The recession is really still on?

Even knowing that we're going through a pretty massive recession, it's still hard to believe that a year later, things still haven't bounced back. I found a post from a friend from October of last year discussing the difficulties the recession has presented, particularly to young newly-graduated women. I did a double take at the "2008" date.

Has it really been that long? Good grief. Almost my entire professional experience has been framed by a recession, by the resulting professional stagnation. I have watched as coworkers have been laid off, as an increasing number of jobs that previously would have gone to my team have been funneled off to a new team in Malaysia that works for a fraction of the price that we do. I occasionally dip my toe into the job market, seeing what my city has to offer. (Not much.)

I've spent well over a year being afraid of losing my job. I've spent a year what-if'ing what will happen if Kellen doesn't manage to find a job shortly after he graduates. And even more worried what-if'ing over what we'll do if I lose my job, too.

You read things like this, which highlight the abysmal statistics of getting hired in this economy:

Since the beginning of the recession in December 2007, job openings declined from 4.4 million to 2.4 million and the number of officially unemployed persons grew from 7.5 million to 15.7 million, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. If the 15.7 million officially unemployed workers were to apply for those 2.4 million jobs, the chance of any one of them finding a job are about 15 percent, or roughly the same odds as being accepted to the University of Pennsylvania.

The official figure only counts workers as unemployed if they have searched for a job within the past four weeks. But, does it make sense to exclude people who have not looked for work in the past month? Probably not, given that statistics show workers are trying harder than ever to find a job and only give up looking after prolonged periods of unemployment.

The average duration of official unemployment -- which, by definition, requires that people be actively searching for a job -- has increased to 26.9 weeks, or just over a half a year. But after many months of unsuccessful job hunting, some people do give up hope. And after four weeks of not looking for a job, they are dropped from official unemployment. It is primarily for this reason that since May, the official labor force has shrunk by 1.1 million people.

The exclusion of these so-called "discouraged" workers from statistics means that the official number of unemployed severely understates the weakness in the labor market. If you include these workers, the unemployment rate would rise to 13 percent, or 21.3 million. If these workers were to apply for the 2.4 million jobs available, the odds of securing a job would be 11.2 percent, or roughly the same as getting into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

It gets worse. Another group excluded from the official unemployment report is the growing number of part-time workers who would prefer to have a full-time job. These workers are forced into part-time jobs or are forced to take part-time hours because no full-time work is available. During the current recession, workers who are "part time for economic reasons" have grown from 4.6 million to 9.3million.

Adding part-time workers to the number of officially unemployed and the discouraged workers, as labor market expert Leo Hindery, Jr., has observed, results in a rise in the real unemployment rate to 19.2 percent, or 30.6 million people. The odds of any one of these 30 million securing one of the 2.4 million full-time jobs available is 8 percent, the same as the admissions rate of the Ivy League gold standard, Harvard University.

Then you have articles like this, which say things like:

But the economy has shed well over 7 million jobs in this recession, and economist Lakshman Achuthan tells Mason the hardest hit is manufacturing. "Even if GDP grows at 10 percent, you're not getting those jobs back. It's a structural permanent change," he said.

[...]

October was the 22nd straight month the U.S. economy has shed jobs, the longest on records dating back 70 years.

These numbers go flying across my dashboard over on Tumblr, a social network/blogging platform inhabited in large part by 20-something professionals (and an ever-growing number of grad students), almost daily.

I'm so tired of the recession. Thinking about it makes me physically weary. And I worry that it will never really end. That much of the job loss is permanent. That much of what is going on is the inevitable collapse after decades of poor business and political decisions which have allowed the jobs to be utterly drained from our economy.

I have two college degrees, special training in a tech field, and supposedly all of the things going for me (in terms of work ethic, ambition, intelligence, professionalism, etc.) that a young person should, and even I feel like I have failed to gain traction in the so-called real world. What must this be like for everyone else?

In honor of the boyfriend's second job interview...

I'm sharing a fantastic article I came across from CareerRealism: 10 Things Recruiters Won't Tell You.

A lot of these are things that you've probably heard about if you've ever taken a seminar on interviewing, visiting a career counselor, or, you know, read or heard anything about doing well in job interviews. What this recruiter drives home is how all of these little things which in better times wouldn't have gotten your resume immediately tossed are guaranteed deal breakers in today's saturated job market.

Read it, and then begin to think about how you could improve your first impression.

