NEW BLOG LOCATION

I have moved my blog and linked it with my Web site, so please visit me at www.saramichael.org.

things to do when you're unemployed

If I had more readers and this was more than just an exercise in self-absorbtion, I'd ask for suggestions on what people do when their unemployed. Besides job hunting.

How do you find creativity and motivation? How do you continue to feel smart and engaging when you're sitting around your house checking Facebook and ignoring your confused dog who whines and paces for attention?

(Wow, it's not looking good for the Sara Betterment Phase. I even Googled the phrase "What do to when you're unemployed" and a list actually told me half of the things I have been doing already: blogging, cooking, crafts.)

I will say I am surprised at the amount of people at home during the day. It's almost offensive. What are they doing? Are they also out of work? Are they all really collecting disability checks? Seriously, I have seen more of my neighbors today than in the last month. What are the chances they work evening jobs or just have off on Tuesdays?

Well, it's a rocky start to my unemployment. Although I have nailed down a couple freelance gigs and set up an informal interview for a prospective job lead, it seems like the afternoon stretches out in front of me.

I guess I'll go paint my fingernails.

Day One

This is the first official day of my laid-offdom.

Technically I am on "administrative leave" and will still see a paycheck for a bit, thanks to a 1980s federal law that requires employers to give two months notice before closing a plant. But today was the first work day that I didn't have to get up to go to work.

Yes, it's not even 8 a.m. and I am up, but I blame my eager and consistent dog for that. Or maybe it hasn't really sunk in yet.

I actually have a long list of things to do today, but really these are things that could be done any day this week. I am trying to stay busy. Stay busy and stay positive.

So commence the Sara Betterment Phase, longer title Sara Personal and Professional Better Phase. SBP entails me building my professional skills (Final Cut, Web design, freelancing) and nurturing some personal areas (running again, taking up another hobby such as knitting or more yoga). During this SBP, whether it lasts two weeks or six months (good heavens I don't know if I can handle six months), I will focus on doing things that make me feel good about myself and ultimately make me a better person.

SBP starts, as I am now, by drinking a cup of coffee and writing.

the end of an era

Sitting on the sidewalk in front of my house this morning was the last edition of the start-up newspaper where I worked for two and a half years.

I never was among the chosen thousands in the area to receive home delivered copies of the paper, on account of not fitting their formula of living near a shopping center, making a certain amount of money and having a specified number of children. But I was so glad to get a "VIP" copy of the last issued, headlined "Goodbye, Baltimore."

The last several days of the paper were tough. Somehow we had to muster up the motivation to write stories for a paper we knew people had likely stopped reading and within days would cease to exist. I went from writing at least two stories a day to writing one every other day to fill the shrinking space. I can't say my best work ran in the final days, but we stuck it out and gave it a good send off.

I realized on Friday night while out drinking and eating soggy fries and wings with soon-to-be former coworkers, that these people gave a shit. They cared. Each one of them - at least the editorial side I knew - poured their hearts and souls into this newspaper. More than working long hours and accepting paltry pay, these people invested themselves deeply into this paper. They were committed to the words that ran under their bylines and dedicated to carving out a spot for this scrappy paper, elbowing in alongside the long-standing legacy giant in town.

We all believed in this experiment and were willing to try a new model when everything else around us in daily news was failing. And yes, perhaps it's hard to say we didn't also fail, that the concept of a free, home delivery paper with short, boldly written stories didn't also fall short. Perhaps if the economy had been different or if some management decisions had been different, perhaps we could have survived a few more years or longer. But we didn't. We tried something new to revive newspapers and nearly three years later, it folded.

I can't tell you I have much insight in the future of newspapers. I am not convinced there isn't money to be made in online only print. Why can't newspaper figure it out, though? Why can't they go all online? The reporters I know aren't afraid of that, and in fact embrace it, as do readers, so what's the hold up? I also think there is something to be said of making the news nonprofit, rather than beholden to wide profit margins and expectant shareholders. News gathering truly is a public service, and a nonprofit model would fit the purpose well.

But I'm not a businessman or a journalism teacher or a pundit. When I graduated from grad school four years ago I wanted to be a staff writer at a major newspaper, and I was. For the last nine months or so I covered health and the environment and thrived in the beat. A big part of me mourns the death of this newspaper and the demise of newspapers as we know them, and I also mourn what appears to be the death of my own run in the newspaper world. This is the second paper from which I have been laid off, and I am not sure I have the stomach to do it again or that there are even the opportunities out there to jump into it again. Instead I have been forced to shift my career trajectory and be fully open to what might be out there. I keep telling myself these skills are transferable, and I hope that is true.

Perhaps the medium, the audience and the subject will change, but I will always write.

me and 11 million other Americans

Two and a half years ago, I was writing about how I got a sweet new job at a daily newspaper. The job I went back to school for, that I had set my sights on, at least in theory: writing for a major metropolitan daily.

Today, I am among the millions of unemployed. Or at least I will be in a week or so. The paper announced last week that it's folding, throwing in the towel on an experiment to deliver news to some 325,000 people in Maryland for free every day. Shorter stories, catchier headlines, more graphics and boxes and photos. But still hard hitting and engaging news. About three years after the paper was launched, it folded.

But this isn't the paper's obit. That might come later. This is me realizing I am having to rethink my entire career trajectory, regain balance in my life, and I guess write on this damn blog again.

So let's start with a list, one that will bolster the few feelings of relief and open-minded positivity that I have struggled to dredge up among the feelings of sadness, anger, humiliation, guilt and more sadness.

Things I will NOT miss from my job:

1. Cranking out at least two stories a day, whether the topic warranted a full story or not.

2. Story counts to fill a quota, which toward the last days were listed and posted on my editors door, perhaps aimed to stir competition among reporters but only serving to frustrate them.

3. Hearing the phrase, "If you can't handled it, then quit!" yelled at me or my colleagues in the newsroom.

4. Readers writing or calling to say things like, "A high school student could do a better job than you."

5. Waking up in the middle of the night wondering if that name was spelled right, if I did the math correctly in the story, if I misquoted that one source.

6. Looking at the story the next day and finding for all my efforts, the copy desk inserted errors and misspelled the headline.

7. Sitting through mind-numbing government meetings that stretch past 11 p.m.

8. Having PR flacks pitch me stories I have already written. (No kidding, this one happened just yesterday.)

9. Getting paid peanuts to work my ass off.

10. Feeling at the end of the day like I have been kicked in the stomach, tossed in a dryer and squashed by a steamroller.