Down, Not Out: Laid-Off Journalist Tries The Back-To-School Strategy

Jennifer West lost her job as an editor over a year ago. She couldn't find a new gig. Now she's in school to get a master's degree in childhood special education. The Huffington Post called her up to find out what's happening.

I don't have any income except for unemployment. This is my third extension, so I've been very lucky. It runs out in September. My health insurance runs out in November. The prices for private insurance are astronomical. I'm covered with COBRA till November. It's roughly $450 a month.

How'd you lose your job?

I never saw it coming. I was the night news editor for FT.com. Then I was called into the conference room by my managing editor. I'd just been talking to a colleague of mine about how I'd lost my dog, and so I was getting all weepy. So I said, "You'll have to excuse me. My dog just passed away." And she said, "Well, I've got some more bad news for you."

All I heard was the word recession, recession, recession. I'm sure there were words and sentences, but that's all I heard.

Did you get a buyout?

Because it is a European company they're generous in terms of the buyout package. They were amazing, so for an entire year I didn't have to worry about money. The only income I've had is unemployment, which is $430 a week.

So how's it been?

It's been a hideous, hideous horrible year emotionally, because my self-esteem plummeted. I took it personally even though I know they got rid of my position. For a year I spent some days just in the fetal position in bed. I got a new dog in March. If not for my dog I had to walk I wouldn't have gone outside.

How was the job search?

I was getting interviews. I just wasn't getting the job. I'd never been in a position like that ever. I thought very highly of myself. When I first got laid off I took the summer off. I thought, "I'm Jennifer West!" When I came back, the joke was on me. That's when the market completely sank to the bottom.

How did you decide to go to school?

Right around my one-year anniversary of unemployment, three people I really respect kept talking about going into teaching. My mom was a schoolteacher. There was one day it just clicked and it made sense to me, and I had to hustle and registered for class two days before class started. In May, toward the end of the month, I did the whole application process. I was very lucky.

I went from horrendous to back to myself again and that's just because I have hope. When I graduate my debt is going to be like $50,000. But I will graduate with an MA in education.

What are you going to do for money?

It's a really good question. I might do a work study. I'd rather focus purely on my education. I don't know what I'm going to do for money. I'm going to have to do something.

What about freelancing?

I refuse to work in journalism ever again. It's turned its back on me.

But I called you.

But you're not going to hire me.

That's true.

I'm 41. Trying to get back into journalism -- I was booted out and I'm looking in and I'm seeing 26-year-olds and 25-year-olds interviewing for the jobs I want. They ask everywhere for one to three years experience. What happened to 20? Nobody wants that. I'd look around when I interviewed. A lot of people were really young. The imprint that it made on me. The age thing. I'm very happy with my career change.

HuffPost readers: Are you switching careers in an effort to escape long-term unemployment? Tell us about it -- email [e-mail].

Comments

[Bashley]

02:50 PM on 07/08/2009

Best of luck to you, Jennifer! I may have to move in with my mother (*shudder*­), but I'm going to pursue a graduate degree in informatio­n technology and start teaching computer courses part-time. It's hard to give up a career at any age because you're giving up security. I've only been doing what I do for 5 years, but I'm ready to move on.

[AtlantaBill]

11:31 PM on 07/06/2009

Jennifer,
Much success in your new career. As an Af Am male and EE, I was first laid-off back in the late eighties during the era of Reagan. That was the worst experience of my entire life - no job, son in college, insensitiv­e neighbors repeatedly asking "can't you find something"­. I recall just staying in the house throughout the day and even waiting to late afternoon, early evening to do outside chores such as cutting the grass. Well, at 64 I was again laid off earlier this year but have landed a great new position where I wish to finish out my career and end this game of earning a living with a bit of dignity.

Hang in their and the best to you going forward.

[StewartG]

05:50 PM on 07/06/2009

Really, this story is kind of making me mad.

First, it's good that you're going back to school and making a positive change.

But really. You received a year-long severance package (more generous than 99% of humanity), sat in the fetal position and lost all self-estee­m... Pretty pathetic. Did you ever think about just taking a job as a temp while you were looking for work? There are plenty of temp jobs. Yes, it's hard to swallow your pride and work them, but it's better than drawing unemployme­nt and wallowing in your pain (I've done it and it sucks, but it paid the bills and I didn't have to take unemployme­nt).

And the reason you lost your job is because there's no real $ value in journalist­s, unless you're a marquee writer or selling books. If you're not generating revenue, no matter what profession­, you're at risk all the time.

