Hello my name is Dennis and welcome to the wonderful world of unemployment

Oh, why hello there. You startled me as I sit here in my PJs at 10:30am, drinking some tea and listening to this Girl Talk album for the 8000xth time. By the way, I'm Dennis, and I'll be your Special Guest Blogger(tm) for today!

So, me and Mel are pals from our undergrad days at Syracuse. Freshman year I started a website (no blogs back then, son!) called teendrama (shameless plug) that I've been running for about 10 years (jeezlouise!) and I'm sure if you dig around enough you'll be able to find some great stories about Mel. Anyway, somehow that qualifies me to be a LilBee Special Guest Blogger(tm)... and after that slamming intro (thanks Mel!) I hope I live up to the hype.

So quick background on me: I've been in NYC for about 10 years, live over in the East Village, used to work in the Web 1.0 dot-com space (Jupiter! Vindigo!), eventually got laid off, spent my severance taking the summer off and surfing, spent the winter working as a snowboard instructor ($6/hr!), went back to grad school in the fall, started a company (yes, which I sold to Google), quit, and have been kind of, er, "floating" ever since.

A few weeks ago, after my Dad was giving me shit about not having a job, I did some calculations and realized that I've been unemployed (or "in between jobs" as we in the industry like to say) for 50% of my post-college, adult life. And with the Current State of Everything, I'm imagining that a lot of you guys may be either (a) worried that your company may be doing layoffs, (b) already heard that your company is doing layoffs and now you're pooping your pants over whether you'll make the cut or (c) you're already laid off and reading this at home in your PJs like me. (ps: Mission Impossible 3 is on HBO right now!)

First of all, if you've lost your job, it's really not the end of the world. Chance are you hated your job anyway and secretly wanted to switch gigs or ever careers anyway. And if you play your cards right, in a few months you'll look back and think "Holy crap that was the best thing that's ever happened to me." (that was my experience at least). Really, the hardest thing to get over is the blow to the ego (especially if it's your first time getting laid off... "What? MTV dumped MEEEEEEEE??"). I'd love to sit here and give you all sorts of career advice - how to financially survive a recession or sharpen up your resume - but I don't think that's really my thing, but what I can offer you are some tips on how to structure your new work-free days! (hint: 40s in Washington Square Park for everyone!!!!)

So, the first time I got laid off (fancy-pants dot-com job, 2001), I was kind of devastated (ego, remember?) and then eventually settled into unemployed life as all my bestest friends started losing their jobs too. Without some structure, all hell can break loose (think: your first week of college) so I made some rules so I wouldn't just waste my days away (bonus: free haikus!). And when I left my last job in February of this year, I dusted these rules off again and been trying to stick to them as much as I can. So if you find yourself unemployed, do yourself a favor and put these on a sticky note somewhere:

Dennis' Rules for Unemployment
1. Leave your apt before noon every day.
2. Exercise every day (works well with #1)
3. No drinking before 5pm.
4. No watching TV / reading blogs before 5pm (except during lunch).
5. No taking taxis.
6. No eating meals when drunk.

I could walk you through them, but they're pretty self explanatory. I'm gonna break #1 today because I'm writing this (damn you, Mel!) though I'm still gonna try to hit #2 after lunch (run along the East River!). Rule #3 is pretty easy-peasy in the winter, it's the summer time / early-happy-hour / drinking-in-the-park season you gotta watch out for (and for winter time, I may even modifty this to be "no drinking whiskey while unemployed - ever"). And #4, man, you know how easy it is to waste a Sunday watching Shawshank and Back to the Future marathons on TBS? Well, you can't let your Tuesdays and Wednesdays turn into that (full disclosure: I'm rocking CNN in the background but that doesn't really count). And rules #5 and #6 will save you some CA$$$H if you're living off the 405 Club (aka the $405/wk you can get from NYC Unemployment... Hint: you can call in to claim unemployment from anywhere in the world and they'll never know. I suggest Spain.)

But the more important lesson here is to DO SOMETHING with your newfound free time... I'm assuming you'll probably be shopping around for a new gig, but is that really a 9-5 job in itself? Pick up an issue of Time Out NY or browse the front pages of the NY'er and find some galleries in Chelsea / Soho to explore or go aimlessly walk around MOMA on an empty Tuesday. Get on the train and go wander around some unexplored parts of the city (better: get a bike!) or make it a point to visit every indie coffee shop in your neighborhood and test out their wifi. Take a painting / language / cooking class or borrow a guitar or train for the marathon or start building model ships or something, but (a) get out of the house and (b) take advantage of your newfound freedom! Man, it sounds so cheesy, but just find someway to challenge yourself so your brain doesn't get all mushy. Make a to-do list every week (every day!) or the 10 Things You Want to Do and hit them all. Leave the house so you're not just lounging by yourself all day. Unemployment = one way ticket to getting to do everything you never had time to do before, so take advantage of it (even if it's just for a few weeks!)

And, if you ever had that itch to start a blog, website, magazine, consulting business, startup whatever this is your chance. I was at this holiday party the other night and - I swear to God - like 30% of the people there had lost their job that week (a lot of them were media peeps... btw, back during the 2001 crash, I had more friends *without* jobs than *with* jobs). Anyway, so there's now this huge pool of smart, talented people who are just itching to do something... and know what? They'd probably be psyched to help design your new blog or be a guest writer (ha!) or do some logo design for your company or help build the tech back-end of your new startup whatever. There's no better time for bootstrappin' then when all the smart kids have all this free time on their hands. So take advantage of that too.

So, me, what have I been up to? Well, I taught a class at NYU this semester, been advising some startups, been working on another startup of my own (sssh!), started painting again (just a lil'), trained for Family Feud (March 4, 2009 suckas!), skiied 30 days last season (rad!), surfed 20 days this summer (word!), trying to ski 30 days this winter (woo!), traveled some (2 trips, 7 countries), read more books than I would have otherwise, hit more galleries than I would have otherwise, probably drank more beers than I would have otherwise too. I also got my Christmas shopping done a lot earlier. :)

Hmm... So, I think I wrote more than I was supposed to (Mel?). Anyway, thanks for having me over (I feel like that guest that ate all the shrimp), maybe I'll see you guys soon? And would love to hear about any or all of your unemployment adventures. You can ping me at dens [at] teendrama [dot] com (or just get your comment on below). Happy holidays!