More layoffs at the nation's newspaper

USA Today, my former employer, laid off about 25 newsroom employees today. In the last two years, the newsroom has lost about 100 jobs, including mine, as the newspaper industry continues to struggle through the bad economy and massive debt acquired by some of the larger media companies. Apparently, however, this round of cuts caught many by surprise at the McLean, Va., newspaper. I certainly feel their pain on this, the one-year anniversary of my layoff. It won't be easy to find comparable work. Click here to read more about the difficulties laid-off journalists are facing in this article about former Los Angeles Times employees

Great balls of fire!

I appreciate the bad boys of rock 'n' roll as much as anyone. But little did I know that a throw-away comment about Jerry Lee Lewis in a post earlier this week would drive my November blog traffic to comparable levels with September and October. Seems my implying that old Jerry should hang 'em up, or at least stop throwing around his piano stool on HBO/Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame concerts, infuriated some loyal fans here and abroad. Even produced a few irate comments. I have written about unemployment, animal rights, politics, child abuse and war, yet barely drew a comment a week. But mess with Jerry Lee and presto. Still, there is much work to be done with this blog. With the late-November Jerry Lee Lewis-surge, here are the numbers of blog visitors in the first three months.

Sep. 536
Oct. 692
Nov. 528

Brees is on a mission

How did the San Diego Chargers let quarterback Drew Brees go to the New Orleans Saints? It's still early in the fourth quarter and Brees has already put up 31 points on the New England Patriots tonight. Regardless of the outcome of this game, Brees is playing quarterback this year like Babe Ruth hit home runs for the Yankees after being traded from the Boston Red Sox decades ago. Always nice to see players prove their previous employers wrong.

Closing thoughts on R&R show

Based on last night's four-hour Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame concert on HBO, here are a few closing thoughts:

It's not as easy, even for rock legends, to sing other people's songs. Billy Joel came up short on Bruce Springsteen tunes. Someone needed to take the microphone from Stevie Wonder when singing Roxanne with Sting. However, Springsteen did fairly well singing Fortunate Son with John Fogerty. And Fergie did a nice job on the bridge during Gimme Shelter with Mick Jagger and U2.

I switched over to the Ravens-Steelers football game during the Paul Simon segment.

Why is Aretha Franklin considered a rock performer?

Jerry Lee Lewis is done.

BB King is close to done.

Ozzie was done years ago.

I don't make these comments to be mean. But we all hit a certain age where even nostalgia isn't a good reason to take to the stage. For some, that's 50. For others, maybe it's 80. David Crosby can still sing and Stephen Stills can still play guitar. That's cool. But a few performers were on the verge of embarrassing themselves like Willie Mays in a Mets uniform. Fortunately, musicians have a longer shelf life than athletes.

I think one key to longevity is in altering one's game as Johnny Cash did in his final years. I mean I don't need to see Jerry Lee Lewis throwing his piano stool anymore or BB singing about the thrill being gone. Heck, the thrill was gone about two or three decades ago, I am guessing. Cash went to the dark side in the twilight of his career, singing edgier songs that tweaked his image and played to his aging vocal cords, and it worked. He won Grammys for his efforts and gained the respect of a new generation of rock musicians while maintaining his long-time, country-based fans.

Overall, though, the concert was good. Nice to hear real music in prime time. Too bad it wasn't on one of the major broadcast networks where all we seem to get are hip-hop award shows.

U2 rises to the occasion

Watching HBO's broadcast of the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame anniversary concert as I write this. Three hours into the show, with another 60 minutes to go, U2 has shown why they have the charisma and musicianship to hold their own against any band in any era. Mick Jagger, Bruce Springsteen and others joined U2 on stage for a couple of songs and performed flawlessly and with great energy, which is hard to do in these types of shows where super bands merge. While performers earlier in the evening forgot lyrics, were vocally out of key and in one or two cases simply looked and sounded pathetic, U2 (with and without Jagger and Springsteen) held their set together.

The surprise of the concert was hearing how well David Crosby can still sing. For a guy in his 60s who has been on the ropes in more ways than one, the CSN member really belted it out.

Buddy Guy has turned in one of the best guitar performances thus far. Wish my Stratocaster sounded like that.

Billy Gibbons is now performing Foxy Lady by Jimi Hendrix with a woman on bass who looks about 15 years old. Very weird.

I know this is sacrilege to some, but I am tired of Jeff Beck.

More later if the finale warrants it.

An anniversary worth forgetting

This week marks the one-year anniversary of my being laid off from USA Today. I was planning to write about it at length but decided against it. I think I have said enough on this blog about my own situation and the predicament of other unemployed folks (see the archive). In doing so, it appears I have also lost many of my readers, which in a way was predictable based on what I have experienced in my personal relationships with folks during the last 12 months.

