Talking Mission Hill - Unemployment Part 2 (or Theory of the Leisure Ass)

(oh and for the record "Konietzko" is pronounced kuh-NITS-koe if the handful of Avatar interviews of him pronouncing his name in the intro can be trusted)

In the current apocalypse that is our modern life, I gotta say I do appreciate this episode in particular and enjoyed listening to both your personal gripes of the working world. Andy for most of the series comes off as this unlikeable bum, though I did feel for him this episode.

I strongly believe that Jim has a really good high paying job

Kris

Very fair points. At least we have sweet podcasts to ease the pain. I am very happy to be a patron of the Talking Simpsons network and I love Bob and Hennry even if my comments are sometimes critical.

Burt Stanton

The grass is always greener. I know plenty of people who have had to transition to work from home and are miserable for various reasons: -missing interacting with their coworkers in person -not having a good home office set-up -bad roommate or tense family/spousal relationship -constant construction noise they can't escape from -having to home school their kid on top of working and not being able to concentrate on work -Lethargy from no longer getting as much exercise and fresh air etc. etc. Let's be kind to each other. We're all dealing with different things right now. These are tough times for everyone.

nina matsumoto

Apologies if I sounded like I didn't think you guys were working. The idea of being forced to stay home for a few months just seems like a fantasy to me but maybe being on that side of things might not be as great as it seems.

Burt Stanton

We appreciate your hard work and we're also working very hard! Also, this episode was recorded two months ago when we were just getting used to quarantine. It's now become a fact of life that we rarely comment upon now.

Bob Mackey

Gotta be honest that the whining about being in quarantine has gotten pretty tiresome. Some of us have had to work non stop overtime in allegedly essential jobs. It would be nice to have a month or 2 off from the grind to just catch up on hobbies.

Burt Stanton

This is one of the most horrifyingly real episodes of television I’ve ever lived through.

Cody C.

I had seen this episode plenty on AS reruns but it was until I was shortly unemployed after graduating college did it really hit hard. I feel in that gap where every job wanted experience for entry level jobs. So great work on the writers for making such accurate feelings of being jobless.

ChemyChems

I've had the joy of being unemployed twice in completely different situations and it definitely isn't the amazing party everyone makes it out to be. Nothing like existential dread hovering over every dime you spend and finding ways to rebalance your budget. One of those times I managed to break my hand and didn't have insurance. Sure, I could have paid out an obscene amount for COBRA, but deciding between eating and having insurance, gonna lead toward eating. I ended up in the care of the county and their "indigent" person health care system (yeah, it was part of the name). They managed to put it in a cast, scheduled an appointment with a surgeon a month later, then that surgeon told me it had been too long and there was nothing he could do. I've also had the joy of job searching in the wake of the recession as well as within the last two years. Needless to say not a lot has changed: Everybody wants 5 years of experience for an entry level job, you have to upload your resume before entering everything in again. The only different thing was remote video interviews. This was a pre-COVID thing. You get sent to an app where you're asked questions, given 10-15 seconds to think of a response, then it records you. You're allowed one retake (more or less depending on the employer). That video is then analyzed not just for what you say, but how you say it and honestly it creeps me out just thinking about it. Needless to say, I didn't get that job, but I found one that was a better fit. I'm incredibly lucky in that both times I was eligible for unemployment and ended up in better work environments with better pay/benefits. Still doesn't make each time it happened suck any less.

I work for a company that builds and does SEO for dental websites and that tooth in milk thing does show up on several of our web pages so I assume that it's true.

littleterr0r

Yeah, I was a little surprised when they said that. I'm sure it was said a bit in jest but still surprising it was said. Some jobs still check your credentials and/or references. At a previous Govt contract job, they had to vet all previous jobs before getting clearance, and it took like 4 months after I already accepted the offer. At my current job, they did indeed call my references. So it still depends on the company/size/job etc.

Frank Grimes

Great episode, really enjoy this series I never knew existed. I have a couple recommendations. First, as a near 40-something, I agree with Bob and Henry’s point that a lot of jobs are just finding ways to justify your jobs, so for your younger non-creative type listeners, I would suggest pursuing a teaching career, especially in math and science as they are always in demand. While it’s not tremendously lucrative it’s the one job where you often really get out of what you put in and you rarely feel like you’re wasting your time. I know America isn’t the best place to be an educator but I think, people can correct me if I’m wrong, many states have good benefit and pension packages, which you guys made clear is a big priority for millennials. Second, since you’re moving to Vancouver, Bob, you should really read Generation X, written by a really famous Vancouver writer Douglas Coupland (he also wrote Microsurfs, which I believe is your Retronaut partner’s favorite book). I found it incredibly striking how your and Henry’s critiques of Gen Xers is exactly how his characters criticize boomers, how they got the best jobs because they happened to enter the job market at the perfect time and never leave. Also The characters are very mission hillish and it’s where the term Generation X was coined from. Anyway, it’s pretty interesting and maybe Nina can tell you more about it, if she has read it. Keep up the great work. So happy that you guys are doing well as I have been a fan since your early retronauts days.

Mikey Cox

Yeah I don't agree with that either. Do people lie on their resumés that often? Because that bums me out if true for those reasons listed above.

nina matsumoto

While this episode resonated with me for many reasons, I feel compelled to call out the "Lie on your resumé take." Just two days ago, you guys posted an episode of TS in which Henry said unequivocally that taking steroids while in MLB is cheating. Yet, that is ultimately just grown men playing a child's game. I have never lied on a resumé, and I hate to think I ever missed out on a job (especially during a personal period of unemployment when I was 2 weeks from being homeless before I got a job) because someone lied about their credentials to get priority over me. If the logic to justify lying on a resumé is that it doesn't matter because someone's friend will get the job anyway, then what is the point of lying, you won't get the job anyway? Instead, all it does is ensure that if the position is fairly up for grabs, that you have screwed over a bunch of other people that also need that job.

I.C. Weiner

The absolute low point of my last unemployment period was when I applied for job selling office supplies. Not by phone from a call center mind you, but by driving around Illinois / Indiana and just visiting offices to see if they were in need of supplies. I did a ride-along for a day with someone who already had a bunch of leads and even then it seemed like the most soul draining experience of ruthlessly harassing to buy toner ink and pens. Then the kicker: though the job was advertised as base + commission, at the end of the day I was instead told it's base OR commission, almost exactly in the same fashion as the Lionel Hutz joke. I said I'd think about, never spoke with them again, and was lucky to find a temp job instead that gradually moved me toward stable full time employment

Bill Nielsen

"Ehhhh... Beardley." I knew too many Beardleys when I was job hunting. I was going through Andy-isms when I was laid off and unemployed at 23 years old. I luckily got a job right when I turned 24 in 2007, right before everything went to pot. I hadn't thought about Jim eventually turning into a Beardley himself, but I could definitely see it happening.

Dan Vincent