Ed. note: Welcome to the latest installment of “Janet Raiffa’s Recessionals,” a column by a laid-off recruiting manager in New York. Prior columns are collected [here]. You can reach Janet Raiffa via LinkedIn, leaving a comment here, or emailing 405club@gmail.com.

Dear God, please let me get some type of job this week.  I don’t even mean a job with health benefits, business cards, a subsidized cafeteria and colleagues whose clothing choices I can ridicule.  All I need is a new odd job for a few hours that is just degrading enough to provide good fodder for my column, and keep me from applying to any more of the old jobs of people who used to report me. I’ve only been able to land one new odd job recently – four hours of cater-waitering where I served college age interns who are apparently more employable than I am – and I had to stand next to a guy serving lasagna while I was on Atkins.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the smell of it very much, and I appreciated that I was allowed to wear all black as opposed to the unflattering-to the-apple-shaped white cotton shirt look.  It just wasn’t very much work.  I’ve done everything that I can, God, to generate some extra cash and human interaction. I’ve volunteered for every focus group in New York at findfocusgroups.com, including one specifically for anesthesiologists. You’d think that actual anesthesiologists would have something better to do than participate in focus groups. I’ve submitted for every “extra” gig advertised by Central Casting for “Law and Order” and the movie version of “Eat, Pray, Love” including one that required the applicant to be of a different race and gender than my own, and several that would require me to spend more than I would make in a day to purchase a baby carriage, scuba diving equipment, or a full police uniform.

September is approaching, the thick fashion magazines full of things I can no longer afford to buy are arriving (although they are all slightly less thick this year due to a decline in ad pages), and I’m neither going back to school nor back to work.  Late August is an ideal time to take a vacation, but I can’t really justify taking one when I haven’t been working for five months.   I’m probably out of the process for the law firm since I never heard anything after the second round weeks ago, the recruiter for the bank moved to Florida after my first round and has said nothing but that I’m still under consideration, and I’m still waiting to hear about an in-person interview at the university after two phone screens.  I can’t do the mystery shopping for the bank anymore because bankers now keep calling me at home hoping to get me to invest with them, and I can’t disclose that I was only soliciting their advice for the promise of $15 up to 5 times a month.   Although it’s made a wonderful impact on my figure and rapidly deteriorating sense of self esteem, I’m also growing weary of going to the gym every day and pretending that I’m a Victoria’s Secret model diligently preparing for a lingerie runway show.

God, I got turned down for inclusion in the “New York Times” article on dramatic decisions people were making because of unemployment because my desperation wasn’t even desperate enough.  Should I email them and say I’m thinking about selling a kidney or moving into a neighbor’s doghouse? The only call I’ve gotten from a headhunter in weeks was about an interview with the scary hedge fund that tape records its interviews and demands that candidates pick a position on a topic and argue with them.  The most excitement I’ve had recently was receiving an unexpected big Fedex envelope.  When you are unemployed the delivery of mail can be the highlight of your day, and the appearance of anything large or unexpected can be as thrilling as the arrival a of thick Admissions envelope during senior year of high school.  It turned out to be from the university I’ve been working for part-time and remotely, and informed me that I am now eligible to participate in their retirement plan.  I haven’t seen any type of payment from them yet and have no idea of when one is forthcoming, but they are already concerned with my retirement.  Dear God, I’m in a late summer, late recession rut.

Alright, I’ll admit to not being particularly religious.  Most of my few displays of faith have been for the benefit of family or ex-boyfriends, and even the promise of an elaborate themed party with a troupe of paid dancers couldn’t persuade me to do the Hebrew study necessary for a bat mitzvah.  Desperation is, however, beginning to set in.  I’m approaching the six month mark, the barometer that’s used in the press these days to measure particularly long-term unemployment.  It took me six months to find my last job, but that was when I was gainfully employed already and I had many, many more interviews and options to choose from.  My tenure in the last job, of course, was barely longer than the exhaustive process I went through to get the position, my arrival as the new Director of Legal Recruiting being somewhat badly timed to coincide with the cessation of all demand for attorney recruiting.  I’m beginning to think that I’m going to have to be more entrepreneurial, although the last entrepreneurial business plan I had was my burning pre-teen desire to open a restaurant in my bedroom.

