Profunksticated

Profunksticated landed work here in the D.C. area.

It involves proposal work for a firm in Northern Virginia that in part contracts with states to administer programs like Medicaid. (I referred to this job in my Tuesday post.) I’m filling in for someone out on maternity leave. I technically am an employee of the staffing firm that provided me, and it’s to last about three to four months.

I met the hiring manager, a hyper-organized 40-something Indian guy. I think I’ll like working for him. And there are quite a few African Americans in this office, which on the surface will appear to add to my comfort level.

So I did in three weeks here what I couldn’t do in six months at home. I like the fact that this job is short-term, because it will give me a chance to continue to look around for other opportunities.

I start Monday. I pray for the best.

Peace.

Profunksticated regularly reads the blog of one Hostess called The After Party. She asked us to read this article and says she and her readers will talk about it Wednesday.

Well, it’s Wednesday and I want to talk about it here. This appears to be one of those “no shit” type studies where someone spends thousands of dollars to find out what most of us already know. That black families are doing worse than their parents is a no-brainer to me, at least based on my currently wretched experience. They could have talked to me and saved themselves some change.

Still, I understand the methodology. The article did resonate some. I have a bachelor’s degree that’s worth something only because it will at least get me considered for certain gigs. The Spouse has a bachelor’s and three - count ‘em - three master’s degrees. We do own a home. But we are leveraged to the hilt, e.g., we’re in freakin’ debt up to our eyeballs trying to keep up our middle class “lifestyle.” And yes, we have spent on trips and stuff, but not like every year.

We have two kids in college. One is on a full scholarship, but we still had to take out loans to cover the room and board. The other is commuting to school and we still haven’t made the tuition bill.

My longtime field, journalism, doesn’t pay jack unless you’re a six- or seven-figure TV anchor or at least some big-time celebrity newspaper columnist. The Spouse taught on and off and worked for low-paying non-profits until getting her most recent teaching position with our local school district, which has paid her the most money she’s ever made.

Add to that my three layoffs in 11 years — 1996, 1999 and 2007 — and my wife’s not having a teaching contract renewed in 1996 and you have a recipe for economic disaster. Currently she and I are going through our second period of simultaneous unemployment, me due to the March layoff and her due to the work-related injury. The first was in 1996-1997.

How we’ve done in relation to my parents is this: While my father didn’t earn a lot of money, he and my mom got a free house. You see, his mother had a house built and offered to let my father, her youngest son, move in. My mother insisted that hers and my dad’s names be added to the deed. My grandmother died a year after we all moved into the finished home in the mid-1960s.

Some of my dad’s siblings had the idea they could sell the house and split the proceeds — until they learned my dad and mom inherited the house.

It took years, but it finally dawned on me in my 30s that a obtaining mortgage-free house was a hell of an economic impact. No wonder my mom was able to stay home while my dad worked.

The Spouse’s parents did pretty well until my late father-in-law developed a drug problem that led to his death. My mother in law divorced him; they lost their house. Enough said about that.

So to ask the question, are we doing better than our parents? Educationally you could say we are. Financially, hell no. We really have no net worth to speak of, and we’re both in our late 40s. I had to stop reading the financial magazines (”this is what your nest egg should look like”) because they were making me upset. My egg is scrambled.

If you’ve been following this blog, you’re aware that I’ve been looking for yet another gig. By the grace of God, we’ve been holding it together with smoke and mirrors. It can only get better.

Peace.

Profunksticated, right after posting yesterday, got a call from another recruiter. I had applied for a contract proposal position. I met with the recruiter today, and tomorrow will meet with the client’s hiring manager. If all goes well I could be starting next week. It’s a three- to four-month job located in Northern Virginia.

Also yesterday, I underwent a previously scheduled interview with the D.C. office of a national association for an editor job. This group, however, won’t fill this full-time slot until early January. A brother can’t wait that long, so if the other, above-mentioned gig comes through, I’m obviously out of the running for the D.C. job.

Still, I’m nervous about going back into a company, given the sometimes juvenile personalities I’ve had to deal with in the last few months of my last gig, along with the economic risks inherent in working for firms.

