State Of Mind

Okay, I've been mildly depressed lately. It's coming up on almost 2 years now being unemployed. Sure, I spend my days at the archery shop, learning how to fix and tune compound bows, but I don't get paid for it.; I'm an apprentice. My real career was in architecture - drafting and designing, basically. We have a lot of "the boys" come into the shop who are in the construction industry and they tell me that they're hurting as well. Construction and Architecture go hand-in-hand, and if they don't have work, we don't have work, and vice versa. At the shop, I'm actually actively looking for a job or a lead for a job. If anyone can help me, it's the contractors who know people. They tell me that there's just no work out there.

There are Interiors jobs in New York City, but all they are looking to hire are people fresh out of school who'll work for the experience alone - meaning "no pay" internships, or people with far less experience than I have, and pay them peanuts. I can't afford to live on peanuts, especially if it means a one-and-a-half hour commute each way, at the cost of $400 a month in transit fees. That's $400 a month that I don't need to hand over, especially if my taxes are going to skyrocket to 39%, on top of a huge pay cut. I also don't want to be putting in 60 hours a week for shitty pay. Twelve years ago, I suffered a nervous breakdown, which led to heart problems later on in my life. The nervous breakdown came after 5 years of working 70-hour weeks for an employer who didn't appreciate the time and effort I put into getting construction documents issued on time. The heart problems came about 7 years later in the form of Supraventricular Tachycardia, or SVTs for short. The high stress environment that I was immersed in caused a pathway in my heart to go nuts. After the ablation, I had to take it easy, even though I was still doing the occasional all-nighter at my previous job, but it was okay, because my then boss would compensate me by giving me off the next day, paid.

So, back to my depression. My unemployment insurance benefits are slated to run out by mid-November and I don't know if it's going to be extended. The country's in real bad shape and I don't know how it will ever recover from this administration's free-for-all massive spending on a galactic scale, especially when most of our industry has gone overseas. On top of that, this administration seems hell-bent on destroying the fabric of our hard-working society, in order to bring everyone down to the "slacker" level. It seems to me that mediocrity is the standard by which this generation, and future generations, will be measured.

Sometimes, the air about this country feels like a perfect storm is brewing and it's bringing with it an ill wind. But the tides may change after November 2nd and everything will be put right again. I may be depressed, but I still have hope.

In the meantime, I'm still looking for a job in either architecture or archery. If anyone has any leads, please send them my way. I'm willing to relocate. I've got to get of of this godforsaken state anyway.