Category: The View From Your Recession

A reader writes:

I would like to second wholeheartedly the opinion that the US immigration system is broken. I have been in the US as an immigrant for just under ten years, first as a student then on an H1B visa. I have a masters degree from a US university, have never broken a law, and have always paid my taxes. And yet I have zero job mobility because H1B visas are tied to specific jobs – if you lose or leave the job, you lose your visa. This upshot of this is that you get stuck in jobs for which you are overqualified and underpaid. In terms of my earnings and career trajectory, I lag about four years behind my contemporaries in the same line of work. And yet I stay at my job because it is the only option to stay here.

On top of that, I am forced to apply a green card through my employer because I am gay and therefore am ineligible to be sponsored by my

partner of eight years.

I have considered a sham marriage to get the green card, but I don't have the stomach for it and don't want to put whoever I marry at risk of a fine or even prison. This means that if my green card sponsor company goes under – they recently scaled back to the point that I am the only employee along with the two owners – I will have to leave the country, since finding another green card sponsor in this economic climate will be simply impossible.

It is particularly aggravating when I hear anti-immigration voices braying about how if you stay legal as an immigrant, everything will work out. It's not true! Having almost been forced to leave the country last year when my previous employer cancelled my visa with two weeks' notice, I can testify to the fact that the current system is based on employers' whims. It reflects a cruel and arbitrary set of values that punishes immigrants for forces beyond their control.

In short, the immigration system does not reward hard work or merit. It's about time that, instead of awarding visas for specific job offers, someone started to think of a different model that looks at a immigrant's work history in the US as a measure of whether they are able to stay – immigration parole, if you like.

And it's about bloody time that Congress passed the UAFA.

A reader writes:

I work at a small daily newspaper in the Pacific Northwest selling classified advertising. In my job, I, more than most, have a pretty close finger on the pulse of the local economy. I see what people are advertising and trying to sell, and see what's moving and what's not. Last summer when diesel was pushing $5 a gallon, we had a record volume of diesel pickup truck ads, all at terrific markdowns, and a garage sale page that was huge week after week, all filled with pitches like, "Everything must go, super low prices!" Now the picture is even

grimmer.

We are publishing about six foreclosure notices in the legals section for every employment ad. When we run a blind employment ad (applicants send their responses to us and we forward them on to the anonymity seeking advertiser) we can get over a hundred responses to a one day run for an entry level position. The number of rental homes on the market has been steadily rising and its been taking longer and longer for them to rent. The volume of scam artists trying (we're pretty aggressive about screening them) to place ads for $200 English Bulldog pups shipped from overseas (yeah right) has skyrocketed. In short, everywhere we turn, there's a lot of hurt.

As for the overall decline of our business, we haven't been immune. At the height of the bubble, real estate people couldn't throw money at us fast enough. Now we are squeezing by on drastically lower commissions and reduced working days. While the competition has taken a fair portion of our business (mostly at the low end, private party ads with items priced under $200), we still have a dedicated community of readers who value having a classified section that is clean, readable (we have a minimal abbreviation list), and carefully vets is advertisers for legitimacy. As for the big picture, classified ads have an incredibly bright future. Just look at the the column on the right hand side of any Google search: carefully categorized, short text ads. The existing delivery mechanism for classified ads in one big section at the back of the paper every day is however doomed, and finding new ways to integrate those ads into the overall news product (in print and on the web) will be challenging.

A reader writes:

My partner and I (we are a gay male couple) have been deeply touched by the current recession,

but in a 180 degree direction from most people. 

I am employed as a software engineer, working on a government contract that is solidly funded.  My partner owns a residential appraisal business, and a residential real-estate business.  He is a very astute man, and a number of years ago he recognized that the ballooning of sub-prime mortgages, as well as other exotic loans, would result in an up-tick in defaults. He began marketing himself to banks and asset management companies offering to act as their local real-estate broker to assist in disposal of foreclosed properties.  His cut is the typical 2.5% – 3% commission on the sales price of the house.

He now has a larger staff, additional contract agents working for him, and a business that is generating tremendous amounts of revenue.

The two of us had always been fiscally conservative, living well below our means, planning for a retirement in about 15 years when we'll be in our middle 50's.  When I met him 8 years ago, he was living in a tiny 1100sq ft 3 bedroom house built in the 1950's. Now we're looking for a million dollar plus house for ourselves, and buying up rental properties that we'll sell when values tick back up at some point. We're rather stunned by the whole thing.

