Just lay off

The employed person’s guide to dealing with unemployed friends

By Kris Frieswick

My social sphere has been decimated by the recent economic downturn. I met and befriended many wonderful people during a short stint as a “content provider” for a fledgling Web site back in the mid ’90s. A year and a half later, I fled screaming from all things Internet to return to the low-tech, stock-option-free world of paper-based media. My friends stayed in dot-com land. Many other friends moved there.

Then, about five months ago, the white underbelly of the dot-conomy fish started showing. First one friend was axed, then another. They were shocked, but no one got all that freaked out, since there was a negative unemployment rate at the time and the only people who couldn’t get jobs were dead people.

By the time the first surge of the jobless had been unemployed for a month, with new waves of unemployment crashing daily and the stock market tanking, I realized that those with jobs would soon be called upon to help their fallen brethren. Well, friends, the calls have come. Answering them isn’t easy. You need to be strong. That is what friendship is all about. Plus, remember all those times when your friends had jobs and always brought the expensive beer?

Irealize that since people under age 30 have never experienced mass layoffs, many may be confused as to how they can best assist their jobless comrades. The following is a handy guide to helping your friends through the five stages of unemployment. I hope that it helps you help others.

Unemployment Phase One: nonchalance. Thanks to the recently robust economy, many of the newly unemployed have some money saved up, so they aren’t too alarmed when the hammer first falls. Some figure that unemployment is a good excuse to take some time off and figure out what they want to do with their lives. They’re enthusiastic about catching up on all the stuff they couldn’t do while working 80-hour weeks. They start sitting down when eating meals. They read books. They work out. They watch movies. They are happier and more relaxed than you’ve seen them in months . . . or at least since the last time you saw them, which was probably months ago. They say things like “I can’t believe I let that job consume me. What was I thinking?” They look at you soulfully and assure you that they’re okay. Then, to prove how okay they are, they pay for dinner.

Phase One Support: at this stage, supporting unemployed friends is easy. Let them buy you dinner. It will make them feel better, and, believe me, it probably won’t happen again.

Unemployment Phase Two: increasing “chalance.” Your friend starts actively looking for a job, and this is when the heavy lifting starts, support-wise. Looking for a job during an economic downturn is like slowly but firmly banging one’s head against a wall. One must continue banging, however, because the other side of the wall is where all the money is. Your friend stops buying dinners out and new clothing, and cuts back on luxuries like haircuts. In fact, your friend probably isn’t going out much at all anymore (which is probably for the best, considering the hair).

Phase Two Support: buy your friend a nice hat and take her out to dinner. Use phrases like “It’s not just you . . . everyone is having a hard time. Things will break open soon.” Offer to do anything you can to help . . . and mean it this time. Try not to talk about your own job too much, or the vacation you’re planning to St. Bart’s. Help her network with employed people. Do not introduce her to other unemployed people, unless you specifically wish to aid and abet a mass suicide.

Unemployment Phase Three: mild panic. Your friend begins to feel the cold clutches of poverty slowly tightening around his or her neck. The stench of degrading self-esteem permeates the room when he enters. Men feel emasculated because their entire identities were tied up in their careers. Women wonder why they put off having kids for this. Miserliness kicks into overdrive. A good sign that your friend is in Phase Three is when he begins to reuse Ziploc bags.

Phase Three Support: this part is very difficult to watch, because the rate of emotional decline increases dramatically from here on out. Take your male friend to a strip club. Take your female friend to visit stay-at-home moms. Help her remember how much she hated her job by assigning her pointless tasks with unmeetable deadlines. Compliment your friend at random intervals about his many talents . . . like . . . how good he was at that thing he used to do before he got laid off . . . which was what again?

Unemployment Phase Four: desperation. Your friend starts talking crazy talk about getting a job at McDonald’s or Pottery Barn. He may even get a job at McDonald’s or Pottery Barn. He starts spending his free time at your house, asking you who you think is hotter: Marcia or Jan. A good sign that your friend is in Phase Four is when he starts to reuse toilet paper. He moves back in with his parents.

Phase Four Support: start shopping at Pottery Barn or eating Chicken McNuggets. Take your friend to the museum and foreign films to help keep his mind stimulated. Ask him random intellectual questions like “Say, Jim, don’t you think Hegel was a spineless wimp whose philosophy, in fact, could not have been less about absolutism?” While he thinks about it, buy him expensive beer. Feel free to feed him or give him clothes, but do not loan him money.

Unemployment Phase Five: you lose your job. Enter Phase One.

Kris Frieswick can be reached at krisf1@gte.net.