Catching Breaks

Life in Cleve­land is becom­ing increas­ing­ly unful­fill­ing for me. I have spent the last 9 months look­ing for anoth­er source of employ­ment in this area, and have been most unsuc­cess­ful. This is my third Cleve­land win­ter, and in the time I’ve been here I feel that I have offered plen­ty of myself to Cleve­land through time and effort, yet Cleve­land has­n’t offered me much in return. And by much I mean one thing: a decent job. I like the peo­ple, the cul­ture, the pace, but when, as a young pro­fes­sion­al, I make so lit­tle mon­ey that I have to bud­get whether or not I can afford to go down the street for a beer at the Lit, there is a prob­lem. I’ve tried the net­work­ing routes, cold call­ing, brows­ing through every career board and clas­si­fied and even out on the limb things like search­ing through my refer­rer logs for pos­si­ble leads [Pen­ton Media, I’m look­ing at you]. My skillsets are wel­come as long as there is no price tag attached, but oth­er­wise, this area does­n’t seem to have much use for them.

Peo­ple talk about catch­ing breaks, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it hap­pen. Every suc­cess I’ve had, I’ve had to fight for tooth and nail, but me ver­sus Cleve­land is a fight I can’t win. So today begins my search for employ­ment else­where. I’m going to start in the big metro areas, NYC, Chica­go and LA [where I’ve recent­ly start­ed cor­re­spond­ing with some old friends from the ND Film Depart­ment], places I already have friends in, and places that might feel that they could use me. If all else fails, by mid-sum­mer I’ll move back to Indi­ana and go back to school in order to get my teacher’s license. Cleve­land has had its chance.

25 thoughts on “Catching Breaks”

  2. Adam,

    I under­stand what you’re say­ing. Many times I felt the same way in my life. Oth­er peo­ple were get­ting all the breaks and seemed to get a free pass on the Ori­ent Express while I strug­gled to stay on the city bus. I have I had to strug­gle. com­pro­mise, fight, and some­times loose big to keep and get what I want.

    You sound as if you did all the right things. I know that you are one smart, ded­i­cat­ed man. You are in a posi­tion of pow­er now, whether you see it or not.

    You are at the begin­ning of your jour­ney and as such you can change your plans, retool and charge in anoth­er direc­tion if you want to explore oth­er venues. It is great to be able to do that and it is in itself an uplift­ing view if you can bear to look at it.

    Unfor­tu­nate­ly life is not a movie of which we are the direc­tor. We do write our own script in a way and can make a com­e­dy, a dra­ma or a hor­ror sto­ry. We all know peo­ple that have. The script must be acco­mo­dat­ing because unlike a movie it is a liv­ing script and must deal with umpre­dictable fac­tors. Flex­i­bil­i­ty and the abil­i­ty to ad lib is crit­i­cal and you have both skills.

    I say good luck and you will be miss but you have left your mark through all those things you have done here in a very short time.

  3. Shalom Adam,

    I attend­ed a book sign­ing last week with anoth­er 20-some­thing friend for the author of Strapped: Why America’s 20–30 Some­things Can’t Get Ahead.

    Your chal­lenge is one that your gen­er­a­tion is feel­ing acute­ly. The rea­sons are many and no sim­ple solu­tions exist. But it is a prob­lem that my gen­er­a­tion, the boomers, must be very con­cerned with. If Gen­er­a­tion Y can’t get a finan­cial foothold, who do we think is going to keep feed­ing the Social Secu­ri­ty mon­ster?

    B’shalom,

    Jeff

  4. I’m with ya Adam… it’s a tough place to be employed. I was down­sized from a LARGE local employ­er over two years ago and am just now back to hit­ting my stride. Were it not for the love and sup­port of my wife, fam­i­ly, friends and a love for Cleve­land that cuts me to my very soul, I might have left too. I hope that, what­ev­er you decide to do, it all comes out for the best.

    CHQ

  6. I com­plete­ly under­stand. This is exact­ly what the brain drain prob­lem is — how can you keep young smart peo­ple when there’s no jobs? Cleve­land has come a long way cul­tur­al­ly, but for me, too I felt the pro­fes­sion­al pain. I had a good job there, by luck of my pro­fes­sor refer­ring me as an intern and tran­si­tion­ing inter­nal­ly. But due to the lack of cre­ative jobs in that com­pa­ny there was no real upward mobil­i­ty there for me. Here, tho it took me a lit­tle bit to get a job I real­ly want­ed, I went on so many good inter­views I can’t even remem­ber (some­thing like 20) and turned down sev­er­al jobs because they weren’t exact­ly what I want­ed. And I know more than many com­ment­ing here how soul suck­ing your cur­rent job is. So — good luck to you. And you’re wel­come to crash here if you need to come out to inter­view.