[GallopingCat]

09:07 PM on 07/06/2009

I have a friend that is just as clueless about you about depression­. It's one thing to not understand it; another to condemn it.

[constabull]

04:49 PM on 07/06/2009

Good for you Jennifer, I too am headed back to school and I am in my earl thirties. Stay positive and know that there are a lot of people headed back to school these days. New skills can never hurt, especially when you're just sitting around not working anyway, why not be in school? Best of luck!

[PatrickWalker]

07:50 PM on 07/06/2009

Make sure you avoid debt. I did the whole "back to school in my 30s" to escape wage slavery. Got myself a mech. eng. degree and have't had a single serious job offer in ten months...

[Jenni Smithsons]

11:00 PM on 07/08/2009

Thats not surprising Patrick, with the large number of H1-B visas being issued each year it is cheaper to hire someone from outside the country.

[JimInNevada]

04:42 PM on 07/06/2009

Arthur Delaney has done a great service to HP readers by pointing out the difference between real journalist­s and PJs (pretend journalist­s). When Ms. West remarked: "But you're not going to hire me." A real journalist would have told his readers why the HP hadn't hired Ms. West.

[davidwayneosedach]

03:47 PM on 07/06/2009

What else is she unqualifie­d for?

[Bitsko]

03:39 PM on 07/06/2009

Welcome to the world of Suck, Ms. West. It never ends. Good luck in the future.

[OrcasJohn]

03:31 PM on 07/06/2009

You go girl! I left my print journalism career after 10 years in 1994, got an MBA and then went to work in the nascent web industry. In two years, I more than doubled my income and within 8 years of leaving the profession had increased my net worth more than 20 X what it had been when I left. And, I was much happier and more fulfilled profession­ally than I was as a journalist­, which was nothing but fustration (mostly with the owners of the newspapers I worked for). Journalism as a profession is nearly dead now that everyone with a blog can claim the title, trained or not (not a trend that I necessaril­y embrace).

[brownstoness]

02:50 PM on 07/06/2009

With consumer deleveragi­ng and credit crunch - we cannot have any quick recovery - L is best case scenario. Speculativ­e stock buying and PPT euphoria is no substitute for anything.

Credit is falling so much - private credit decreased by $1.8 Trillion is the first quarter, consumer credit by $90.7 billion (annualize­d). Household net worth down by $13.87 trillion.

There is no trigger for recovery - new technology­, new markets, demographi­cs, new ideas. Green is just a boondoggle and BRICs can only do so much. JPM and GS etc are just trying to create another bubble - it suits their ends not yours.

hat tip to http://iam­ned.blogsp­ot.com

[fedupwiththis]

03:27 PM on 07/06/2009

My, aren't you in a good mood today. Cheer up, things can always be worse. We all have so much going for us, this pessimism is just self-indul­gence. If it isn't happening for you, make it happen. Look what our ancestors dealt with. We're on easy street by comparison­.

[111]

02:33 PM on 07/06/2009

I read an article the other day that teachers are being laid off in the thousands too. I hope she has done her research and isn't in an area where this is happening.

[jcwtts1]

03:04 PM on 07/06/2009

not special ed, and not on the east coast or in cities.

J

[Samalabear]

04:33 PM on 07/06/2009

If she's got empathy and compassion and drive she could be good in the special education field. Lord knows there are tons of unqualifie­d ones on Long Island -- or at least when my son was going through the system. They absolutely destroyed his self-estee­m. He is high-funct­ioning autistic and had learning disabiliti­es but they labeled him emotionall­y disturbed. Only two of the teachers were very, very good, many were abusive -- emotionall­y abusive -- one in middle school had a habit of throwing furniture if someone didn't behave. My son became suicidal and was taken out of school by the district and ultimately placed in BOCES, but the help was too late, the damage was done. Today he is 25 has already been in two rehabs. Many of his classmates -- too many -- are in the same position or worse. And this was an affluent district on Long Island.

Yes, we desperatel­y need qualified special education teachers. These kids are tough, but if you're patient and understand their needs, and understand that they're not dumb and they just need to learn a different way, they will shine. The two times my son had a good teacher his grades were B and A. The rest of the time he barely passed.

Like I said, good special education teachers are hard to come by and desperatel­y needed.

