our bills, from going hungry. The
benefits were the fumes in our engine that kept us afloat for nearly a year,
until I was back at a desk. Three years later, and we are back as the 53% of
income tax-paying Americans. We own a small home. We were able to finance my
grad school tuition (thank you, student loan programs). We shop at farmer’s
markets and donate to disaster relief funds; all those nice little things a
strong middle class can do. But we are still one asteroid of bad luck away from
the brink—a plant closure, a bad stock forecast. One whim from corporate and we’re
back in the tunnel. This is what I remember every second Friday, when I examine
my payroll deductions. That tax was my safety net from the brink. Someday it
could be the net for my husband, or neighbor, or sister, or mother. There’s
only 3 percentage points between us givers and takers, after all.
Tabitha Blankenbiller
Tabitha Blankenbiller is a recent MFA graduate from Pacific
University living outside of Portland, Oregon. Her work has been featured in
Owl Eye Review, Sliver of Stone and Brevity.
