Having the Right Tools in the Box

The COVID-19 pandemic has once again scored me another first.

I had never lost my job until COVID-19 wiped out both my company and my job in March of this year. I found another job and was set to add a new chapter to my work-life. During the training on the first day, it became apparent I was in over my head. After almost a week, I was let go. Up to that point, after working since I was fifteen years old, I was let go for performance.

Was I bitter? It just hurt. But if I had been the company, I would’ve done the same thing. I wouldn’t have wanted me representing their services. I wasn’t equipped for this job, and it was apparent. I thought I was ready, but I realized I hadn’t correctly evaluated the tools I had in the box.

During this time of uncertainty, especially for those of us never having gone through job loss, it feels like the amputation of an appendage. The employment’s limbs have been a part of us for so long as a foot or hand. When they are gone, the disappearance is immeasurable. They’ve been with us for what seems forever.

Having worked since I was fifteen years old mowing lawns in my neighborhood, working over a decade in film and television, and ending up at my last job for sixteen years and six months longer than expected, I never had the reason to update my tools so much. The passage of time never called for an update.

In today’s world of job-seeking, I realized that the past privilege of having a full-time job all those years is now a curse in this climate of unemployment.

For more of an idea of what I mean, and the tools I had never having updated them, being asked to install more memory to a computer in no way involves floppy discs.

A few months ago, with the Federal relief of $600 on top of the state’s unemployment payment, I could take time to evaluate the retooling of my skill set. But now, the pressure is on, and so is the panic from all us unemployed to find something.

Education is now replaced by desperation. Facing evictions, the need to buy food, pay the electric bill, insure the car, buy gas for the car, and try to hold on to prescriptions saving your our lives, we have to grasp at anything.

Having thought I was in the clear, bringing my floppy discs to my new job was a bitter pill swallowed.

The solution would appear simple, right? I need to buckle up and start catching up with the world I was thought protected from having a job with the same company for seventeen years. But there’s more to it than just acquiring knowledge for new tools. There is another obstacle a vast majority of us unemployed face, ageism.

According to the Harvard Business Review, “…age bias is a serious hurdle. Many companies prioritize hiring cheaper, younger workers who they believe are more valuable than someone more expensive with more expertise. … Over two-thirds of the companies considered older age a competitive disadvantage.”

I know this in my own experience when I was told I was perfect for the job I was interviewing for, but my asking salary was way too expensive. Richard, the hiring manager, asked if I could work for a wage that was to be impossible considering the assets I had like a mortgage or those elements that go with it. I wanted the job, and I knew the job inside and out, but I couldn’t afford to work at job-entry wages.

But you know what? That newly graduated college student in debt up to their ears would work for that wage. And having had an education, Richard, along with other hiring managers, can take the chance of them learning on the job at the lower pay.

Yes, it’s unfair, but with the clock looming, and the desperation mounting, there isn’t the time. So what to do? I highly recommend NOT doing what I did and taking a job you think you are qualified for. If you want a position within a field you want to be in, I recommend just one absolute. It’s something I now realize I should’ve done automatically, but I’m rusty at this.

• RESEARCH THE COMPANY YOU ARE APPLYING TO THOROUGHLY FROM TOP TO BOTTOM.
• RESEARCH THE POSITION YOU ARE APPLYING FOR even though IT READS AS A JOB YOU KNOW HOW TO DO. A JOB DESCRIPTION DOES NOT INCLUDE THE TOOLS YOU NEED IN YOUR TOOLBOX.
• RESEARCH AS MUCH AS YOU CAN ABOUT USING THOSE TOOLS. FIND VIDEOS, CHAT FORUMS, FORMER EMPLOYEE TESTIMONIES, AND LEARN ABOUT AND FROM THEM.

In all that I do, I always leave room for the proverbial “Plan B.”

I don’t have a “Plan B” this time. I have moved to my now never explored “Plan C,” which is FIND A WAY.

As a writer, there have been many times that I have begun a story knowing nothing about how it will end. I don’t know how my story will end. You may not know how your story is going to end. Our stories must move forward. A story can’t standstill. And stories only move forward by imagination.