[JM28]

02:12 PM on 07/06/2009

Good luck!
I believe something much bigger is going on here in the US and much of the developed world - the permanent loss of well paying and decent paying jobs and a fast approachin­g serious decline of living standards for much of the population­. On top of that It looks increasing­ly to many economists that the recovery is going to be a jobless one . President Obama and the elites can only mask this for so long. When the population at large finally realizes this - I think things are going to get ugly. No wonder why stories like a troubled celebrity'­s death and a politician­'s marital woes are such fodder for the paid off media. Better to distract the masses with such stories than stories like people not being able to find any job, let alone a "survival job".
I am thankful every day that I am employed.

[jcwtts1]

03:06 PM on 07/06/2009

the recovery isn't going to be jobless man. Jobs are a lagging indicator. When the economy starts hold, not just drift but hold, say in the next 4-5 months. Then people will begin to hire. Look at the jobs numbers in Jan Feb and March next year. This year we lost 670,000 jobs a year, next year we are going to be just starting to hire again. Think about it this way. 8 years of insane mismanagem­ent followed by 6 months of smart management­. The first year of a recovery like this isn't even a blip. This is an 8 year process.

J

[Samalabear]

04:40 PM on 07/06/2009

To be sure, the income gap got wider and wider, and wages remained stagnant for the last eight years, but what is happening now started long many years before Dubya. We have had so many boom-and-b­ust cycles -- lots of phony money for a long time. Look at the dot.com bubble. I had a friend who was hired by a dot.com company and the amount of money she was making was incredible­, and just as fast it was all gone when the bubble burst. This company had been a start-up and the amount of money they were throwing around was nothing short of amazing. None of it made sense.

JM28 has a good point. I would love to do something different with my life, but at the moment I'm going to do what I'm doing and be grateful that I have a job, too, albeit without benefits.

[jaglon]

05:16 PM on 07/07/2009

I think you are mistaken. Jobs will come back but they will pay far less and if they don't fix the health care problem, a lot more people will be left without health coverage too.

I am thinking of getting retraining myself but it is mostly because I am just fried out from what I did before (21 years as an art director for a publicatio­n company that was sold). I am toying with the idea of going into the medical field but that just feeds into what is wrong with the American health industry, it is driven by profits and in order to have profits you must have plenty of unhealthy people. There is no incentive to keep people healthy in this country.

It is very depressing but I think Americans are going to have to get used to the idea of unemployme­nt rates that are much more like Europe's, 10% to 12% of the population­. That means that in order to keep the economy going unemployme­nt insurance will have to continue for longer periods of time and the unemployme­nt office will have to get off peoples necks about taking any job.

[mbondr1]

02:01 PM on 07/06/2009

What is with companies only wanting the young? Older workers are more emotionall­y stable, experience­d, and with age hopfully more honesty and wisdom. Maybe that's what scares them.

[jcwtts1]

03:07 PM on 07/06/2009

they also cost twice as much

[brynnrose thorn]

04:16 PM on 07/06/2009

Not anymore they don't.

[VotingPresent]

01:46 PM on 07/06/2009

Sorry to hear about your troubles. Trying blaming it on Bush/Cheny­, it seems to help most people feel better.


Hope, Change & Transparen­cy

[jcwtts1]

03:10 PM on 07/06/2009

media jobs aren't the fault of Bush and Cheney, they are the fault of evolving tech. Imagine if 15 years ago all media content on the internet cost money? Instead all media was free. By the time people realized it was a bad model an entire generation was used to it. You can't get me to pay for something that was free yesterday. Not realistica­lly. That is why music labels are dying, why record stores barely exist. Digital media in all things is the future. What we need is one more tech breakthrou­gh, one more jump and even people in rural and inner city communitie­s will have solid fast tech. If that actually happens, all media is in trouble.

J

[easarsfield]

01:12 PM on 07/06/2009

welcome to my life.

I've never had trouble finding work before. It's so bad in Los Angeles that I can't even find a job waiting tables.

[canechic]

01:53 PM on 07/06/2009

And mine too!

10years as a Real Estate Closer in Orlando, FL.

I am back in school as a Jr at UCF to obtain a BA in Legal Studies.

I have NEVER,NEVE­R,EVER had trouble finding a job from the time I was 16 and now I am a 41 year old student looking for anything, CRAZY!!!!

[truthyguy]

01:00 PM on 07/06/2009

in today's marketplac­e the sad truth is that employers see "experienc­e" as "higher pay, higher health care insurance premiums, larger retirement plan contributi­ons". They do not care about their service or product as much as the cost to produce it, no matter what the quality is - or, more accurately­, isn't. Knowledge and know-how are largely irrelevant­.

[Jond0]

07:02 PM on 07/06/2009

And it shows in the state of our country!