LATimes

Jobless but Busy, Busy, Busy Once flying high on the technology boom, laid-off young professionals throw themselves into coping.

By SHAWN HUBLER, TIMES STAFF WRITER

SAN FRANCISCO -- It is volunteer night at the San Francisco Food Bank, and the dot-bombed have gathered to be reminded that somewhere, some people are even more miserable than they are. Wendy Wedlake, in capri pants, packs frozen snow peas into plastic baggies. She has been out of work for four months. Her compatriots eavesdrop sadly as she shares her story:

"Laid off from an Internet market research company, third round, I was in sales, I knew it was coming. When they told me, at first I didn't even cry. It wasn't until I got out of the building and walked into the Muni station that I lost it."

The faster her unhappiness spills out, the faster she bags. "Now I'm 30 years old, I have no job, I haven't had a date in months; I mean, who'd want to date me? I'm living at my aunt and uncle's house, sleeping in my cousin's old bedroom under a Laura Ashley bedspread. I mean, my relatives have been great, but--look, I had my own apartment. I'll probably have to sell my Passat next."

Her hands, by now, are a blur of motion. She's not making eye contact.

"Yeah, but you're optimistic," quips the guy on her left.

"Right! It isn't whether you're out of work. It's, what's your burn rate?" chimes in a woman who's on forced vacation from a struggling start-up.

By the time the snow peas are all packaged, Wedlake is smiling at ideas for group T-shirts. ("I drank the company Kool-Aid. Too bad my CEO was Jim Jones.")

Young, energetic, determined to inject "fun" into the most prosaic facts of work life, the casualties of the technology sector slump are mourning as they once multitasked: aggressively. With the same strained energy that fueled Silicon Valley's 24-7, sleep-in-your-cubicle work ethos, out-of-work techies have gravitated this summer to round-the-clock stress busting, hoping something will bounce their way.

Of course, workers of all ages have been affected by recent tech layoffs. It's among the younger ones, though, that the tone of the response is so different from past downturns.

From group hikes in the mornings to standing-room-only lunch-hour support groups to volunteer nights at neighborhood food banks, a rally that started with a few pink-slip parties in a few cities has grown in recent months into a menu of workweek diversions big enough to choke a Zip drive. In some cities, so many activities have been geared to the out-of-work that a laid-off techie can go from Manic Monday to Casual Friday and never be more than a few hours from the next shoulder to cry on. Never has it been so time-consuming to be unemployed.

"What has happened," says career counselor Kathye Citron, "is that several months ago, all these people opened their Palm Pilots and sent everyone they knew a message saying, 'OK, I'm looking now.' They didn't hear anything back. So then they went online and sent out a couple hundred resumes. And they didn't hear anything again.

"So then they went on vacations, or thought about going back to school, thinking that within two or three months, this would all be over. And then it wasn't over. So what we're seeing now is a lot of people who have been looking for four, five, six months, asking, 'What do I do now?' "

The answer for many, experts say, has been a blitz of introspection as last season's "What, me worry?" pose has sagged into a collective "Uh-oh."

"I haven't worked since I was laid off in December," Kevin Korczak, a 34-year-old Web developer, recently told a support group in San Francisco. "I've applied everywhere: Home Depot, as a scheduler for United Airlines. The market is just swamped with people like me. I can't even get work as a temp."

"You have to understand," a 32-year-old new media worker from San Jose confided as she stacked vegetables at the food bank, "this is the longest I've gone without any offers in, like, eight years.

"It used to be you could pick up the phone and call a friend and--boom--I'd have a job. I've had my resume out there for four months, and there's just been nothing. And five years ago, I was a millionaire on paper. If I hadn't been laid off before my shares vested, I'd be retired now. That does something to a person."

In other words, it has suddenly gotten scary out there.

Programs Offer Help, Hope

But in the Bay Area, where almost 19% of workers have bet their careers on the tech sector, the laid-off can now choose from a wide array of consolations. There's Tuesday group therapy for job hunters, hosted by a San Francisco social worker at $15 a session. There's a Wednesday idled-techie support group in Cupertino, hosted by a career counselor who, when the group recently outgrew her office, began advising the spillover people online. There's a free Friday brown-bag picnic for depressed former dot-commers headed by a San Francisco human resources manager who is himself between tech-sector jobs.

Another Friday group meets at the lifeprint career counseling center in the financial district, in a circle that, at last count, had spread to include 27 folding chairs. ("Hi, I'm Kelly. I got laid off from two dot-coms in six weeks," one young woman announced last week by way of introducing herself.)

Still another Friday career counseling program, in Sunnyvale, is sponsored by the state Employment Development Department. The program, known as ProMatch, has 250 members and a monthlong waiting list.

The director, Kitty Wilson, says that only a few months ago, the group feared for its state funding because so few Silicon Valley workers could imagine themselves ever needing it.

