Fun with numbers

Today I hit the eight-month mark of being unemployed. My deep insight for the month? The job market still sucks eggs.

What's a girl to do? I thought I'd look for solace in the numbers.

Earlier this month the Labor Department revealed that the length of time Americans are unemployed has hit an all-time high of more than 9 months (39 weeks) since the department started tracking such info. I am still underperforming the market, but not for much longer, boo.

The government crunches the numbers in other ways, too. In May, the number of so-called long-term unemployed (folks out of work for 27 weeks or more -- that's six months) is 6.2 million Americans. They make up 45 percent of all of people out there without jobs. Yikes.

It makes me chuckle a bit now to see that the government also tracks "discouraged" workers -- those are folks who have stopped looking for work because they don't believe there are any jobs out there for him now. It's not funny that they're discouraged -- god knows I know discouragement right now -- but that the government actually has statistics on them. In May there were 822,000 discouraged workers, down from a little over a million a year ago. Wonder where those 200,000 folks found some hope?

Interview fatigue has become an issue for me, I think. There's no shortage of interviews out there. I'm lucky to get them. Networking -- I'm getting pretty good at it, I think. But going into a job interview situation, I find the process of trying to "sell" myself exhausting -- journalists and ex-journalists like myself struggle with this. If we were good at it we'd be in marketing and making oodles of dough, right? I don't want to sound like a used car salesman. Then again, maybe if I did, I'd have a damn job by now!

Sometimes I just want to just tell a prospective employer to just hire me and I'll show them what I can do, rather than sit on their leather couch and tell them. That's what we learned at Bloomberg News, where I was a reporter for awhile: Show, don't tell, was a often-repeated mantra. And I agree with it, as a journalist but also as a way of living. Don't tell me how awesome you are. Show me. Yeah, I don't think that approach will probably go over so well.

Soooo, I have no point in sharing all of this. I'm trying not to get too glum. After all, a friend of mine is a journalist in Afghanistan right now, where people really have problems. But if I can make just a little request -- be nice to your unemployed friends. Pass along contacts, sure, but don't give them advice like they should network (um, we already know this); don't compare them to fruit that no one wants; and above all, feel free to pick up the tab. They'll remember you and gladly reciprocate some day.

Namaste.