I told my younger brother half-jokingly last night that I wanted a “gubmit job” where I don’t have to worry (as much) about getting laid off and to have something I can ride out for the rest of my working days. I’m tired of this private-sector stuff, especially where it concerns corporations.

There are others who share my sentiment. The following are quotes I picked up from a journalism-related forum, and I can say I heartily agree with them:

” I loathe corporate america. Always have, no matter the industry, because it’s the only place where people with little or no talent can advance themselves and look down on others in adulthood. “

And there was this comment:

“High school for (so-called) grownups.”

Amen.

Peace.

Yo, Profunk is back and as pissed off as ever.

I had a phone interview lined up today that didn’t happen. Seems the hiring manager for this gig had a personal matter to attend to, and wanted to reschedule our conversation. OK, fine. But then she says that well, they’re still re-thinking the position to include a requirement for which I have no experience. I thought, it’s maybe time for me to re-think whether I want to even pursue this further, my desperation notwithstanding.

I then contacted the recruiter who arranged the interview and told her what the hiring manger told me. The recruiter told me she was unaware of the possible change in the job requirements. I wanted to tell her of course you were unaware; you’re just a corporate functionary (read: flunky) that the so-called “line of business” folks don’t tell anything important as a matter of course.

I’m so good at holding my tongue. Oh well, I still have an in-person interview tomorrow.

Also getting my goat today is this story in New York magazine about the late Gerald Boyd and his fall from a high-ranking position at The New York Times. You might be familiar with the story of one Jayson Blair, a young African-American male Times reporter who created a scandal in 2003 by fabricating stories.

This is a tale about the hazards of being the “HNIC” in a predominately white institution, especially one engaged in a public function such as journalism. Mr. Boyd was the Times’ first African-American managing editor and had an entire newsroom to run. But Mr. Boyd somehow got tagged as being Blair’s mentor and that’s how Blair got away with his deceit for so long. The New York story, however, says the two had no close personal or professional relationship to speak of.

Not only was I pissed about Jayson Blair’s actions, I hated the intellectually dishonest statements of the right-wing pundits/Times haters who called Blair’s scandal an example of affirmative action run amok. Uh, excuse me, but was it affirmative action run amok when a couple of white boys, namely Stephen Glass of the New Republic and Jack Kelley of USA Today, also got caught fabricating stories in their respective publications?

Some right wingers refer to the newspaper as the New York Slimes. I would also, but for different reasons. Mr. Boyd and his boss, executive editor Howell Raines, were fired shortly afterward by Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger. Cowardly doesn’t begin to define Sulzberger’s decision. Instead of standing up for his two top people, this guy took the easy way out.

Mr. Boyd died a year ago, less than three years after his dismissal. May he continue to rest in peace.

Profunksticated and The Spouse went to Worker’s Comp court today on the case involving the back injury she sustained for being between in between two students about to have an altercation. Some female student pushed my wife trying to get at a boy who was needling her. This was nearly 18 months ago.

Her lawyer conferred with her employer’s lawyer and the judge. The upshot: There will be no regular benefit payment since she did work as a part time adjunct professor, which is easier for her than teaching high school. (Her doctor, a spine specialist, said she’s physically unable to stand the rigors of six hours of high school teaching, dealing with special needs freshmen.)

But the worker’s comp judge strongly encouraged her employer’s lawyer, based on the medical evidence, that the school district offer a lump sum settlement to make my wife’s case go away. The other side’s lawyer said she would draw up papers. In addition, she can file with our state for accidental disability as well as Social Security disability.

The downside is that her employer may stop paying her medical benefits, meaning I’ll have to pick up that slack, which would mean for me (gasp) possibly securing a full time gig with benefits, such that they will be assuming I pick up another private-sector job. Teachers so far still have the best benefits of most employee groups.

It does feel better to finally know that this case appears to be coming a resolution. This lump sum won’t be a whole hell of a lot of cash, but it’s better than nothing. Her lawyer says she may have a check in hand by year’s end.

Meanwhile, I return to D.C. this weekend to resume the gig hunt.

Peace.