Beginning of a great adventure

Tomorrow at 6 a.m. or thereabouts, I am going to get into my car and drive out west. I am helping my friend of some 10 years or so, Rachel, move out to Santa Fe, NM., where she will begin her teaching career, teaching math to 7th and 8th graders.

Her ex-husband, Frank, held a going away party for her at his house, which tells you the kind of post-marital relationship they've had the past few years. The kind I wish I had with my ex-wife, Susan. Oh, well.

At the party were several other people who'd been laid off, most of them former aerospace workers (I live in Melbourne, a town full of engineers and other who work or worked until recently at Kennedy Space Center) who lost their jobs because of the end of the space shuttle program.

One friend, Mike, told me that he had written his resignation letter two months before he got laid off, and read it every day to remind himself why he needed to get out. His company obliged him, by pulling the trigger for him, and he used the separation package to reinvent himself, becoming a yoga instructor and devoting more time to community theater. He was laid
off four years ago, and is still living in the same beachside condo he's rented for the past seven years.

Frank, one of my best friends and our host, was laid off more recently, along with his girlfriend, Maro. They got generous packages from their employer, so things are not so bad, even if they still have to jump through the byzantine, patronizing hoops to get their unemployment benefits. He got laid off from a $90,000 a year job, and now can devote himself full-time to the care and maintenance of his precious Sears Craftsman home he painstakingly restored.

 The biggest challenge he and his girlfriend have these days is finding something to do. Travel figures deeply in their future.

Christina, another friend with theater ties, told me she's been laid off twice. Once by an investment banker a decade ago that allowed her and her husband to buy the home they live in now, and then again at the same newspaper where I was just laid off. She seems pretty happy, and spends most of her time raising an awesome son.

Rachel, too, is a victim of double-dip job attrition. She was laid off in 2001, and again earlier this year, which prompted her to get a job keeping the books at a non-profit for the homeless, which has its share of dysfunctionality. But her dream was to teach, and when the offer came from Santa Fe, she jumped at it.

Hope abounds. People who were laid off have found promising, thriving second careers doing what they really love. I should be so lucky.

Assess these skills, mother fuckers!

One of the more humiliating aspects of filing an unemployment claim in Florida is the newly inaugurated skills assessment test. As of Aug. 1, applicants for their benefits have to take a battery of math, reading comprehension and "locating information" questions.

For instance, you could be asked how much your company needs to budget for widgets in the next quarter if a case of 20 costs $17.95 and you need 800 widgets.

Or you could be asked a series of questions after reading a memo about a new parking policy at school.

My favorite is the "locating information" section, which basically asks you to tell the difference between a bar graph and a pie chart.


Needless to say I aced the test, scoring higher in math than verbal, ironically.


But why take it at all?


Here's the official explanation:


"Skills Assessment – Individuals filing initial claims must participate in an online initial skills assessment in order to be eligible to receive benefits. The initial skills assessment is provided by Florida Ready to Work. Claimants will be notified of this requirement when filing for benefits. Failure to complete the assessment will result in the denial of benefits until the review is completed. The agency will be notified by Florida Ready to Work when the claimant has completed the assessment. In responding to claimant inquiries relating to the assessment, staff should NOT refer to it as a test. The results of the assessment do not affect benefit eligibility."


So, the test is not a test, the results don't affect eligibility, but you won't get benefits if you don't take it. Sounds to me like some political supporter got thrown a bone, an easy government contract probably worth millions. I made a public records request with the Agency for Workforce Innovation Monday. Still waiting for them to get back to me.

Supposedly the skills test is meant to better match you with potential employers offering jobs, and to identify areas where you may need more training you take the test, the site actually sends you to a prompt where you can sign up for training right away to get "credentialed." Complete a course and you will get a certificate signed by Governor Voldemort that you have the basic credentials for an entry level job. Yippee!

When I went to the Florida Ready To Work website, I learned the program is being administered by the Florida Department of Education and Agency for Workforce Innovation. The training is free, but someone is paying for it. A grant, no doubt. Money that could be better spent on, oh, I don't know, extending unemployment benefits or raising the rate from the $275 a week it's been since at least 2001.

 Really, after more than 25 years in journalism, I don't think I need more training. Nor do need a totally irrelevant, waste of time skills assessment that merely scrapes the surface of high school math and reading skills barely used by your average barista or book store clerk.

You want skills? Check out these mad skills, baby. I scored a 1240 on my SATs in 1975. I was a New York State Regents Scholarship winner. I was a member of the National Honor Society. I got a 690 on the verbal section of my GRE. I can test with the best.

I investigate public records, analyze campaign reports, dig through federal tax statements, read government budgets and compute tax increases. I work in Microsoft Word, Excel, HTML and a host of other platforms.

The skills assessment "not a test" is a joke and an insult to me. I can only imagine how insulting it is to a laid of aerospace engineer who spent 30 years at Kennedy Space Center. What is a skills assessment going to tell them? That they qualify for an assistant manager job at Wal-Mart?

And there is the great disconnect between what is really going on out here in the world and what the paternalistic government sees as the problem: You got laid off because you don't have the right skills, not because the economy sucks or your company needs to put the squeeze on your office to send more money back to corporate to pay for Cadillac insurance benefits and million-dollar bonuses.

And, by the way, we don't see your unemployment check as a benefit for you to help during these hard times, but as a burden on we business owners. In other words, we are tired of carrying your lazy fat asses. Now, get to work!