I wasn’t planning to blog today. Even the jobless need a day off. However, a couple of things caught my attention Friday and I wanted to mention them before I forgot.
Had my final class at the career center today. Interviewing and negotiation. Having a background in a field where you ask questions as part of your job helps handle the first part of that. If you know how to ask, you usually know how to answer. However, I’ve never been one to even think that I could negotiate terms of employment, so the second part of the class could be valuable.
I’ve often been so grateful for an offer, I’ve been willing to take whatever is put on the table. I have a much better understanding of why that’s a bad way to accept a job now. If an employer really wants you, they will be willing to give up something…
A lot of businesses are reporting their quarterly results… and things don’t look so good for the economy turning around anytime soon. That’s disturbing, but not as disturbing as a couple of things I saw Friday.
I was heading into Midtown, getting off 240 at Union, when I saw a guy panhandling at the interstate exit. My first thought was, ‘man, if things don’t turn around for me soon, I could be standing right next to him in a few months.’ Sobering thought. Then I saw he was holding a large sign in front of him. I assumed the usual, ‘need help,’ ‘will work for food,’ or some such. No, this gentleman was honest. His sign read ‘I want a beer.’ In better times, I would have given him a buck or two for creativity alone. But since I don’t have anything coming in at the moment, I didn’t.
If that weren’t enough, I saw a tweet from the fine folks at Action News 5, promoting a Janice Broach story. In 10 years in Memphis, 8 of them in the news business, I’ve never had the good fortune to cross paths with Ms. Broach. Fine reporter though. Anyway, the story, “Jobless to Topless,” deals with the increasing number of women, including many professional women, turning to work in adult entertainment. According to the report, for women to find success in this field, “all you have to do is take off your clothes.”
Of course, it’s not a complete “happy ending” (sorry). Like a lot of businesses dependent on discretionary spending, business is down in the adult entertainment field right now, with at least one place mentioned in the story seeing more job applicants than customers. It’d be a shame if a lot of out of work women end up stripping for each other.
All I need to do is find a club interested in balding, slightly overweight older men on stage, instead of in the audience…
Doug Johnson at Large 