Commentary: The Upside of the Downturn

By Michael Empric

Buffalo, NY – I live next to a daycare. A daycare full of loud, screaming children. A daycare with a large outdoor play area and staff with whistles. Even worse, I didn't realize this until the screaming children woke me up at 8 a.m. on the Monday morning I officially began my unemployment.

For the past nine years, my career defined me. A month after graduating from college, I landed a full-time job, and since than I've worked. Now, for the first time, I'm unemployed.

While many seem squarely focused on the obvious negatives of the economy, I prefer to focus more on the positive: the upside to the downturn.

During coffee dates and lunches with friends, I find myself creating new reasons to leave the house, which I pursue with gusto no matter how mundane: "I really should stock up on toothpaste while it's on sale!" "Imagine the adventure it will be paying my utility bills in person!" "Going to the sales presentation at that new health club sounds fascinating!"

Likewise, routine tasks are reframed as small life victories. Clearing through a backlog of magazines and podcasts becomes an education in current events. Taking the dogs for an afternoon walk in the park is an investment in quality time that I wouldn't have had otherwise. Training for a marathon? That's for suckers I'll stick to prepping my Christmas card list.

On the days I'm not inventing activities to occupy my time, my life often resembles an extended Martha Stewart segment, with the projects becoming more complex as the days progress. Organizing the pantry leads to mopping the kitchen floor, which begets a day of strawberry picking, canning and ice cream making. One quickly learns of a meditative quality to rhythmically beating out a pound of butter for croissants while contemplating future career opportunities.

When I offered to help my parents organize a garage sale, my father misinterpreted this as an offer of handyman services around the house. Windows that need painting? Landscaping and weeding flower beds? I'm on man, with time to spare. Thanks to this, I've also learned that like my father, I have a paralyzing fear of ladders, which might explain why I was pressed into window painting in the first place.

Extended free time has offered me the opportunity to become an expert in multiple subjects, including daytime TV programming. Drew Carey is good at hosting the Price is Right, but the View is almost unbearable. Rachel Ray's audience is seated on a giant turntable, so they don't have to twist their necks as she moves around her studio. Dr. Phil's wife is inexplicably seated in the audience for almost every show, but doesn't seem to do anything. I believe she may also be unemployed, which offers some level of solace for millions of Americans like myself.

Losing the social network of a workplace is particularly challenging. Meeting friends becomes a scheduled activity that I eagerly anticipate. I've discovered that watercooler talk is surprisingly ineffective when carried out via Facebook; Susan Boyle just doesn't translate well to texting.

Without the daily grind of a 9-5 desk job, it's strange to realize how comforting that world became. Employment gives you clearly defined rules for your time: when to wake up, be somewhere, eat, drink and leave. Days take on an entirely new meaning when your contribution to society is having a chat with an elderly woman as you both hunt for the Pyrex casserole with a mismatched lid at the local thrift store.

Essentially, I'm viewing being laid off as the most American of opportunities. It gives everyone a great chance to take stock of life and pursue your dreams.

Every weekday at 8 a.m., when the screaming children at the daycare next door wake me up, I just have to think that the staff members there truly enjoy what they do. Unemployment is just life's way of offering me the same opportunity to experience the world, discover what I love, and make it my own. Which I'll continue to do, every day; sleeping in, with my bedroom window tightly closed.

Listener-Commentator Michael Empric is an unemployed marketing and public relations professional.

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