Some advice for employers

Prior to coming to work in my current ultra-corporate environment, I worked for a university. I held several positions there, but the last one was as a student web designer. My group developed various and sundry multimedia for professors, including websites. I adored my job, and not simply because they gave me total creative control over the websites I designed from the ground up. (Although that certainly helped!)

My previous supervisors worked very hard to create a positive environment, where the focus was as much on growth, creativity, and learning as it was on turning out a good product. If you expressed a desire to learn a new skill or work on a new and different project, you were not only allowed to do so, but given the resources and the support necessary to be successful. Obviously, if there was a time crunch, they would want the most experienced developers on the job, but for the most part, they did what they could to help their employees realize their full potential. This was good for the student employees because they were learning a lot and working on things that made them happy, but even better for the professors who relied on us for course materials and CV sites because our quality of work improved so rapidly and also for our organization as a whole, which had a steadily growing and improving body of work to refer to when trying to get more funding and more clients.

I have experienced none of this in my corporate environment.

My supervisors have more or less taken the position that whatever skillset you had when you began working here--or whatever skillset they decided you had, a determination not always based on your testimony or your portfolio--is the extent of your talent. If you were hired to do html and CSS, you can do HTML and CSS. If you were hired to do Flash, you can do Flash. If you have other talents or abilities, though, that you did not possess at the outset or that they were not made fully aware of early on, don't expect ever to incorporate those into your daily work.

There have even been a couple of instances where, instead of utilizing the existing talent pool, they've hired from outside because, as they say, "No one here has that skill." Or, in other words, no one here is currently using that skill, so instead of taking a chance on you and letting you prove yourself, we're going to keep you doing what you're doing and simply hire someone new.

The way my employers have put their employees in a rigid box has had an incredibly negative impact on the work environment. People are frustrated because they not only feel their skills are going unused, but they feel they are being passed over in favor of outsiders for team changes and promotions. It also highlights how disconnected management is from their employees and the lack of confidence they have in the people they have hired. What it really shows is how little they are invested in their employees.

Investing in the long-term growth of your employees is crucial to building a strong and capable team. Particularly in a tech field, your organization needs people who are constantly growing, learning, and building new skillsets. Failing to acknowledge and take advantage of the professional growth of your employees will have the effect of one (or all) of the following:

1. Your employees will become angry and frustrated by the sense that management is not paying attention to its talent pool, and they will feel overlooked.
2. They will become discouraged of learning new skills, since they know that those skills would be overlooked yet again.
3. The best of your talent will move on to greener pastures, where their work and skills will be acknowledged and put to better use.

To be honest, there is no reason why you shouldn't be fully aware of your employees' abilities, their efforts to improve and develop their skills, and their goals in terms of long-term growth. Moreover, there is no reason why you shouldn't be taking advantage of their abilities and goals as you move your organization forward. There is little to gain in passing them over and failing to use their skills, and everything to lose: morale, your best talent, and eventually, the quality of your product and your clients.

If you wonder where I've been lately...

I'm not dead. I'm just planning a wedding.

Because I realize a lot of people are really not into listening to a girl blather on and on about flowers and frippery, I'm blogging about it on a separate website, located here: The Better to Wed You With.

I promise, once I get a few more things with venues and such straightened out and take a breather from the frantic oh-shit-I-only-have-five-months planning that's been going on for the last week, I'll be back to my regularly scheduled non-wedding blogging.

Getting Comfortable

Every few months, I toy with the idea of going back to school and completely changing directions in my career. I've considered going back for some sort of engineering. For marketing. For architecture. The idea of more school, though, really lacks appeal, and when it comes to making a decision, I find I don't really feel a strong pull in any of those directions. I always come back to the place where I am.

Let me be clear. I am not satisfied with my current job, and in terms of skill level, I've got a long way to go. But I think the field I am in now is generally the right place for me to be.

It's taken me a long time and a lot of struggling to say this is where I belong. I've been dancing around this career path since I was 13 years old, and while it's something I love, I think I've always felt I wasn't good enough, wasn't smart enough or talented enough to make it. But I think I can. There's no reason why I shouldn't, other than laziness or a self-defeating attitude.

So I'm going to do it. This is my career, and the only thing I can do to further my career is to progress within the field. It's time to focus.

I'm going home!

In just a few hours, I'll be on my way back to Austin. I can't wait! Hope you enjoy the video...thought it was fitting.

So something big happened last night...

