Jobless: Now What?

You. If I don't get a job we'll soon give you a loan I'm going to send my son to live with dad. I don't wanna go out on the street. I don't want. To do anything you know. As far as living on the streets or homeless shelters now rather. Than my own. So. That's why I'm really scared. I'm not a man of great patience but I found one thing this morning standing this line at home is you. Hello and welcome to Day two in our series of programs which we hope will help you deal with unemployment or the prospect of unemployment and with getting back to work. I'm Dave Dorian. And joining me is co-host for all four of our programs is Dr. Jeff Moss a clinical social worker

and family therapist. Jeff it is natural and necessary to grieve over the loss of a job but are there benefits to grieving. And whatever happens to those folks who have an aversion to expressing how they feel and they stuffed their feelings down and they try to sidestep the grieving process. We'll talk about that. One of the many topics along with our our studio guest today who will deal with everything from resume writing and job interviewing to how to deal with creditors when they want their money and you don't have it dealing with the stress of unemployment. And so Copen standing by live at the department of economic and employment developments. Job Bank on North Utah street in Baltimore. Well Dave the good news is the phones are ringing here. They rank so much yesterday the total calls that came in was were about one hundred and that included some employers who called in and the folks here would like to remind employers that if in fact they have some jobs to offer up to please give us a call the number here 1 800 572 J. Oh yes and I want to tell folks that is in fact. And oh do not push zero but that is

1 800 572 j o b s. The hours of operation until five o'clock this afternoon the lines will open again at 8:30 tomorrow and they will be open through the rest of the week from 8:30 until 5:00 in the afternoon. I would like to address a question David that apparently a viewer had yesterday and a woman who called in said she's getting ready to leave on maternity leave. Could she qualify for unemployment benefits. And then the fact of the matter is no it has to be an action initiated by your employer in order for you to be able to request unemployment benefits. So if you're planning on going out on maternity leave at least at this stage of the game you'll not be able to get any unemployment benefits. But there are no lack of folks who obviously would like to call in here find out what's available and that's what the jobs bank does. It gives you an idea of what kind of jobs are out there. They give you the leads and it is up to the person on the other end of the phone to go out and try and get that job but the folks here will do their best to help you out. Tell you where to go and give you any advice on how best to approach that job interview. Again the number here 1 800 572

jobs 1 800 572 j o b s Dave. So thank you. We'll be back to you several more times this hour. Aside from the feeling of satisfaction we get from working and from doing a job well we all work because that's how you amass money in our society. And money is what you need to amass food clothing shelter along with designer jeans and station wagons when the paychecks stop coming in. You run short of money but the people who sold you the food clothing and shelter and designer jeans and station wagon still want their money. So what do you do what a lot of people do is call the Consumer Credit Counseling Service which is there to help people in exactly that kind of a pickle. John Gengler of the services here and would be happy to answer your questions at 1 800 to 2 to 12. 92 1 800 2 2 2 1 2 9 2. John we're glad to have you here. Nice to be here. What can you do for me if I'm in credit trouble if I'm in money trouble what can you do for me that I can't do for

myself. Well what we found out Dave is that 98 percent of the people we talk to have no experience at setting up a budget or managing their money. So if you're experiencing the difficulty that people are today it's a good idea that if you can get in touch with us we can sit down with you and help you to formulate a money management plan. All right. Generally the people who get in touch with you don't have enough money to pay their bills. I would assume so. I would assume then I'm assuming a lot here on the at the end of the process I go through with you. You make an arrangement with the people I owe money to have me pay something less than 100 percent of what I owe. Or else I wouldn't need you in the first place. Correct or not. Well not entirely correct because half of what we do is to educate the people on the proper use of their money. So if you have listeners out there that feel that they're having difficulty they don't have to be having a problem with their creditors directly or anything like that. But if they want to help in assessing their financial situation and setting up my

money management plan they can get in touch with us and we'll be glad to help them. But you also on the other end of that spectrum you do also do help people who are short of money who are unemployed and who cannot meet all their obligations. We analyze their situation and help them or advise them of what we feel it should do. And implicit in part of that is you getting in touch with the people they owe money to. That's right. And you're kind of a middleman in that process. Absolutely. But the people if it's necessary for them to get in a debt management program will those people become our client and we represent them. What I think about is it's really important to them that they be open with you. I wonder when people come in to talk about their money situation with you John whether they are or whether they're afraid to be a little open with you while we encourage them. Because first of all we're not judge mental at all. A lot of people are worried that we're going to scold them when they come in we're not. The service also is confidential. We do not tell employers if it isn't necessary and we deal directly with the creditors and they

can be at ease and that we are going to help them. And a great thing about it is it doesn't cost them any money. And I also wonder about their expectations of John when they come in whether they expect you to be a miracle man or a magic man and fix it for them. What expectations do people have. Well the expectation that they're going to have you're right. We're not miracle workers but what we promise to do is to look at their situation professionally get it all down on paper and offer them that solution under their particular circumstances which we feel will be best suited to them. John let me set up a mythical and I know this may not be exactly answerable but let me set up a person with let's make it easy. Three thousand dollars worth of bills a month. They've got $1500 in income a month. How do you proceed from there. What do you do. Well first of all we're going to analyze what we call their monthly living expenses they have to pay for housing and food and so forth. They also have to pay their

