For the 'funemployed,' unemployment is welcome

Ah, the LATimes.

Can anyone conceive of this kind of 'silver lining' story when coverage of economy under Bush II included endless grim stories about the jobless recovery and the horror of a 5.2% unemployment rate.

Oh, here's another snippet from the "news story."

I just survived another round of layoffs myself. Every department canned a handful of people. Six in my department, three with the exact same job title as me. I don't see this job lasting more than another year or two. Good thing I just hit up my insurance for some new glasses, I guess.

If I didn't have so much debt, I wouldn't care at all. Never really been driven by career ambition. To me, employment is just an indirect path to my real goal, which is to lead a simple, unencumbered life without worrying where my next meal will come from.

So I can kinda see where the individuals in that article are coming from with their reluctance to chase down another soul-crushing vocation. Where they lose me is burdening society or their parents to sustain that lifestyle.

This is where it's all at imho.

UA is wise and carries some of the same philosophies many of us have.

I lived on a boat for a while and sorta became a minimalist. Without the demand for lots of things (which I shed) I can live pretty lean with just a few expensive vices like chicks, food/wine and weed/booze.

So the past 20 months - since losing a full-time job - ("losing" should read walked away from) I've been cruising along with 6 weeks of work a year. A job or two has come up (the last one wanted me to move to Zurich) but I can't seem to get worked up about more work. I bring in enough to accumulate some extra every month, but not much (in 50 years I wouldn't accumulate what I could make as excess in a really good year, admittedly while doing 80-hour weeks).


I'm of two minds. Part of me enjoys playing Rome Total War and Fallout2 or taking repeated long single-malt lunches with buds or day-trading stocks (i.e. sitting around or fucking around but getting nowhere, fast. Or slow. With this head it really don't matter).

But part of me (that little ambitious voice that got me through law school or built a savings account) feels like I'm standing still when I should be trying to get somewhere. I think it was something I ate when I was younger.

"A rose by any other name......."

I did the funemployed thing once. And it was several months feeling really cool...




...until the money started to run out.

I wish I could get unemployment.

I don't know if I could, and I don't care, because I would never attempt to collect it.

Poor Tuttle, reduced to shooting the messenger and, how ever obliquely, blaming on Obama what should be laid at the feet of the aforementioned "generous [corporate] buyouts" and the pushover parents of the so-called Millennial Generation...

You're stupid.

In years past I could have but didn't. I usually manage to land something to bring in some cash and so far have managed to stay off of the gub'mint tit.
Didn't then, won't now. It's one of the reasons I moved to a metro, there's usually something to do somewhere. I have been busy working +/- but it's gratus work catching up on obligations made. Only compensation is just a meal for this stuff but it's better than not eating.

I'm changing course anyway. This job market situation, like back in the early eighties, has forced me to find another line of work which will likely mean getting training.

That I will jump on a tit for by way of funding through student loans and grants.

If you've got a point to make, then make it. Or just go fuck yourself. Maybe both.

The point is at the top of your head. You pay for unemployment insurance. To not use it if need be is foolish.

Correction. My employer is forced to contribute the funds on my behalf, a practice of which I do not approve. I didn't earn it, it doesn't belong to me, and accepting it would weigh on my conscience.

That's your opinion. I prefer to earn what's mine.

And please, don't respond with some bullshit rationalization to claim that I did earn it, because I'm not buying. It doesn't come out of my paycheck, and it wasn't part of the compensation offered by my employer.

If you pay into unemployment there is nothing wrong with using it for a LIMITED amount of time until you get a new job.

The fact that you're pulling unemployment shouldn't decrease your determination to get a job and support yourself.

I think you made a typo.

I'll just stop you right there. I didn't pay into it. It doesn't come out of my paycheck. I'm not responsible for ensuring that it's kept up to date. IT IS NOT MINE.

Uncle Albert reminds of a homeless war hero. You find these guys half frozen to death on the street.

When they check them out, its found that they are eligible for many benefits but just don't utilize any of it.

Uhh, I was under the impression that it would come out of your paycheck.

What am I missing? Cause it comes out of my paycheck.

So fucking WHAT?

I'm not asking for approval or sympathy.

Nope. In Nebraska, it's a very impersonal and sanitary process where you don't have to worry about it in the slightest until it's time to start collecting.

I'd have less of a problem with it if it came directly from my paycheck, but I should still be given a choice in the matter.

In some states the employer pays the minimal premium. But I'm sure they find a way to get it out of YOU. Ya know what I mean?!

Like when employers LIE about how you stopped working. Or come up with some bogus reason to fire you.

I've seen it happen to many people.

There is such a thing as cutting one's nose off to spite one's face. Your employer probably factors what he/she has to pay for unemployment insurance into your wages.

No one is going to force you to collect something if you don't want to, but yes, it is kind of stupid. But hey, starve if you want.

And then there's making it a way of life.

In other words, I might be paid better of not for the meddling nanny-state bullshit.

Obviously, I don't want to starve. But you're gonna take something that doesn't belong to you, you should at least have the balls to walk up and steal it in broad daylight. After all, you're not doing anything wrong, are you?

*Pulls gun*

That's right, the wallet, the watch, put 'em in the bag....and the ruby slippers, and the courage, that's right,...

Yeah, I rob now.

Here in Canada, we have to pay into unemployment insurance. No choice in the matter.

The damnedest thing though, is, as a business owner, if you pay yourself, you also have to contribute to it. Not only that, but your company has to match it and also pay into it. But then, if you somehow quit the business or 'lay off' yourself, you can't claim any of it, because you owned the business.

I console myself with writing EVERYTHING off I can possibly get away with as a business expense, so I guess it all evens out.

^In NY they steal the unemployment insurance premium directly from everyone's paycheck, there is no choice or election. The employer is probably also paying in, and I think it's around 50/50 on the premiums, overall.



And here this thread was just pissing about how the Obama cock-sucking liberal media can put such a positive spin on greater-than-10-fucking-per-cent unemployment.

Je-sus.

Some people would consider Al's stance to be one of principles, why does every one just assume it's because he's just being stubborn? [Oh, wait, it's UA. heh.]

I am curious - do you plan on collecting Social Security?