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"There's none of that scared quality — 'I have to take second or third best choice,'" he says. "This is not the time to go out and prepare food [for a living]. You wouldn't even think of that. Oh, and by the way, from time to time I'll get my coffee at Starbucks. What the hell."
This "almost mechanical optimism," as Howe calls it, may be tempered in significant ways by the psychology of stragglers from the preceding generation, known as Gen X — workers now entering their late 30s and early 40s — who had little faith in sanctioned career paths and developed a high tolerance for job turnover and freelance work. "I wouldn't be surprised if some of the energy here and some of the puckish delight in having fun when the chips are down isn't the influence of late-wave X-ers," he says. "A little bit of the Millennial confidence, and a little bit of the X-er defying-the-odds-and-having-fun type of thing."
Like many social trends, the concept of funemployment is also a product, in part, of government policy. As a result of provisions in the Obama administration's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the maximum timeframe for receiving unemployment insurance has been increased to 79 weeks, according to Patrick Joyce, spokesman for the California EDD. Previously unaffordable post-layoff health-insurance premiums have been partly subsidized through expansion of the COBRA program.
While the maximum weekly benefit of $475 (raised under Obama from the previous $450) is relatively low, from the perspective of a young, healthy worker without kids or a mortgage, this may be one of the most propitious times to be receiving unemployment-insurance payments in the nation's history. What, exactly, are the young and funemployed doing to make the most of it?
To start — and it is just a start — one might attend a VIP cocktail hour to honor renowned mid-20th-century Jewish lounge pianist Irving Fields, creator of such groundbreaking works of musical fusion as the 1959 record Bagels and Bongos. This was Mansinne's evening activity of choice on April 30, when she attended an appetizers-and-drinks prelude to a performance by the 93-year-old Fields at the Contemporary Jewish Museum, on Mission between Third and Fourth streets. ("I'm glad to be here in San Francisco," he said as he addressed the crowd. "At my age, I'm glad to be anywhere.") Jonathan Hershaff, a broad-shouldered 27-year-old with dark curly hair who was leaving his job as a researcher at Wells Fargo to pursue a Ph.D. in economics, spoke to Mansinne and a few acquaintances. He'Brew beer in hand, he talked about his days as a practitioner of Krav Maga, the no-holds-barred martial art used by the Israel Defense Forces that has gained great popularity in the U.S. (The technique now counts Jennifer Lopez among its high-profile adherents.)
"Do you still do it?" The question came from Rachel Thompson, a 24-year-old who works in marketing for Hahn Family Wines.
Hershaff shook his head. "I got into salsa dancing." He turned to Mansinne. "How are you existing? Do you get any money from blogging?"
Late in December, as she struggled to cope with life sans steady job, Mansinne had decided to begin chronicling the lifestyle and mindset of an unemployed twentysomething through her blog, Funemployment. (Its motto: "Because not everyone is lucky enough to work at a job they can't stand.") Her first entry was an apt summary of the whistling-in-the-dark quality that defines this online literary subgenre, which has seen an explosion of contributions from the Bay Area over the past six months. On Monday, Dec. 29, she explained the blog's title in her inaugural post:
"We begin with the more commonly used 'Unemployment,'" she wrote, which "conjures up images (in this gal's head, at least) of sad-looking men in fedoras and long coats waiting for their bread ration in the freezing cold. ... When put in the context, 'What does Louise do?' 'She's unemployed.' The sympathy and sadness dripping from the responder's voice is palpable. ... It's just gicky [sic] sounding for a 25-year-old."
And, no, she didn't make any money from it.
"I have, like, 15 regular readers," Mansinne said, responding to Hershaff's query. But things were looking up. "I looked up 'funemployment' on Google the other day, and I'm the second hit."
Hershaff and Thompson nodded. Like Mansinne, they were at this event to hobnob with a local donor to the nonprofit Taglit-Birthright Israel, which sends anyone of demonstrably Jewish descent on a bus tour of the Holy Land. Earlier this year, Mansinne, who has a Jewish mother and Catholic father, went on the 10-day trip, which she followed with a one-week jaunt through Turkey. The latter section of the voyage would have been impossible if she still had a job to return to.
Taking in the room over a glass of white wine, Mansinne, wearing dark-framed glasses and a gray sweater over a white collared shirt, said she was struck by an odd feeling of nostalgia. "It's funny, to be at this event, because this is exactly the type of event that I used to throw," she said. "For two years, this was all I did, was go to events like this, and I was in charge. Now I'm not in charge."
The driven young men and women now suffering waves of job losses were the same ones portrayed in their collegiate proto-state in David Brooks' landmark 2001 article in The Atlantic, "The Organization Kid." Brooks described the meticulous overachievement of Millennials, which stood in contrast to their Boomer parents' hostility toward authority and the paths to success sanctioned by authority. To judge from what the newly jobless are saying, the Organization Kid seems to have chilled out a bit.
Peter Shanley, a 27-year-old Yale graduate, was mowed down in a round of layoffs at Yahoo the week before Christmas. Armed with about $40,000 in severance pay and $475 per week in unemployment insurance checks, he has set aside plenty of time for what most would consider leisurely pastimes. Since his layoff, he has taken an extended skiing vacation in Idaho. He's done five of the top seven hikes in Marin County. Right now he's training for the Death Ride, a 129-mile bicycle trek through the Sierras in July. (The day after his layoff, Shanley says, he defied the frowning gods of the recession and purchased a discounted $3,000 road bike.)
