Using storm clichés to describe financial uncertainty.

nasa.gov

If the blanket news coverage of Hurricane Sandy has taught us anything, it’s that the media loves a good disaster. Those intrepid young local reporters and daring network correspondents race to the scene, braving winds, rain and embarrassment to stand in ankle-high water and bark into their mics about Mother Nature’s indiscriminate fury. In short, the perfect storm that is Sandy is the perfect storm for a great story. At least that’s what the media thinks.

When they’re not focusing on Sandy or her big brother, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in 16:9 aspect ratio, you can often catch news anchors discussing another disaster. Before this tempest arrived just in time for November sweeps, America’s ambiguous economic times have for years been the perfect storm for pundits on every channel. Now with our presidential election just days away, the fate of our economy is bearing down fast. Both candidates want you to believe that if you vote for the other guy, you’ll doom us all.

But at the personal level, looking back over the past few years, how have you weathered this financial storm?

As a wide-eyed undergrad, I chose to follow my dreams and turn my passions and curiosities into a rewarding career. Unfortunately, none of my professors or guidance counselors informed me that getting a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism was a terrible decision if one was actually looking for a career after college. Now, five years and two local television stations later, I’ve switched paths and gone from writing for a living to writing for a living for less. As a freelancer, new work is never guaranteed and like my first blog post, even when I’m not working on a story, I’m working to find another story I can get paid to write about. To some of my readers, what appears to be constant griping may seem like a bunch of hot air, but I’m honestly always concerned about my financial future. I live on the coast now…how am I ever going to be able to buy a sailboat on a freelancing wage?

Millions of Americans along the East Coast are staring Sandy in the face as I write these words. Millions more are bracing for another long work week or another long week that they wish they were working. The recession hit this country harder than almost anyone expected, and for countless bachelors, bachelorettes and entire families, a bachelor’s degree just wasn’t enough to keep them out of the unemployment line. It was a perfect storm, a worst-case scenario that millions of people are still trying to recover from.

Now they’ve come to grips with the fact that this shitty economy can’t bounce back overnight.

For me, I know who I’m voting for next week. But no matter who wins, I doubt I’ll see much of a difference in my economic outlook over the next four years. As a former member of the media, I understand how and why most of the current members are so annoying. Hurricane Sandy may be a disaster, but it’s a blessing for newscasts everywhere. The economy though, was a disaster long before this storm and it’ll remain a mess long after the eye closes for good. So forget the pundits, forget the presidential candidates and just get used to riding this one out on your own.

Yes, I could be doing much, much better. But I know that I could also be doing much, much, much worse. The same can be said for lots of us. I just hope whoever wins will fix the economy enough so that I can make more money and finally buy my boat. What’s a better name? The "Barark?" Or "Romseas?"

The job search: Are you a hunter or a fisher?

Not once, but twice now since graduating from Indiana University in 2007, I have quit my job and moved to a new state without any career prospects on the horizon. You may call a move like that intrepid or insane, but in both cases it did indeed lead to new opportunities of varying success.

My first roll of the dice dates back to early 2010, when I walked away from my first broadcast job in Kentucky and moved to Iowa to be closer to my girlfriend, who was in medical school at the time. After two and a half weeks on the jobs prowl, I landed a temporary position until a new spot opened with one of the TV stations in Des Moines.

My second gamble was quite literally a crapshoot. After two and a half years in corn’s capitol, we relocated to eastern North Carolina so my girlfriend could begin residency at a large teaching hospital here. This time, it took me more than three months to land a traditional brick-and-mortar job despite sending out about a hundred resumes to almost every company in a ten-county radius. My education, experiences, career and passions have revolved around writing and communications. My new job? Working at a city park.

This leads me to the question: When you’re searching for work, are you a job hunter or a job fisher?

I may have been rather crass about my new home in my last post here. But when folks talk about North Carolina’s Research Triangle, they’re not referring to Greenville. We’re more of a manufacturing square, if anything. Simply put, there are just not many opportunities here for creative, savvy professionals. After a few fast and furious weeks of looking for communications jobs, I started thinking outside the box. A few weeks later, I threw out the box. A few more nerve-racking weeks after that, I worried I may soon be living in a box if I couldn’t find a job. This went on for two seasons and three months. I want you to look back to college. Remember summer vacation? Yeah, my memories of anything related to college are hazy, too, but when you’re a late 20-something with student loans, credit cards and bills to pay, three months out of work is nooooo vacation.

© Kirk Butts 2012

So what do we do? We scramble. We slowly swallow our pride the longer we’re jobless, and those mundane or embarrassing trades start to sound a bit more interesting. No good jobs that fit your background? No problem! How about human resources? Or sales? Or selling plasma? How about senior management, or middle management, or junior management, or any place that has a manager? How about a paycheck? It may be a horrifying thought telling our friends what we’re now doing or, God forbid, updating our Facebook pages to reflect a new dead end, uninspiring position at a department store, call center or gas station. But the longer those dream jobs elude us geographically, the more we have to face reality. For me, that realization was stark – no longer could I hunt for the job I wanted. Now, I had to reach for that proverbial fishing rod, cast it out using my resume as bait, and reel in the very first thing to bite. And that…is how I’m gearing up for my new assignment as a park attendant, on condition that I pass my background and drug tests.

We all want to be hunters in life, taking what is rightfully ours and making ours that which is not. But the world and its workforce also need gatherers, those people who look for what is already around them.

