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At about 4 p.m. on a recent Thursday, Shanley chatted in the back lot of Zeitgeist, a one-time biker bar, now evolved into a beloved hipster hangout, at Valencia and Duboce. Sporting dark sunglasses, a blue T-shirt bearing the insignia of the Italian national soccer team, and a moustache thick as a Fuller brush, he sipped a pint of beer and explained that his job search is, of course, active. But it's not what you'd call desperate.
"I'm not apathetic about the fact that I have no income right now other than government checks," he said. It was a sunny, windblown afternoon; the air smelled of boozy malt, burning weed, and cigarette smoke. "But in this market, there's only so much you can do."
Lest joblessness get too comfortable, Shanley still hits the gym early in the morning and takes time to volunteer. He has regularly devoted man-hours to the Berkeley-based service group Causes.com, and is considering a several-month stint as a volunteer with a microloan organization in Africa next fall. He sends e-mails to prospective employers and tries to set up interviews. He's thinking about going back to school for a Ph.D. in behavioral economics. Notably, he said he's been spared the psychological blow many associate with loss of work. For him, unemployment has confirmed the need to relegate jobs to their proper place in his perspective on a life well lived. "I don't really define myself by work," he said. "I work to support a lifestyle that's very full and rich and fulfilling."
Funemployment isn't just about fun. Many take the time to volunteer, self-educate, pick up odd jobs, or consider career shifts they had placed indefinitely on the back burner. As Mansinne mulls her next move, she is also babysitting, job-shadowing at Petaluma High School, and putting together a North Bay wine-tasting event for Birthright Israel.
"When I talk to people, it's not about unemployment," says Katie Edmonds, 29, who was laid off from a videogame art studio in April. "It's about, 'What are you doing with your time now?' A lot of people are like me. They just had so much waiting in the wings that they pile their plates really high with things to do."
Unemployment, says Tania Khadder, a San Francisco resident and co-founder of the blog Unemploymentality, "forced me to reevaluate what I was doing and what I wanted." Edmonds agrees that a serendipitous loss of work was just what she and some of her friends needed as they drifted into their late twenties with vaguely realized ambitions. The unremitting schedule of the gainfully employed — work, after-work drinks, television, sleep, more work — doesn't leave a lot of time for purposeful examination of the future. Edmonds, who did a stopover at fashion-design school before graduating with a degree in political science from UC Berkeley, is now making plans to return to grad school to study public policy. Being unemployed, she says, "took my attention, which was spread over a lot of different things, and gave it focus. In a way, it derailed my financial plan. But it accelerated my professional plan."
Edmonds is currently working on a video-editing project for a Chinese human-rights group and grant-writing for a documentary on urban gardening, as well as volunteering with Larkin Street Youth Services, where she helps hand out free condoms and clean socks to the street kids who swarm the Upper Haight and Hippie Hill. Turns out that some of the habits of the Organization Kid die hard. "I'm not going to give up on something just because I don't have time for it," she says. "Especially when I don't have a job."
Federally subsidized odysseys of self-discovery. Wine-tasting. Hiking. Bagels. Bongos. If this is the life of the jobless, why stare at your cubicle walls another second? Because funemployment, like high school summer vacation, is a temporally limited joy. No sooner have its elusive promises started to come within reach than they disappear. September's here, kids, and the fun is over.
For Anthony Ferraro, September has arrived. Until this fall, he had what he considered his dream job, working as a video producer at Current TV, the modish, San Francisco–based television station co-founded by Al Gore. In November, he was let go in a round of layoffs.
For Ferraro, who moved to San Francisco from New York several years ago, this wasn't completely unfamiliar territory. He'd lost jobs before. When he got the ax at Current, he says, he made a point of driving straight home and cleaning his Pacific Heights pad with the fervor of a maid in a hotel room. Then he went out drinking. When he awoke the next day, his newly immaculate surroundings helped brighten his mood.
That was six months ago. Fast-forward to a sunny May afternoon at the Peet's Coffee & Tea at Sacramento and Fillmore, where the sturdy 42-year-old with tinted glasses and a black mesh baseball cap discussed his work prospects. There are none. At least not here. Much to his displeasure, he is preparing to give up his apartment and leave San Francisco. He says he will move to L.A., where he hopes to find a cheaper apartment and more freelance work.
"It's done," he said. "It's been six months. In six months I've only gotten three weeks of freelance work. The jobs that are like, 'You do this for a day, make a little extra money' — even those are gone, because there are so many people." A former actor, Ferraro said the glut of overeducated types in the local job market reminds him of the beginnings of the trend that saw television actors auditioning for Broadway productions, bumping off-Broadway aspirants out of the running. "I had a friendly taxi driver the other day," he said. "I was quizzing him. Like, 'How do you get into this?'"