Luckily for me, I’m finding more friends who are becoming entrepreneurial, and I’m working to hitch myself to their wagons.  One such opportunity came up recently, and although I’m not certain how attractive the service will be in this economy, the startup costs seem relatively minimal and the tasks fairly simple.  My former banking colleague, Jen, is starting up a lifestyle management service to help busy professionals and small businesses with tasks ranging from event planning to correspondence to cleaning out their closets.  She’s lucky enough to be employed now by an executive headhunter, but the work is part-time, and her husband’s finance career (like almost everyone else’s in the industry) is not as lucrative as it once was. “Take a look at the list of services we can provide and tell me if you can think of anything to add,” she asks at lunch.  “Is there anything that you can do that should be on the list?” She’s given me a preliminary description of what tasks will require liability insurance and trigger certain tax implications, but I ramble off a whole list of anything I can and am willing to do to generate business.  There isn’t much that I won’t do these days.  “I can birdsit and babysit, walk dogs, feed cats, and read to the elderly.  I can plan and host corporate events, create and review resumes, sell your gold for cash, distribute flyers, go to people’s houses and help them with dinner parties, and give tourists walking tours of Brooklyn.  Do you think there’s a market for non-sexual escort services, or is that too gray an area?”  She dismisses many of my suggestions, but jots a few down enthusiastically.  “There is one thing I won’t do,” I say, piquing her interest since I’ve basically offered everything short of outright prostitution.  “I won’t clean out anyone’s closet.  I’ve been out of work for nearly six months and I haven’t yet cleaned out my own.”

Jen makes a point of telling me that the service will help support charities and be environmentally friendly; it will help individuals and companies donate unwanted goods to nonprofits, suggest online ways to cut down on paper usage, and aim to accomplish all tasks through mass transit.  That gives me an idea.  “Why don’t you make a special effort to contract with laid off people who have skills in certain fields?  That could get the company some good press and make people want to sign on,” I suggest.  She likes the idea, and tells me about several layoffs that have impacted members of her extended family.  I think about the talents of my laid off comrades, and throw out some possibilities.  “I know someone who can give blogging lessons and help businesses with online media communications.  He could probably even tweet for people who are too busy to do it for themselves.  I also know a really good comfort food caterer.  And I can cater-waiter for her!”

The next day I hook Jen up with the folks I’ve mentioned via email.  She follows up quickly expressing interest in meeting them, and pitches a first project to help get the company off the ground.  She tells them that she’s looking for a writer or an English major type who can condense and polish the copy for her web pages.  A response comes back soon after from the blogging guru.  “Janet’s a great writer.  Have you read her Recessionals series?” There’s no way that I can say no after that, and I send Jen a note telling her that I’d be happy to take on the assignment.  “What will you charge me?” she asks after expressing delight that I’ll be helping with the writing.  I tell her that the cost is one chicken Caesar salad, and that she’s ended up paying in advance based on lunch the previous day.  She’ll hear none of that, and demands an actual rate above and beyond a low carbohydrate lunch.  Unemployment hasn’t done much for me in terms of knowing what my services are worth.  Am I worth the $100+ an hour I was earning in my professional career, or what I’m willing to accept now for the types of odd jobs that feel more like what I used to do during college?  I’ve always been made salary offers based on the job I was in while interviewing, and the idea of coming up with a figure for something I’ve never been paid for before is a bit bewildering.  We finally settle on a rate that is far from what I got as a recruiting manager, but enough that I can cover the cost of a chicken Caesar salad and a diet coke at a relatively high end restaurant with an hour’s pay.  I’m looking forward to beginning my first ever paid copywriting gig!

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(Ed. note) Janet and The 405 Club love to read your comments and feedback.  If you all can relate to Janet’s “Recessionals” please share your story via the comments link below. Thank you.