Yesterday was our second anniversary. It's been two years since Kellen and I started dating (again), and...to be honest, we didn't have any big plans for last night. Kellen had his brass ensemble practice, and I had big plans to do laundry and watch So you think you can dance? Exciting, right?

When I got home from work, though, Kellen was all excited because he got an e-mail saying Monsters of Folk were playing downtown that night, doors opening at 7, and he reeeaaaally wanted to go. Not only are they a great band, but one of the band members, Conor Oberst, was part of a little number called Bright Eyes. A Bright Eyes concert just so happened to be our first date, almost five years ago. It seemed like a pretty fantastic way to spend our 2-year anniversary.

I told him if he could swing some tickets and didn't mind missing band, I was down. (Very down.)

We headed downtown shortly thereafter and went to the box office to see about getting tickets, since we couldn't find any online. Just our luck, they had released some amazing tickets up close to the front. Kellen forked over some cash, and there we were--sitting 4 rows back in this amazing concert hall ready to watch us some Monsters. I'd never really been able to see the stage at a concert before (I'm really short), much less sit that close to the front, so I was very, very excited.

The show was SUPER FANTASTIC, and at the end, we were both amped up because it was a great performance. Kellen goes, "Do you wanna get someone to take our picture?" I'm a picture fiend, so I said sure. He goes over to a security guard and starts whispering to him. Then he hands the camera over, turns to me, and starts getting down on one knee while he holds out this black box.

I don't even remember him saying "Will you marry me?" I vaguely remember his mouth moving. I know I said YES! And then I poked him really hard and called him a jerk because I was completely surprised. Hehe. (I wasn't expecting it to happen for several months!) The ring was absolutely gorgeous, and I was more than happy to put it on my finger.

We got the camera back from the security guy and while he thought he'd taken pictures, he hadn't. BUT. Even without the pictures, I don't think I'll ever forget.

*siiiiigh*

I'm super duper happy. I've loved Kellen for years upon years. I've loved him through good and bad, and I know I'll always love him, no matter what. Lucky, lucky me, he feels the same way. I feel like I've won the lottery with him. He's such a wonderful person, and to think I get to spend the rest of my life with him...it doesn't get much better than that.

In all, I say this is building up to being the best week I've had in a very long time. Kellen got a second interview. We saw a great show. We got ENGAGED!!! We saw his parents last weekend for his birthday, and we'll see my parents this coming weekend. We're going to AUSTIN, my favorite city in the whole wide world. I couldn't have asked for a better week.

I still can't believe we're engaged!!! What am I supposed to do now? :)

PS:

Kellen got through to the second round of interviews at Microsoft!!!!!!!! We've heard the second round is a doozy, so I'm sure the next few weeks will involve a lot of studying and prep. BUT. I'm so proud of him, and again, any good vibes you can send our way are much appreciated. :) YAY!

(PPS: If any of you have ever interviewed with Microsoft and have advice for him, that would be great, too.)

Pam and Jim's wedding...

...convinced me that eloping is still the right decision.



:)

When our parents get old...

Last week, Kellen went on a John Mayer kick. We listened to Continuum for hours on end. Not that I'm complaining. I love me some JM. Listening to the songs over and over, though, I started paying attention not just to how they sound, but what the songs were about. I'd never realized the song "Stop This Train" was about losing your parents, and listening to it got me thinking...

It's not as if I've never thought about my parents growing old or passing away before. I have. When I was 16, my mom ended up in the hospital for two months. I remember my younger brother and I having the discussion about how afraid we were, driving home from Thanksgiving dinner at my aunt's by ourselves. I got to experience what my life would be like without her. I didn't like it.

My parents are only in their 50s, and God willing, they'll have another 30 years of healthy, happy, independent lives. After all, all of my grandparents are still around and for the most part healthy and independent. And my grandmother had her parents until she was in her late 60s. But still, in my 20s, I'm having to come to terms with the fact that my parents are getting older. They'll be retiring soon. The list of doctors they have is growing longer, and the list of problems is starting to grow, too. Someday, I'll be the one taking care of them. And someday, I'll have to say goodbye to them.

My parents have always been at the center of my life. I've never made friends easily, and I've gone stretches of my life without anyone I could count on or lean on but my family. My parents are the people who always reminded me that I was loved, that I was special to someone, and that I had someone to go to, no matter what. They've gotten me through so much. It's impossible to imagine a world where they aren't there.

But I know someday, it will happen. How do people ever find the strength to get over that loss?