In my case, this past summer brought me to a new city just one quarter the size of my old home. That meant far fewer places to hunt for work. But no matter how large or small your community may be, there are always pieces to be picked up. Even if that means starting your career over from scratch. Being a park ranger always sounded fun to me as a kid. While I may still be a ways away from that, I’m honestly pretty excited about this new prospect.

My city park even has a fishing hole or two.

© Kirk Butts 2012

 

The world's most terribly awesome job.

© Kirk Butts 2012

Want a job that will weather any economy? Sell your house, buy a used RV and become a carny.

I'm a recent transplant from Des Moines, Iowa to Greenville, North Carolina. There are three things the Hawkeye State's known for: sweet corn, delicious pork and literally tons of fun at the state fair. The fair is to Iowa what the Indianapolis 500 is to Indiana or retirement is to Florida. For one week a year, more than a million visitors collectively weighing more than a billion pounds roll through the Iowa State Fair. It's an ethnic and economic melting pot with something for everyone: live music, livestock, butter cows, fried butter, fried everything, giant pumpkins, wood chopping, tents, Vanilla Ice and of course carnival rides. To say the Iowa State Fair is awesome doesn't do it justice. This year's theme was "It's Fairlicious." So the Iowa State fair is so awesome, it can invent its own words.

And that brings me to Greenville. We're right in the heart of Pitt County, named for an 18th century English statesman but a place whose name invokes thoughts of dog fighting more than British nobility. When I lived in Iowa people asked me what there was to do in Iowa. I said nothing unless you lived in Des Moines. Now people ask me what there is to do in North Carolina and I say everything unless you live in Greenville. I've been here with my girlfriend for a few months now. She's a brilliant doctor with an adventurous spirit, and I'm a decent writer who loves adventure. Boy, what an adventure it has been.

The two of us have struggled to find our place and our groove in this community. The ocean is close. The Wright Brothers flew their airplane only a couple hours away. Mountains, national forests and professional sports are all an afternoon's drive away. But besides big box shopping and a drive-thru hibachi restaurant, there's not much for 20-somethings to do in Greenville. So imagine our excitement when the county fair came to town!

We ventured out last Saturday night to catch the local wonder that was the Pitt County Fair. After fighting traffic for an hour and losing the battle for parking for another hour more, we were in. Ten bucks bought us two tickets to the greatest show in the center of Mideastern North Carolina. Our first sight as we stepped through the turnstiles was a massive, oozing dumpster full of a week's worth of fun and frivolity. Wonderful. Once we finished taking pictures, we walked through a barn full of Shetland ponies and miniature goats. Too bad the dumpster was regular sized. Then it was on to junk food alley, or in this case junk food trailer park. We tried red velvet funnel cake made from maraschino cherries and funnel cake, and washed it down with fresh squeezed lemonade that tasted more like fresh squeezed Band-Aid. And we saw a psychic who could read palms but didn't know who was calling her cell phone without checking the caller ID.

Finally, it was time for the midway. As my girlfriend and I got close we were blown away by the enormous crowd. It seems Pitt County's double digit unemployment rate just wasn't enough to keep the unemployed at home. Thousands upon thousands of people were packed like Occupy protesters into the grassy areas between the carnival rides, skill games and funhouses, where the word "fun" has been stretched to its absolute breaking point. This truly is the 99%.

It was clear most folks here simply left their troubles at home, pausing the haunts of real life for a few more days, or perhaps only a few more hours of idleness. For five dollars to enter, four dollars to ride the ferris wheel, three bucks for three darts to pop a balloon and live racing pigs absolutely free of charge, the county fair is a reasonably affordable escape from reality, even if you’re struggling to make ends meet. On the other side of that proverbial coin, were the men and what looked like some women taking everyone’s money. The carnies have this whole game figured out. Whether unemployment is 7.8%, 10.3% or 50.0%, people are going to go to the fair. We’re Americans, dammit. This is what we do.

© Kirk Butts 2012

 The life of a carny is one of fast times and long roads. They’re like rock stars but without the musical talent. Carnies work hard, they play hard, and it’s not hard to see that they live hard, too. Just look at them. Where else can you find a guy with emphysema who blows up balloons for a living? These freaks know a great investment when they see one, and they never have to look far. Main Street is their Wall Street, and your family is their stock market. With so many people crammed into the confines of the fairgrounds, it’s more like a stockyard market. And baby, it’s always bullish here. I doubt there are many places on the internet that will use arithmetic to explain why a carny’s job makes good fiscal sense, but I’m going to ask you to do the math. You don’t have a mortgage. Same goes for property taxes. Forget student loans. Meals are free. Goldfish remain an affordable commodity. And 50 states and 3,000 counties across this great nation equal one hell of a lot of fairs. Any other career now seems like a pretty stupid venture.

I’m a freelance writer, but carnies are in essence freelance people. Survival is their job and they answer to no one.

Our economy is slowly improving but it remains a rocky road right now. One out of every 13 Americans is actively looking for work and unsuccessfully finding it. Lots of people are taking part-time jobs just to pay some of the bills, but you better believe they still feel unemployed. So the next time you find yourself at a county, state or world’s fair, don’t find yourself judging the guys and gals behind the booths and below the rides. They control the water guns, the skee balls and the milk bottles and they can spot a sucker a mile away. And if you think you’re better than them just because you have a “real” job, take a real close look at those fat stacks of cash they tuck in their fanny packs.

I bet that stack is fatter than you. That is unless you’re a visitor at the Iowa State Fair.