  7. Cleve­land is a small city, grow­ing small­er by the year. It does pro­vide lim­it­ed oppor­tu­ni­ties, not only for the young but also for the mid­dle aged. Part of this is the result of short sight­ed city gov­ern­ment tax­ing busi­ness out of the city and the area.

    For­tu­nate­ly, not all of the coun­try has been as wrong­head­ed. You will find some­thing. The odds, how­ev­er, are that it will not be here.

    Rid­ing through the city yes­ter­day, it was appar­ent that things are so bad in so many neigh­bor­hoods that they can­not be revi­tal­ized with­out a major dis­as­ter dis­plac­ing much of the pop­u­la­tion. Things should not have reached this point, but I do not believe Cleve­land can be saved.

  8. I’m sor­ry you’ve had such a tough time of it here, Adam. Good luck with what­ev­er you decide.

  9. adam, adam, adam. you may share the name of the first man on earth but you are not unique in being a few years out of col­lege and not mak­ing the mon­ey you want.
    i’ve been hear­ing that song since i was in high-school and was a big rea­son i decid­ed to skip col­lege and go straight to the “work­ing world”. back then in the ear­ly 80s i thought that it was some­thing that the reces­sion had to do with, yet i have heard that same com­plaint from col­lege edu­cat­ed 20 some­things near­ly on a dai­ly basis.

    busi­ness week had a arti­cle a few months ago that had sta­tis­tics that con­firms basi­cal­ly what your com­plain­ing about: col­lege edu­cat­ed folks with degrees are not get­ting the posi­tions or mon­ey they desire with the degree/education they have. this data is from the last cen­sus which includes the whole coun­try and not just cleve­land. the report also shows no increase in medi­an house­hold income for not only the entire mid­west but the utopia known as cal­i­for­nia as well.

    any­way, good luck on your job hunt but remem­ber you’re not alone.

  10. You talk about Cleve­land owing you some­thing, but did­n’t you recent­ly receive an award for your Tremont blog with a seat on a board or com­mit­tee?

    I fre­quent your blog often, but I haven’t heard what exact­ly is your ambi­tion. How can Cleve­land pay up if it does­n’t know what you want? What is a “decent job” to you?

    Why don’t you post about what your dream job is instead of com­plain­ing that no one is drop­ping it in your lap? It will make it eas­i­er for Cleve­land to help you find it that way.

  11. Hey mag­gie,

    I’ve not said that Cleve­land owes me any­thing. I said that it has­n’t offered me any­thing. You might quib­ble about seman­tics but there is a world of dif­fer­ence between owing [which implies a sense of enti­tle­ment] and offer­ing [an exchange]. I feel that I am quite with­in my rights to com­plain about my inabil­i­ty to find decent work in this town, espe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing I have spent the last 9 months steadi­ly search­ing for it. I think it is rather obvi­ous that I don’t expect a good job to drop in my lap.

    I did receive an award from my local non-prof­it com­mu­ni­ty devel­op­ment cor­po­ra­tion, for the com­mu­ni­ty site Tremon­ter which I update and main­tain using my own time and mon­ey. I was also select­ed as an alter­nate on the Cleve­land Foun­da­tion’s Grant Mak­ing com­mit­tee, but that is also a vol­un­teer posi­tion that offers no perks apart from din­ner at our meet­ings, a resume filler, and a feel­ing that I’m help­ing Cleve­land improve itself.

    In addi­tion, I’ve also done sev­er­al web­sites pro bono for local busi­ness­es that could­n’t afford to go to a design firm. I also vol­un­teer at Habi­tat for Human­i­ty and do many oth­er vol­un­tary things in my neigh­bor­hood.

    I’m con­tent with the grat­i­tude I’ve received from the peo­ple I’ve assist­ed, but that isn’t enough to sus­tain me. That’s my life out­side of work and it is rather ful­fill­ing. But if I can’t find some­thing to ful­fill me in the Cleve­land work­ing world, its obvi­ous this town isn’t right for me.

  12. Hi. I thought I’d re-post a com­ment I made over at Jef­f’s blog, Have Cof­fee Will Write:

    Adam should go west.

