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.

Labor Day weekend can be a depressing stretch for those of us who no longer labor.  It’s the last long summer weekend to travel and enjoy traditional summer activities you’ve missed out on, but every day is a weekend day for me now, and I can’t justify spending the money to travel.  I was more optimistic and less tight-fisted on the 4^th of July when I forked over the dough to go to an adult summer camp in Connecticut, but this holiday has just made me think about the change of seasons and the fact that nothing much is changing for me. Well, at least nothing is changing positively. This will be the first Fall in 12 years that I haven’t had a recruitment season to run or oversee, and I’ll miss the bright-eyed students , inspirational speeches about how this truly is the best time to start your career, and platters of free hors d’oeuvres. I used to be both excited and vaguely depressed about the arrival of the gargantuan September issue of “Vogue,” and regret that I wasn’t thin enough to fit into the wonderful new styles hitting stores nor rich enough to afford them; now I’m thin enough after months of having the time to exercise every day, but I don’t want to shell out the $4 to buy the magazine.

The extended weekend was already looking bleak by Saturday when I was sitting at my computer screen wondering what I could do without spending money or going anywhere outside of the five boroughs.  I’d exhausted all of my usual at-home recessionary activities including “silver harvest,” a game of going through handbags, luggage, and pants to find nickels, dimes, and quarters, and then determining if I had enough to fill any coin wrappers to return to the bank, and “Atkins fashion show,” wherein I try on old clothes that no longer fit to see if months of carbohydrate reduction has made zippering or buttoning them possible.  While debating my options or lack of them, I was startled by the phone ringing and an offer of work.  It was the marketing research firm that pays contractors to go to the movies and take on other odd tasks like going to supermarkets and convenience stores to assess the upkeep of freezer cases.  Was I interested in going to the Battery Park movie theater to hang a banner for “Up in the Air”? The assignment normally paid $10, but because this was a special last minute request they would pay me $15.  There used to be a time – let’s say six months ago when I couldn’t eat my hourly wage in lunch – when the idea of leaving my apartment and traveling for over an hour roundtrip on a Saturday to hang a banner or attempt another manual task involving a ladder wouldn’t have done much for me.  Unfortunately, it now looked like a very attractive offer.  The banner was already at the theater, the marketing company rep told me, and all I had to do was hang it up and get a manager to sign off and say the task was accomplished.   She also said I had to hurry and wanted to know how soon I could set off.

When I got to the entrance of the floor with the theaters I was told that the banner was several flights down at the box office.  I soon found it on the ground outside the box office door, and saw that it was gigantic.  I hoisted the relatively light but incredibly long box onto my shoulder, and set off for several banks of escalators to reach the main theater floors again.  I was lucky that it was not near the start of a feature in one of the eleven theaters because I required quite a bit of space on the escalator, and was somewhat unsteady on my feet while wielding the box.  I asked the manager for suggestions of spots to hang the banner, having no idea of how I was actually going to hang it, and was directed to a couple of empty walls that might be suitable.  After opening the box and unfurling the banner I quickly discovered that none of the spaces I was directed to was going to be large enough; the image of George Clooney at the airport was 15 feet long, and would not fit even if it were suspended from the ceiling.  The manager radioed a maintenance guy to assist me, and after almost giving up on ways to mount George, he told me that the best idea would be to suspend the banner from the railing above an escalator bank on the uppermost theater floor.  As a novice banner installer, I had to let him do most of the work of threading the wiring through the banner and affixing it to the railing while I held on for dear life.  I was convinced that I was going to fall over the railing because it was so heavy, killing myself for the promise of $15, or that the banner would fall down and take out a customer traveling up on the escalator.  Then again, if I were going to be injured by having something fall on top of me, George Clooney would be pretty high on the list of desirable tumblers.

Having successfully completed my assignment largely because I found someone more capable than I was to accomplish the bulk of the task, I congratulated myself for once again showing that I am clearly suited for management.  With two hours of weekend time killed, I then embarked on a stretch of street fair going and cheap eating to keep myself busy.   I visited Brazil in midtown during the Brazil Independence Parade, and on Monday I journeyed up Eastern Parkway to take in the sights, sounds, and tastes of the Caribbean during the annual West Indian Carnival and Parade.  I go to this event every year thinking that I can make it up the entire three mile route without being overwhelmed by claustrophobia and being beaten back by human traffic, but give up each time and end up having to take side streets to make it back home in one piece.  On the positive side, the huge amount of vendor competition keeps the prices incredibly low.  I had two ears of corn, one procured for only $1, and a bag of mango for $2 – a bargain compared to the offerings at many Manhattan street fairs where the price of zeppoles has soared to more than $5.00 for half a dozen. Since I went early I had a full afternoon for another cheap activity, and I journeyed out to Coney Island for the first time in several years.  I highly recommend a trip to Coney Island for the unemployed; it takes a long time to get out there by train, and walking the boardwalk is good exercise, refreshingly cool even in hot weather, and free.

At Nathan’s I saw a big sign saying that the chain was hiring, and in addition to “free food” was offering an “excellent starting salary.” What exactly would be an excellent starting salary for Nathan’s? Could it best $15 an hour for hanging George Clooney? Is it just me noticing this for the first time, or are more restaurants and fast food chains advertising openings?  Are these the only available jobs left? During this weekend alone I saw several advertisements beyond the Coney Island opportunity including one for Saturday openings at Bazzini’s in Tribeca (must have experience), and at McDonald’s around 14^th Street.  McDonald’s was enticing future flippers with the promise of “flexable hours.” Should I go in and see if they could offer flexible hours as well for former English majors? At the rate I’m going, my next in-between job may very well involve asking if fries are needed.