Hi, I'm new here.

Full disclosure: I am not really officially unemployed.

I do contract ("as-needed") type work, and I am considered the best in my area of specialization at my company. Therefore, I'm assigned to pieces of complex business and/or clients with a history of being problematic. Due to good luck, bad luck, or maybe no luck at all, my company hasn't had any complex business and/or problematic clients in, oh, about four months or so. My supervisors, who assign work in advance, have totally forgotten me in their ever-increasing enchantment with the new people I trained a year ago. I'm warming the bench while the newbies work week after week after week after...you get the idea. The effect is the same: nowhere to go every day, no money, miss seeing my co-workers and clients at work. I love the job - when I actually get to work - and I'm good at it. But it's starting to smell bad - really, really bad - and, sadly, it's time to take out the trash.

So, I started lookin' around. Wow, things have changed since the last time I looked for a job. There's way more online now. I applied to a couple things on my local Craig's List. The more info I gave, the more they wanted. Didn't take long to realize some of those ads are just mining for data. Listen, y'all: be very careful about replying to any ad that won't list the company name, and has only a g-mail address for resumes and/or applications. And I hope you laugh right out loud when they ask full names, addresses and emails of five (five!!) references without even a tiny whiff of an interview. And I really, really hope you tell 'em where to go when they want your social security number and driver's license. Yeah, right. Maybe you'd like everything in my wallet right now, too (not that it's a lot). Be very, very cautious and careful.

I've been unemployed twice before (not counting immediately out of college). The first time, I managed a large event, and was fired officially for "poor performance" immediately after the large event was over. Felt pretty bad till I learned the same fate had befallen the same person occupying the position, four previous times in the four previous years. It was cheaper for the company to pay the higher unemployment insurance rate, than to keep a full-time staffer year-round. Immediately after that, in desperation mode, I took a job with a struggling non-profit. They'd cooked up this 'Hail-Mary' (very long-shot chance of scoring) shoestring program, thinking it would raise millions in six months - a Get-Rich-Quick thing with no real underpinnings which we all know doesn't work. I was young, didn't know better, and took it. Six months to the day later it was all over and I was out of work again for "poor performance" as reported officially to the unemployment folks.

This time, I knew to be more careful. I was out of work for maybe 8 or 10 months, which was about the toughest time in my adult life. I really thought about what I wanted to do, what made me happy and what didn't. Went to resume and interview workshops. Read a lot of self-improvement stuff. I came out of it a much-improved person, and ended up with a way better job. I've changed jobs twice since then, and each one was an improvement. Well, until now anyway.

When I don't have work, I feel very depressed, sad, and just don't care much about anything. Something that's helped me a lot is to get up and go for a walk outside. Even if I don't feel like it - which I never do - I push myself to go, usually around sundown. There's a big park nearby, and there's always wildlife - stuff like whitetail deer, raccoons, toads, frogs, turtles, fox, geese, herons, and yesterday a little fisher, a ferret-y looking mink-like creature, first one I've seen since I've lived here. It's like this little outpouring of sympathy from nature, and I always feel better afterward. It counts as exercise, and it's free, so go.

Being unemployed is an odd thing. Just when you could really use a little extra support from friends and family, I find many of those people just aren't capable of extending it, as though the condition is contagious. You've gotta look pretty hard to get support. My town has a couple weekly job-search support groups. They're in the classifieds and probably listed online too. I've found them helpful in the past.

Here's to all of us, and to knowing when to take out the trash. Please add your comments - particularly what you do to feel better. Thanks for reading me.