    As an Amer­i­can expat teacher who has lived in South Amer­i­ca, Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, and Asia for going on 10 years, I know that not all of us are “ugly Americans.â€? Many of us teach or work for NGO’s (non-gov­ern­ment orga­ni­za­tions such as “Save the Chil­drenâ€? or “World Visionâ€? or “Habitat for Human­i­ty”). Many of us work for busi­ness­es which offer jobs to the peo­ple in our host coun­try. (Not all work­ers in third-world coun­tries are exploit­ed. Check out Mill­ma in Bolivia: a suc­cess­ful com­pa­ny that treats its work­ers well. I’ve been to the fac­to­ry, and have spo­ken to the work­ers. They receive health care, mater­ni­ty leave, and fair wages.)

    As to your ques­tion, Jeff: “is it pos­si­ble for an Amer­i­can entre­pre­neur to go…to Ban­ga­lore or Jakar­ta and not be an Ugly Amer­i­can exploit­ing Third World workers?â€? Yes. Not all busi­ness­es exploit.

    As to “by encour­ag­ing Adam to jump ship am I ignor­ing the real prob­lems here in Ohio?â€? How is liv­ing over­seas “jumping shipâ€?? And how is choos­ing to live over­seas a way of “ignoring the real prob­lems in Ohioâ€??
    I just don’t see the con­nec­tion.

  16. Do you have a resume? Or an “about me” page where employ­ers could learn more about your skills, tal­ents, and ambi­tions?

  18. Adam,
    I was down­sized out of a job I loved 3 years ago. After 2 years of false starts and pro­gres­sive­ly low­ered expec­ta­tions and ris­ing pan­ic, I final­ly land­ed a low­ly cler­i­cal job at a local col­lege.

    I am earn­ing exact­ly what I was in 1991 (not adjust­ed for infla­tion). Can I afford chi­nese take out tonight, or gas for my car tomorrow..hmmm.

    ON THE OTHER HAND, my employ­er offers me free tuition here or at anoth­er school with which they have an agree­ment. I will go ahead and make the sac­ri­fices nec­es­sary to stay here, get my mas­ter’s degree in a field I love at a very good school for almost noth­ing (ie, no debt, which is crush­ing my oth­er friends), and then, hon­ey, the world is out there. I love Cleve­land, but sure­ly there are oth­er towns with love­ly sea­sons, live­ly arts and inter­est­ing peo­ple? Get a game plan, man.

  19. Adam, I would hate to see you leave, you are exact­ly the kind of guy that Cleve­land des­per­ate­ly needs!

    A word of cau­tion — I once moved from Cleve­land to NYC area for a job that instant­ly dou­bled my salary. Unfor­tu­nate­ly I found that my liv­ing expens­es more than dou­bled. I enjoyed my time there, and came back to Cleve­land, for a dif­fer­ent career. Admit­ted­ly, the job sit­u­a­tion here is ter­ri­ble for many peo­ple. I have left my 20s far behind and I have already seen many peo­ple’s careers strand­ed by a rapid­ly chang­ing job mar­ket. I do hope that you find some­thing real­ly great in Cleve­land, but who knows? If Cleve­land can’t pro­vide for you, maybe Cleve­land does­n’t deserve to have you here.

  20. I also worked in NYC for a time, Wal­ter, so I know what I’m get­ting in to by look­ing there. And I don’t want to leave Cleve­land. Some great peo­ple are call­ing in favors for me, and I appre­ci­ate it. Maybe some­thing will pan out.

  21. Hi Adam,

    Sor­ry to hear you’re leav­ing Cleveland…but if you must go, what about Chica­go, Atlanta or Mia­mi? With Chica­go, you’d be clos­er to your fam­i­ly. Look­ing at your resume page, you’d be a good pick in those three cities. Even bet­ter yet, Toron­to, Mon­tre­al, Que­bec City or Van­cou­ver (though VC is a bit pricey)? Cana­da is always look­ing for tal­ent­ed pro­fes­sion­als. Go online and see what the job prospects are. Be sure to check out the cre­den­tials of oth­er local young pro­fes­sion­als com­pet­ing in your field, you may have tough com­pe­ti­tion.

    Chica­go and Toron­to are both one-day/t­wo-tank trips — save up $50, hop in your car EARLY Sat­ur­day and set your cruise con­trol, baby. (Bring snacks for the trip there and back). Dri­ve around and see how you like the place. Pick some place ran­dom to dance/eat/hang out with mod­est prices. If you like, make your move.

    Good luck!

Comments are closed.