But a declining audience isn't the main reason for my not wanting to mark this week with an extended anniversary post.

While my layoff is in many ways similar to the millions of others, particularly in the field of journalism, it is also fairly unique and somewhat personal. The circumstances surrounding my layoff are particularly tough (some might say surreal) and almost impossible to explain to people in a way that they can fully grasp. It's been a rather lonely experience.

In order to avoid further frustrations and disappointments in not being able to effectively convey my personal feelings of loss, new challenges ahead and significant limitations in a worsening recession, I am going to curtail postings about my situation in particular and the economy in general. This blog will be considerably lighter (in words, not necessarily subject matter) from now on.

I hope I will be employed again one day and find some closure to what happened one year ago when I experienced unemployment for the first time in three decades. I feel I have a lot to offer to a stable company, big or small, and am open to new career possibilities at a mere 52 years old. But I realize I can't influence the future by airing my thoughts about joblessness or the recession here. Many things in life have their own momentum and timetable. The length of my job search is apparently one of them.

This blog's traffic tends to take a severe plunge during the weekends and holidays, so I am heading into the cave for a few days. Time to reassess the blog and life in general. No plans to watch the news or worry about the economy. Simply going to hang upside down so that the world appears upright.

Have a nice Thanksgiving.

Banks bail out on loan modification

Asking for help doesn't always work, particularly when the government and large financial corporations are involved.

Upon learning of our difficulties with keeping our home since my layoff last year, some friends have suggested looking into "loan modification," which allegedly was made easier by the government bailout money and Obama administration mandates. However, as it turns out, loan modification is more of a myth than a solution for the overwhelming number of folks who are trying to save their houses.

It appears the money that the government spent to help the economy and us "little guys" is nowhere to be found, as others have told of similar stories of how they've been shortchanged or ignored entirely. Meanwhile, the banks did pretty well in collecting all that bailout cash. The government doesn't seem to be following up to see if that money is actually going back into the general economy. No one from the Obama administration contacted us to see how the loan modification process went. Where is the accountability?

In our case, we were denied loan modification by Wells Fargo because we were current on our mortgage payments. I told the Wells Fargo people that we eventually weren't going to be current unless they modified our loan (and dropped our PMI) or I found a job that paid comparably to my former position at USA Today. Modification would have involved either lowering our interest rate by at least one point or extending the length of our loan. We were not asking for any handouts, just a bit of relief so that we wouldn't have to wipe out our savings while paying our monthly mortgage. Well Fargo did nothing and opened up the door to future problems for us, which is why we are on the verge of selling.

Unfortunately, selling doesn't solve all our problems. There is nowhere to go in Northern Virginia that's affordable without a decent job or two -- certainly not in Loudoun County.

Like many regular folks, including small business owners, I am disappointed that the bailout money has not gone to helping the people who did nothing irresponsible to end up in this mess. We have a reasonable fixed-rate mortgage that was more than affordable when I was working. In fact, real estate and mortgage people tried to convince us to buy a more expensive house when we were home shopping eight years ago. We resisted. We wanted a bit of a cushion in case things went bad. We didn't expect the economy and my profession to crash for this length of time. Now we need that little extra, meaning we need a current interest rate without having to refinance.

The money allocated to big business does not appear to be trickling down, as unemployment is about 17.5 percent according to the U6 number (includes those who have given up on trying to find work) and more people are losing their homes. The latest wave of foreclosures includes people who were not victims of mortgage scams and who are generally responsible people who have lost their jobs due to companies downsizing.

More and more bloggers, alternative commentators and some radio personalities are talking about this stuff but the politicians don't seem to be listening. If you rely only on the NBC Nightly News or front pages of your newspaper, you aren't getting a clear picture of how bad the economy is and how little the government is doing to fix things.

Maybe we need a million-man-style march on D.C. to get the middle-class message across to those in power. Maybe elections once a year aren't enough. And maybe the banks need a not-so-gentle reminder of who exactly bailed them out in their time of need.

Thankfulness in gloomy times

I was preparing for the Thanksgiving holiday last year, going about my business while working at USA Today, and looking forward to a couple days off. It was announced a week earlier that there were going to be layoffs if not enough people volunteered for buyouts. We were under a similar threat the year before, but mostly older employees volunteered to leave in 2007 so no one had to be forced out. The buyouts in 2007 were more generous and there was no serious recession at that point. Some of the people who took the buyouts said they saw the writing on the wall and wanted to leave while they could. But 2008 had a different feel. Folks saw the economic firestorm that was coming in a business that was failing. So people were more cautious about volunteering to leave.