Regardless of the economic conditions, there will always be opportunities for people who can recognize what now means in terms of 5 years down the road.  Think "infrastructure" and Federal money.  We're working on finding out who those people are with the shovels for the "shovel ready" projects.

A reader writes:

I work as the registrar of a private art collection, and I am busier than ever. My employer is buying art hand over fist, partly because he's getting great deals and partly because he seems to need the retail therapy.

After all, what do you do when you used to have a couple billion dollars and now you only have a billion or so? The pain of the loss is profound, but there's certainly no reason to start shopping at Wal Mart.

There is more peevishness, more cat-and-mouse with gallerists and a lot of cognitive dissonance. It's weird to process invoices for $150K almost every day when others are getting let go, philanthropy seems to have gone out the window, and I keep getting asked to check my home for lifted pens. I don't think I am going to get the raise I asked for.

But the bottom line is that we are moving into a new storage space that's twice as large as the old one, I went from three to four days a week, and I hired a new assistant. Rich people are still very very rich.

A reader writes:

Five years ago, I left my job as a technical writer at a software company and tried to make it as a freelance writer specializing in resumes (think: the personal advertising agency sort of resume writer, not the typist sort). I studied for my Certified Professional Resume Writer designation (yes, there is such a thing), read–actually read, not skimmed–countless resumes, and discovered what a really, really

good resume looked like (and how to write one).

Worn out from years of writing technical manuals, installation guides, and procedure manuals full-time, the change of pace was refreshing. I loved working with people and seeing an immediate, practical benefit to my writing. However, it was a far from lucrative niche. Not even a $500-a-month yellow pages advertisement in the Resume Services category seemed to bring in enough revenue to make the venture even plausibly a full-time occupation. Although I found the resume writing work gratifying and refreshingly service-oriented, I soon found myself going back to the software industry for the money.

Skipping ahead to last April, I found myself having free time and the desire for income enhancement, so I figured that I would reopen the resume business. Business was creeping along without much excitement until September. That's when the phone started ringing and the e-mails started coming in faster than I could manage, even without a physical office or any advertising except a Web site. People just googled for the city and resume writer, trying to find somebody local to work with. Suddenly I found my part-time, home-based business turned upside down. I quickly hired a freelance copywriter and found avenues for subcontracting my overflow work. I no longer had much time to write; instead, I found myself managing projects, editing, and proofreading. And meeting with lots of job seekers.

I've interviewed dozens of job seekers in the past couple of months, from the recently laid off Starbucks store manager to vice presidents of Fortune 1000 companies. Some are seeking their first resume in a decade. Some want to replace two part-time jobs with one full-time job with benefits. I can usually tell when a company is about to announce layoffs because their managers start calling a couple weeks ahead of time. Almost every one tells me that they're not getting calls back, despite having great credentials. Zilch, or one or two phone interviews that lead nowhere. I know I'm helping these people, and they're immensely more confident in their job search knowing that their resume is professionally copywritten. But I worry for them. I don't know if having a great resume will be enough to land a job, and I can't tell them that my recent clients have been landing jobs or if they're still fishing. It's just too soon to say.

A reader writes:

Downsized out of my career in my mid-50's, after 20+ years of faithful service to a 150-year-old company that declared bankruptcy some months after my termination.  I got a decent severance – in the latest wave of layoffs, there were people with more years of service who got zilch.   I have found some freelance daily-hire work here and there – last year my after-tax/after-insurance net was about 25% of what I had been making.

Still looking, still hoping.

 The 401(k) that I'd faithfully funded since the mid-80s lost a third of its value in just a few weeks.  I had bad vibes about the bankster/gangsters over a year ago (CDO's and swaps? I'd read about them on internet message boards back in 2006, but gave more credence to my adviser since he's an expert and the internet is notoriously unreliable.  Fat lot of good that did.)  I know he wasn't trying to steer me in a wrong direction – he feels as badly as I do.  Thank God BushCo never got their filthy mitts on Social Security.
 
 I've always conducted my financial affairs in a conservative fashion, so I have a (dwindling) cushion to rely on and some equity in a home with a (for now) manageable mortgage.  I pay for my own health insurance (a lousy policy with high premiums and deductibles – please, dear God – help me stay healthy.)  The premiums are about four times more than I spend for food, all of which is prepared at home by me.  I haven't been more than 15 miles from home in more than a year.  When cabin fever sets in, I go for a walk.
 