The Layoff Lounge--a monthly $10-a-head networking event launched earlier this year by a 28-year-old Los Angeles veteran of two failed start-ups--has chapters in San Francisco and the Silicon Valley, along with 10 other cities across the nation, according to its founder, Jeremy Gocke. The events combine cocktails with lectures and structured sharing of job leads.

They're a slightly more sober variation on pink-slip parties, which job hunters say have become less professional than hormonal.

"The pink slip parties turned into--I don't want to say 'meat markets,' but people were hookin' up," says Lauren Davis, 31, who, when she finally found work after a six-month layoff, began hosting women-only pool parties for jobless acquaintances. The guests, who like her, work in the tech sector, swap resumes at her parents' East Bay ranch house.

In Berkeley, two 26-year-old techies are offering their Adult Webmaster Classes around the clock to those seeking to broaden their online job skills. "Hey, fellow dot-bombers," reads their ad on a San Francisco community Web site. "Tired of searching for jobs? Let's be honest, you're never going to get one!" Their product: a $140 do-it-yourself course that teaches the novice how to build a successful Web site to peddle Internet porn.

Seeing 'Fear of the Unknown'

Recession Camp, organized this summer as a joke by yet another veteran of a failed start-up, has ended up sponsoring regular outings for laid-off dot-commers. A recent week's schedule started with golf and ended with a screening of "Planet of the Apes."

Its field trip to the food bank was done in tandem with DoGooDates, a philanthropic social group whose membership has risen with the jobless rate, according to its director, yet another former dot-commer. A show of hands at evening's end indicated that about half of the 40 people who volunteered were unemployed.

San Francisco therapist Joan DiFuria says she is seeing "a great fear of the unknown, and a lot of anxiety about what's going to happen tomorrow--and about how long this will go on." DiFuria, who built a clientele by marketing herself a few years back as an expert on what she called "sudden wealth syndrome" among dot-com arrivistes, says the epidemic her clients face now is more like "sudden lost-wealth syndrome."

"They're asking, 'Will I be depressed if I can't do what I want to do? What do I want to do?' It's really hard for a lot of these people to tolerate waiting and anxiety because they've been so distracted in so many ways by their jobs.

"And when the distraction stops, then they have to face their feelings and fears. And that's intolerable to a lot of them. Sitting in the unknown is very uncomfortable for people who are driven by phones and faxes and e-mails. Or, well, just driven. It affects their identity. Someone came in the other day and said, 'When people ask what I do for a living, what am I going to say to them?' "

Citron says her biggest increase in demand for career counseling this year has come from the 35-and-younger demographic, which is up by 20% over last year. Unlike the victims of the aerospace recession in the early 1990s, she says, the former dot-commers tend not have dependents, or to be burdened with a sense that longtime employers have betrayed them.

But they are hampered by their lack of experience with anything but the overheated--and aberrant--job market of the past few years. The online resume that could net a job within hours last summer is now just one among hundreds landing on the electronic desktops of increasingly picky--and cash-strapped--employers.

"These young people have never gone through a downturn of any kind, and they're just in shock," Citron says. "Just traumatized.

"I know one couple in their 30s, both with MBAs from Stanford, and they've been looking for five months and still haven't found jobs. Another young man went in to an interview and wanted to know when his gym membership would be kicking in--at a nonprofit.

"I rode down in an elevator one night with a guy in his early 30s after one of our seminars on handling your finances, and he said, 'That person gave me the best tip.' I asked him what it was, thinking it would be some great piece of advice or something, and he said, 'Sell your BMW!' Sell your BMW. He'd been out of work for months, and he had never thought of it."

Linda Way, an unemployed computer programmer, said, "Well, I'm doing Recession Camp, and this [lifeprint] support group, and I joined a Barbara Scher Wishcraft success team for $300, and another group that a therapist was doing for unemployed women."

Way said she has faith that staying centered--and extremely active--will best serve her job hunt. "I really believe what they say, that my next job will come from somebody I network with. So I'm just putting myself out there, meeting as many somebodies as possible."

Meeting those "somebodies," however, is like keeping a job loss in perspective--not easy. On a recent Friday afternoon in a park in downtown San Francisco, for instance, Dave Clements, the human resources specialist with the brown-bag picnics, had just told four jobless techies that their sole hope was to "network, network, network" when the perfect opportunity presented itself.

"Excuse me, but would you like some of our tomato and mozzarella salad?" a young woman called, striding up from a nearby picnic blanket. "We're on our company picnic and we've ordered too much food."

There was a long, poignant pause as the unemployed brown-baggers cast a longing look over at the laughing, oblivious, beautiful, employed people. The picnickers were from Working Assets, a Web site that promotes socially conscious investments. Clements, a soft-spoken man in a red Phillies baseball cap, jerked his eyes meaningfully toward the salad woman.