As I went into the holiday week last year, I was reasonably confident that I would not be laid off. My reasons seemed logical. First, I was there for 13 years and had performed well. Never received a reprimand, was a reliable and hard-working employee, etc. Always got my annual raises and so forth. I knew a lot of folks depended on me and that made me feel good.

Being that it was Thanksgiving, I was certainly feeling thankful I was in a relatively stable situation. Even with the buyouts and then layoffs, USA Today was not doing as badly as other newspapers. Gannett, the mega-company that owns USA Today, seemed well-positioned to navigate out of storm with its flagship newspaper in tact.

I worked in the graphics department but considered myself a complete journalist by trade, not just a visuals editor. Because other supervisors with a journalism backgrounds had left our department in recent years, I was the only manager remaining with diverse editing experience. In a department of about 60 folks, mainly photographers and artists, I figured my editing know-how, managerial seasoning and 16 years of journalistic background at other newspapers prior to USA Today made me a valued resource and would protect me from being laid off. Plus, I worked nights and was heavily involved with production of graphics on deadline. No one else wanted to work that shift, so in my mind I went into Thanksgiving thinking things would be fine.

About a week after Thanksgiving, I was laid off by the long-time managing editor of my department. It was disorienting to say the least. Only two people in my department lost their jobs. How and why I became one of them is still a mystery to me and many other folks. It seemed to defy all logic. The managing editor said little to me in the brief separation meeting. I try not to think about the possible politics or personal reasons that led to the decision, but it's not always easy to block out, especially as the job market worsens and various losses in my life pile up.

On a personal level, I was stunned by the lack of loyalty and empathy I felt as I was given the boot. My manager was someone I had broken bread with many times, had personal and professional conversations with. I was 51. He was about 10 years older than me. He had to know what being over 50 in a recession and coming from a dying business would mean for me. I thought, "why me and why not someone 25 years younger who had no particular attachment to USA Today or newspapering in general?" Why not someone who would have time to rebound when the job market improved? These were my prime earning years -- a gateway into retirement. Now I've shifted from thoughts of retirement to day-to-day survival mode. It's taken a toll on my spirit at times as I am sure millions of other laid off workers can relate to.

Layoffs can ruin lives as this unidentified protester's sign conveys, and I wonder if those making the decisions truly understand that. I don't believe layoffs are always just about business. I think it gets personal and petty at times. Far more people than me have been adversely impacted by my being laid off and by my extended period of unemployment. Trying to get back into a business which is struggling has been difficult. Trying to transition into another related field has been even more of a challenge as the unemployment rate worsens.

President Obama said yesterday that he "will not rest" until employers start hiring again. I sure hope that's true because as Thanksgiving approaches, it's getting real difficult for unemployed folks to feel thankful for much of anything other than perhaps their health and a few loved ones in their lives. Like for many people, unemployment is brand new to me. I worked 29 years without a break and turned down other jobs while at USA Today because I thought the national newspaper was a stable, somewhat-loyal employer. What I didn't see coming was that layoffs are not always driven by rationality or a sense of fairness. When GM stops making a certain truck model, a plant can close. It's not the fault of the workers, but at least they can understand the logic behind losing their jobs. No trucks, no plant, no jobs. I often wish I had that sort clarity.There is still a newspaper being produced 14 miles down the road from where I live. Still a lot of good people doing good work for a pretty vast audience. But it's getting hard living here, knowing I am no longer a part of that, and not quite grasping how I got to this point.

The quest this week is to try to find something to remain thankful for even in times where the future looks bleak. The challenge every day is to cling to some thread of hope that I can return to being a vibrant contributor to an employer that shares my values, ethics and workplace standards.

For millions of people like me, particularly those in their 50s and 60s who know that getting back into the workplace is extra difficult despite our experience and solid work ethics, these are some difficult weeks coming up. Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's trigger many emotions. People take inventory at this time of year. Kind of assess where they are at in life. The holidays also coincide with when I was laid off, so there is that to contend with.

While 2009 was a time to try to make things work here by finding suitable employment in the D.C. area, 2010 might involve having to pack our bags. We are willing to go where the opportunities lie, but as of right now, I and many others are not sure where that is. Still, I am thankful things aren't worse and hope that by next Thanksgiving these struggles will be behind me and others who have been unemployed for the last year or longer.

A new threat from China

Chinese drywall. That's the latest imported product causing health problems in America. I have been following this story for a while because I live in Virginia and am exploring moving to Florida -- two of the three states infested with this smelly home-building product. China has killed our dogs and cats with toxic substances in pet food. They poisoned our kids with lead paint in toys. Now they've ruined thousands of our homes with defective drywall. Click here to read more about it.