 I'm not complaining, really I'm not.  I am able to stay warm and dry and fed, and current on my bills.  I am fortunate – I know I am blessed.  I don't take it for granted and don't consider myself more worthy than others who find themselves in far more dire straits.  I could very well be in their shoes before this is all over.  The worst part is not being able to be as financially generous as I used to be with a couple of friends who are – due to medical issues – much worse off.  I do what I can when the alarm bells go off, but sometimes it doesn't feel like enough. 

A reader writes:

In 30 days, my Boston office is closing to move to a different state. Along with several of my co-workers, I will be losing my job. Our office is moving to a cheaper state because our bosses do not want to pay the rent for our nice, but excessive, offices.

When we declined our bosses' offer to move last summer, none of us knew that six to eight months later we would find ourselves on the unemployment line.

We thought we were doing the right thing by letting them know as early as possible we would be separating from the company. Most of us told them back in August or September, right in time for all the advertising and marketing jobs (our field) to dry up. While being unemployed starting in April hurts, watching the new hires take your place just rubs it in.

The other thing I have realized through all of this is the cruelty and capriciousness in our gay marriage laws (err, bans). As a single person, it never really hit home how cruel having one state who recognizes gay marriage and another who does not really is. You see, my co-worker married his partner a few years back. They have a house, children, cars, the picket fence. (No dog though.) Though we have never spoken about it, it pains me to think that he is facing a choice between finding a career in a different state and retaining his rights (such as they are) as a father and a husband. How many of us are asked by the government to choose between having a happy family and the financial success that encourages that happiness? How can the government say they are a family in Massachusetts but not in Utah, or Pennsylvania, or wherever?

A reader writes:

My husband has worked for the University of California for 25 years. He was given his 3 month notice two weeks ago.  He already has been applying for jobs. He is competing with 50 applicants, minimum, according to those in the know.

I have a permanent disability.  The price of prescription drugs I have to take are far more than our monthly house payment.  If or when he gets laid off, COBRA will cost almost as much as our house payment, but we can’t afford to be without it.  While we are fortunate to have a bit of savings, I am not sure what we will do after a few months.  We have a car we could sell, but we wonder if anyone would buy it in these times.

A reader writes:

Nothing is as nervewracking in cubicle-land as upper management being sequestered behind closed doors for long secretive meetings from which they only emerge occasionally with glum faces for more coffee and to order take-out. For the first time in my career though I'm actually in those meetings, instead of waiting nervously outside to see who'll get the escorted walk-out next, I'm doing the escorting.

There's all that talk of who's the most flexible, has the most potential, and of course who's the best "team player."  I've escorted employee after employee to the office, where the bad news is read from a script much as a judge might read charges to a defendant in a trial. Then there's the nervous bit of shuffling by their desk as you watch them pack with a "no you can't come back, you have to take everything now." The only solace seems to be at the end of it all — at least I still have a job — at least for now.

This reader's comments stirred up a bee hive. This response is typical:

Your reader who is worried that "organizations are going to be killed under Obama's plan" may want to ask him or herself what it is reasonable for nonprofits to expect under these dismal economic conditions, regardless of what the government does.

The implicit argument seems to be that everything would be hunky-dory if the country weren't going to go back to mid-90s tax rates. I wish we could hear from donors who lived in a parallel universe where the economy was just as bad, but their taxes weren't going up. I suspect we'd see the same outcome, with slightly different reasoning.

Another reader adds:

It is astonishing that big donors exist whose current decisions and deepest concerns are possible tax changes that may occur in 2011 but are apparently unaffected/oblivious to the economic free fall that has occurred in this country in the last six months.

If this is indeed their concern, good tax advice would be to increase your charitable donations in the next two years, while you still enjoy maximum tax benefits.

Fact is, all charities are effected by this economic mess in reduced in contributions and  collapse of their investment portfolios.  When people cut back, it is to be expected that arts charities will be more severely impacted than those who provide safety net services to those who are just trying to eat and sleep in a warm place.

One more:

As small, but consistent donors to non-profits, my husband and I were not impressed by the email from the worker at the arts non-profit in Illinois.  Yes, non-profits all over the country will be hit hard. It's happening in own community and this year we've increased our charitable donations to include a food program, a women's shelter and a women's music program.  We are not able to make large donations, but they will be monthly and we will be faithful.  As I read your reader's comments, I found my brain humming the Christian tune I learned in church, "They will know we are Christians by our love."  Perhaps these big donors really are frightened.  Perhaps they have had huge losses in the stock market.  Perhaps there has been a job loss in the family. It's also possible that they are supporting multiple non-profits (as we are) to feed, shelter, clothe and to care for the sick.  The arts are very important, but they must come after the four areas I just mentioned.