Some of the brown-baggers had been unemployed since November. A Web developer living on unemployment smiled wanly and looked down at his egg sandwich. A former director of sponsorships for an online games company looked nervous and fiddled with her lunch bag. A professional services consultant blurted, "Working Assets? Are you those politically correct people?" Clements opened his mouth to cover the insult just as the online games woman piped up, "Do you need a business development director?"

"Not that I know of," the salad woman replied, looking baffled, "but that's our vice president in the white capri pants." She set down the platter and, as she walked away, a laid-off dot-commer who had been relying on day trading and poker stood up and followed.

From a distance, it appeared that things were going well as he offered a reciprocal gift of Doritos to the Working Assets vice president, but when he returned, it was clear that depression--and its sidekick, hostility--had done the talking.

"I asked them, if a person applies to you who's pro-life and pro-death penalty, is it discrimination if you don't hire them?" he said.

Mistakes Make the Job Search Even Harder

Such lapses, of course, tend to make job searches all the harder. This, according to experts--and some non-experts--is why it's so important to maintain morale.

"Look," says Andrew Brenner, the bespectacled 32-year-old who helped launch Recession Camp this summer after having to lay himself off from his own start-up, "everyone's going through the same issues: Where do you look? What do you want to do? Do you want to change your career direction? Do you regret choices you've made? What's most important? What stresses do you have in your life?

"But you will find another job. You just have to keep a good mental attitude and maintain some balance. And sometimes that just comes down to remembering that some people are going to have a lot of time for TV this summer." Hence his strategy: to help his peers at least fall with style if they can't be flying.

"Hey," he laughs, "it can't just be endless dot-com parties and free shrimp for the rest of your life."

-- Anonymous, August 07, 2001

Answers

My turn to *SNORT*

I just can't relate to that generation of unemployed. I started a house cleaning business, took in typing, dumpster dived, and ate a lot of beans and franks when I was their age. Volunteer work was something the well-employed people did. My spare time was spent in activities that made money or produced food.

-- Anonymous, August 07, 2001

Me, too, Meems. Took in typing too, of course, and also ewed Mardi Gras costumes, did telephone polls, cooked at a pub, cooked at a co-op for food, did stand-up comedy for food and drinks, taught knitting and crochet and international cooking at night school--gawd, I can't remember all the extra things I did to make money. One or two I'd rather not talk about ;)

-- Anonymous, August 07, 2001

Oh, I feel so sorry for them. Obviously after being off work for several months and they aren't starving or homeless, they either had money stashed or family that took them back in.

Like you guys, I worked, one way or the other. One time I had to sell all of the furniture, including the kids's beds to make it, but we did.

That idiot that it never occurred to sell his BMW... I used to work with a woman that drove a Mercedes and whined about being broke. Another lady and I that came up the hard way finally told her to sell the damn thing and she could live on the proceeds for a year. She didn't like the idea, but quit whining to us.

-- Anonymous, August 07, 2001

While obviously I sympathize with them, it sounds like the folks they're talking about here are single, with no kids, and probably some savings and assets (like BMW's) to sell off through the tough times...

I imagine if they were talking to those that had families and limited reserves, the story would be a lot different.

-- Anonymous, August 07, 2001

Well, we only had a 94 Honda to sell if it got REAL bad! Yep, the families are too busy trying to make ends meet, selling stuff and doing odd jobs, to volunteer.

Speaking of the Mercedes, yeah, forgot, we had a friend who bitched constantly about being broke and having to live with her mother after her divorce--until I saw her with a Rolex watch and told her, in the middle of one of her bitches, she could live on the proceeds of that watch for quite some time if she'd unload it. I often wonder about the jewelry she had stashed too--bet that was worth a nice chunka change. Some people just don't realize what real life is like.

-- Anonymous, August 07, 2001

Want to see one of the busiest boards on the net? Try the Monsterboard jobseeker forum...

Actually, kind of cool, a little mutual support for folks out of work or in jobs they hate, some posts are pretty depressing though... 2,357 messages posted in 24 hours on this one board... don't you know that's an admins nightmare :)

-- Anonymous, August 07, 2001

Gawd, don't tell LL!!!

-- Anonymous, August 07, 2001

I think that times like those that y'all have gone thru make each of you more interesting, and your views are worth more because of them.

While I have had some rough moments, I doubt any of them would compare to selling the kids beds. That takes guts.

My hat is off to you all.

-- Anonymous, August 08, 2001

Actually, there was this one poster, used the name Lorelei, that sounded familiar.. think it's her?

-- Anonymous, August 08, 2001

Barefoot, I was telling someone about Those Days and he said, "You're very brave." It made me think. Then I said, "No, I'm not--it was desperation; courage wasn't in it. The things I did were the only logical things to do. There was no other choice."

Carl--I hope that's not her! Second thought, I hope it IS. That means she's leaving the rest of us alone!

-- Anonymous, August 08, 2001