First Monday (of the rest of my life)

Today is the first Monday in 25 years I didn't have a full-time job to go to. And it feels weird.

But as my friend Craig, who owns his own restaurant in New Orleans, said today, "Embrace it."

The positive comments have been streaming in all weekend, both on Facebook and in the real world. Friends have been very supportive of my decision Thursday to take a voluntary layoff from a decent-paying job with Florida Today, one of 31 top-earning papers at Gannett Co. Inc.

The last four days have been nothing short of an emotional roller coaster ride. I have been riding alternating currents of relief, anxiety, joy, fright, elation and depression pretty much around the clock. The worst part is when panic sets in and I feel I need to "do something," like jump into this freelancing gig for Hellometro.com for a piddling $40 per 500-word story. Hell, it isn't about the money. It's about getting a foot into the door of online content providing, which is where the bulk of freelance gigs are at these days.

The best moments are when I realize I don't have to do anything, that I am still financially secure for at least the next three months, and even after that I have a "crisis account" to dip into if need be. I could sublet my place and trek around the globe if I wanted, but my driving nature won't allow that. Not entirely. I feel that I've got to work. I've got to "have-something-to-do."

So much of my identity for the last 25 years having been wrapped up in journalism, writing stories daily and weekly, investigating political campaign funds, ethical lapses, and government spending of public dollars. Now I'm writing 500-word business profiles and collecting  unemployment and transitional pay that equals what I was earning prior to my unemployment.

So the self-evaluation continues, a never-ending cycle of critique and deconstruction of my actions, my reasoning and motive for taking the layoff option, and reminding myself why I quit in the first place. And each time I run into a friend for the first time since my separation from work I hear myself repeating the sequence of events, the reasons why I did what I did and the internal editor revises, polishes, rechecks the tone and intent of the narrative to make sure it's on track, to search for missing information or illogical constructions. And each telling is a little more polished, a little more sophisticated, a little more self-assured and authoritative.

For instance, the same afternoon I got laid of, I ran into Jared and Lisa at the "Purple Publix" in West Melbourne. She was like, "So, what happened?" And I was like, Oh, yeah, you don't know. So I told her and I conveyed my anxiety. She said, "You know, I'm a smart person, and I read your stories and know you're a smart person, too. And so I know that whatever decision you made was the right one, and you obviously gave it a lot of thought. Do you trust your own judgment? Have you ever made a bad decision?"

It blew me away. I hugged her for saying that and then Jared delivered the coup de grace: "Use your anxiety in your favor." Very Jedi knight of you, Jared.

The next day, at Friday Fest, I run into Bastard and his Old Lady at Matt's Casbah. They think it's awesome that I left the paper, and that I'm going to be traveling west in a few days. Their friend Toni shows up with her friend Regina, and they're very cool about what I'm doing. So I'm beginning to feel like it's going to be OK, that I am not a pariah or leper just because I'm without a job.

And on Saturday, I went through another iteration of the events of that Thursday with yet another group of friends wondering what the hell happened. And again on Sunday at a going away party for the friend I'm going to help move out west. So I'm getting good at telling this story of mine.

I am beginning to think of my situation as more like being between gigs or waiting on the next assignment. Like a samurai wandering from village to village, Toshiro Mifune with a laptop. Have laptop, will travel.

Unemployed in America

As of 10:06 a.m., EST, Aug. 11, 2011, I became a statistical casualty in the ongoing Great Recession, which supposedly ended a year ago September.

On that day, a Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics report stated that 13.9 million people were without work, 9.1 percent of the workforce. But who's counting?

While the rest of the economy has seen signs of modest recovery, the journalism industry, in which I have toiled in the trenches for more than 25 years, has not.

The powerhouses of mainstream print have all seen huge declines in revenue over the past few years, with stock prices plummeting in double digits.

Still in freefall, my former company, Gannett Co. Inc., (slogan: "It's all within reach")ordered my former newspaper, Florida Today, to slash its newsroom payroll by a "large amount," as our executive editor so eloquently put it. He restructured the newsroom, cutting it from 78 to 57 staff positions. About a quarter of the staff.

Then we all had to apply for the remaining jobs.

It was hell. But it's over.

I was one of the fortunate ones offered a job, basically the same job I already had. I thought, WTF? How could I work for a corporation that treats its employees this badly, and still give multi-million dollar benefits and buyout options to the top execs who are running this company into the ground?

I turned them down.

My David Allan Coe moment wasn't some dramatic, "Take this job and shove it," kind of statement. I was quiet, professional and courteous. I thanked them for offering me my job, told them it made me feel like they appreciated my work, but I had to respectfully decline.

I almost wavered. But as I looked into the eyes of the man who would be my new supervisor and the shit-brown mustache crinkling above his lips, my resolve became tensile. I said no thank you.

The other editor asked if I was kidding. I told him I'd given it a lot of thought, but I had to move on and try other things while I had the chance. I have no kids, no mortgage, no car payments, no worries. Someone in that office with a spouse and kids would be in worse shape without a job than I.

I didn't tell him that the corporate environment was sucking me dry or that I just had too much outrage with the way the economic mess was being handled that I couldn't sit by another moment without saying something.

They both wished me luck, and I wished them the same. They then had to do some quick-footed scurrying around as the dominoes started tumbling to rearrange the deck chairs on the sinking ship before the next victim stepped into the office.

My decision saved someone their job, but it put me on the unemployment line. I'll register with the unemployment office, receive a generous termination package for the next three months or until I find another full-time job.

Meanwhile, the posts from my friends on Facebook have been nothing but positive, if a little surprised. They know how much I love what I do, holding government agencies accountable, putting public officials through the ringer to keep them accountable.

To some, I'm an anti-establishment folk hero, sticking it to Big Media. To others, I'm a free-spirit, an iconoclast shedding my worsted-wool, hand-stitched corporate skin. There is truth to both views, but I see it more as a self-rescue mission to restore my own sanity, spirit and soul and to make a huge course correction in my life that will get me back to the passion I once had.

Peace.