Employment Center. An optimistic name for what this place really was: the unemployment office. Forty or so grim-faced men and women waiting in line or sitting at folding tables, filling out forms. And I was one of them. I could hardly believe it.
A few weeks earlier, I’d been assistant plant manager at a specialty paper mill, an industry I’d worked in for over three decades. Now I waited for some harried clerk to hand me a form and a few pamphlets about how to file for unemployment.
To say this was demoralizing and humiliating was an understatement. I’d always been able to earn a good living!
“Next!” the clerk finally called. She handed me a packet. I sat at one of the folding tables, slapped the packet down and opened it. “Application for Unemployment,” the first form read. I filled in the blanks, anxious to get it over with. Names of previous employers. Salary history. Special skills.
The questions went on and on. Then I flipped the paper over. Reason for your dismissal.
My pen scratched to a stop. Reason? What reason was there? I had multiple degrees—in agronomy, chemistry, paper science and engineering. I’d served as assistant plant manager for the past four years, overseeing the production process and keeping it free of defects, and I was good at it.
My boss lauded my attention to detail and just last year I’d brought home a bonus. At 63, I’d been looking forward to a comfortable retirement with my wife, Aline, soon.
Then the stock market plummeted, wiping out 40 percent of our savings. Orders at our mill ground to a halt. Some weeks the paper machines ran two days out of seven. The company cut everyone’s pay. After that, layoffs. I survived the first two rounds…but not the third.
I’d studied hard, worked hard and climbed my way up. Now, just like that, I’d been thrown aside. Lord, I’m not ready to be put out to pasture. Besides, Aline and I couldn’t afford it.
I completed the form and handed it to a clerk. “There’s a one-week waiting period before you get your first check,” she said. “Report back here next Wednesday for a group seminar on résumé writing and preparing for an interview.”
Like I needed that. I’d spent most of my career on the hiring side of the desk. What skills could I possibly need to learn? I was supposed to retire soon, not go back to square one!
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Back at our apartment, I found Aline stuffing books and canned goods into cardboard boxes. “The landlord said if we hurry, maybe we can avoid paying next month’s rent,” she said.
We had moved to be closer to my job, but had kept our old house and planned to return after I retired. We could no longer afford both places.
“Here,” I said, dropping my unemployment pamphlets onto a chair. “Let me help.” We’d both weathered some serious health problems. We were fine now, but at our age, all sorts of things could crop up.
We’d relied on the health insurance from my job. We didn’t qualify for Medicare yet. COBRA would last only a relatively few months. But then what?
Not being able to provide for my wife, that made me feel even more useless.
The next day I rented a U-haul and our younger son, Wade, and his girlfriend came and helped us load the heavy stuff.
The old house was in bad shape. The roof leaked. The kitchen wallpaper was peeling. Our first week back, I stepped out on our front porch and the railing fell off. Frustrated, I snatched up the broken railing and heaved it behind the garage.
Every day I searched employment websites on the computer. I scoured newspaper want ads. I swallowed my pride and called recruiters and my colleagues in the business. “I’ll do my best,” a friend said, “but it’s brutal out there.”
The recruiter asked me to update my résumé. I did—but left off how old I was. I’d graduated college at 31, so my graduation date didn’t give my age away. Most of all, I prayed.
One day my cell phone rang. The recruiter. “Neil, I’ve got an opening near you. They want you to come for an interview. You’re perfect for them.” Finally, my prayers had been answered.
The interview lasted all day. Five different people spoke to me.
The recruiter called that evening. He sounded less confident this time. “If you’re who they’re looking for, you should hear in a few days.”
Two weeks passed. Finally the recruiter called. They’d hired someone else. “I’m sorry, Neil. It’s your age,” Aline said. “You should have dyed your hair!”
I laughed. Not like I had all that much hair left. But inside, I felt worthless. God, aren’t you listening? I demanded.
A few positions came and went. Each time I lost out to somebody younger. And cheaper, I thought, though by now I was willing to work for anything.
I’d been out of work six months the day I opened the mailbox and found a school tax bill. I snapped. God, how are we supposed to pay this? You know my unemployment check won’t stretch that far. We had already spent our savings: food, gas, the few improvements on the house we’d absolutely needed.
I ran to the bedroom and looked around. What could I sell without Aline noticing? I pawed through my things. A few old books might be worth something to someone on eBay. An antique camera seemed in good enough condition to fetch a couple hundred…
A glint of bronze caught my eye. I dug the object out. A belt buckle a supplier had given me 30 years before, with a picture of a paper machine embossed on it. I’d worn it proudly nearly every day in my early years in the industry, until styles changed and I thought it looked a bit old-fashioned.
Like me, I thought. We’re both relics.
I fastened the buckle to a worn leather belt, looped it through my jeans and closed it. I looked at myself in the mirror. The receding hairline, the fringe of gray, the wrinkles around my eyes, the paunch. Heck, I could see why no one believed I could still crawl over and under a paper machine like any young engineer.
It didn’t matter that I could troubleshoot any problem from specks in the sheet to curling on the edges better than anyone, that I knew the latest equipment and the most exciting innovations. If people saw me as old-fashioned, why would they hire me?
I needed to prove to them I could learn new things, keep up with a changing industry. I gripped the belt buckle tight. I get it now, Lord, I thought. I can still be valuable to somebody. Help me show them that.
I got on the computer and did a Google search for people in the papermaking business. A lot of them were trying their hand at consulting—but very few had fully operational, up-to-date websites. Made sense. Papermaking is kind of old school. I could learn how to make a website, I thought. That would set me apart.
The next morning I went out and bought some books on HTML, the code that creates a webpage. I skimmed the pages. This might as well be Chinese, I thought.
Still, I stuck with it. I went on other websites and tried to figure out how they created features I liked. When something didn’t work, I went back and checked my books, or searched online for the solution. The day my site went live, I felt as proud as that day I’d received my bonus at the paper mill. Excited, I called Wade. “Go to aneilnewman.com and tell me what you think.”
I heard his fingers striking the keys. “Wow, you really built your own site, Dad!” he said. “That’s fantastic! You’ve put up some good information, but…”
“What is it?”
“Well, it looks kind of old-school. The plain white background…”
“Old-school!” I’d read all the books, done what they said. Wade offered some simple suggestions, and we hung up. I gritted my teeth and browsed a couple of the websites he mentioned. They had links to professional organizations, multiple pages of information, photos and testimonials. Hmm, I thought. I can do that.
I changed the template, revamped my color scheme and added four pages of info. Finally, I updated the plain white backdrop. I took a digital photo of my papermaker belt buckle, uploaded it and tiled it for the background image.
“It looks great, Dad,” said Wade when I showed it to him.
One week later I got a call from my former boss, now the general manager of another mill. “I saw your website,” he said. “Let’s get together and talk. I might have some consulting work for you.”
I’ve since connected with more clients, and landed enough consulting work to get off unemployment. When I turned 65, I got Medicare, and Aline found a plan of her own we could afford. We’ve budgeted and can pay our bills. Plus, I’m enjoying working again.
We’ll never recoup the money we lost, that’s for sure. But we’re not so scared anymore, either. We’re doing okay and things are looking brighter. I’ve learned to trust God and believe in myself again. Sometimes an old-school guy has to learn a new way of seeing himself before he can convince people he still has plenty to offer.
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