secured debts like an automobile. So we we analyzed those expenses. We make recommendations to them where we feel they're overspending and they should cut back particularly in the area of discretionary spending. And real quick maybe they need to brown bag it instead eating out every day that adds up then with the money that's left we take a look at what they owe their creditors. And it may be that they can handle it themselves just by curbing some of the other things or else they need to be in a program which we manage form of reduced payments or possibly we might have to refer them to another helping agency or legal advice. Let's be a little more blunt when we say you're not a magic worker. It it very well could be that when somebody comes to you you're going to recommend you've got to get rid of one of those cars. I mean you can't you can't make payments when there's no money. You can't make payments for me. You can help me. Right. Oh absolutely not. We ask them to come to us because we will analyze their situation but we're going to be truthful with them. You know we're not offering anything out from

other than professional experience looking at their situation and making the best recommendation to them but they shouldn't discount that they should come to us and let us do that for them before they take further steps. Let me ask you one other thing from the from the stores the oil companies the finance companies point of view. What's in it for them. In talking to you in letting you deal with the customer in other words why don't they just say I'm sorry. I don't want to deal with the consumer credit people. I just want all my money give me all my money. What's in it for them. Well what's in it for them is that they already have attorneys and everything that go those routes. But they're trying to preserve customers who have a lot of good customers that are in difficulty and they want those customers to be reinstated and rehabilitated so they can continue to sell to them in the future. So you're saying that the consumer finance company doesn't want to own your car. They don't want to repossess last night. Not really but they do. If they if they have to. But if you are willing to

work it out with them and so forth. In most cases they're going to go along with it. OK. Let's go to a question on the phone. Tim you have a question for John. Yes sir. I was interested in his opinion on the advent of home mortgage monies for these kind of companies that are advertising special loans for homeowners. Is this a way that you would recommend to go to take care of the problem. All right Tim again there what kinds of loans are John's having trouble hearing are there what second mortgages. Well like the Money Store is one of the advertisers an advantage home mortgage. Wow. All right 10 my answer to that is again you have to get back to the basis of managing money and know where you are. You just can't use these things as a Band-Aid because you're only exchanging one remedy for another and you're putting your maybe your house on the line or some other type of security. If you can pay what you have now and you put up security for it then you're going to lose that. You have to get down the money management.

Let me remind those of you watching again the phone number if you have a question for John or any of our guests is 1 800 1:58 12 ninety two. 1 800 1:58 twelve ninety two. Is there a way to give me a figure on someone who's been unemployed for two or three months who just simply does not have enough money. What kinds of percentages. A creditor is going to allow In other words. Will any creditor be happy if you can make 50 percent of the payment you owe 60 percent 40 percent. What's the range. Well generally speaking if it's if it's a straight loan and so forth we can shave it by about 25 percent. And what we have to look out for is negative amortization. We're not just sending them interest payments. And of course we try to get them to reduce that many of them are doing that. Now if it's a credit card we're going to probably drop it to 3 per song cause some are already at 2 percent and we'll leave it there. But in saying that you have to be careful that our listeners don't assume that we can help them. They need to let us look at it another way. So in other words it's a

negotiation you go through with the creditors it's not just you don't you're not empowered to do anything you have to be kind of a middleman where a middleman but you need to know Dave we've been doing it for 26 years and we work with the creditors we pretty well know what they want and it's done pretty simple way. It's not a lot of negotiation that really has to take place. OK. Karen do you have a question for John Karen on the phone while we're waiting for John in the studio. You know what I wonder about as a people who are reluctant to come in and meet with you and talk with you because they are embarrassed because they feel like they failed in being able to manage their own lives and they come in with a fair amount of guilt. Like my God you're like my father John you know and I hate to admit that I've screwed up. But. They come in with a sense of feeling guilty and feeling bad about that. Well a lot of them do. And unfortunately the appointments that we make maybe one third do not come in and that's probably the reason they do want to give them some encouragement about. Absolutely. As I indicated earlier we're not judge Monell we

don't scold them or anything like that. You need to come in and we're going to put you at ease and we're going to look at the situation and tell you where we are and they should not let this fear keep them away. And you don't personalize their feelings. Let's say they get angry because they really want it to work out easily for them but for that individual and they come in and they're angry and they're moody and they're sad and they feel defeated. You understand all about that. Yes I understand all of that. And we listen to it but we get to the crux of things and we work. We go 110 percent to try to work out a solution for them. OK. And John let's let's make another thing clear. If if I've been unemployed for quite a few months then I have just exhausted my savings and you know I don't have any income. Is there anything you can do in that case. In other words I've got to have some resources for you to be able to help me. Right. But that but the way to handle that is people should come in to us immediately don't arrive at their own solution. Some of them take severance pay.

They take their savings they give it all to the creditors under the assumption that the creditors will be satisfied for a long time. And that's not true. They should come in to us as soon as they suspect that they're having a problem come says and we will work with them. Good. Good point then if somebody is concerned about being laid off is it worthwhile for them to come in and talk to you if they're kind of like in the category that Westinghouse has been in and they're expecting that they might be. But is it worthwhile for them to come in and talk with you. Absolute Good. Earlier they come out and you know if they wait until they've dug a hole for themselves where we can on that. And of course we can then send out a comment about it. And the point you made earlier even if you're not afraid of a layoff or if you're just having problems dealing with money if you if you don't do a budget like every family should come in and see you. Let's go quickly to Israel who has a question for our guest. Yes. I'm like what's the difference between a secure and secure it. And what are the different legal ramifications concerning one or the other.

OK. The difference between a secured debt and an unsecured debt as an example would be if you buy a home on a mortgage the home is security. If you buy an automobile the automobile secures the loan if you don't pay for the automobile the way you should. They're going to take steps to repossess or they'll auction it off and deduct their expenses apply what's left and you'll still owe the rest of it. And as far as the legal is concerned I'm not an attorney but there's a great deal that creditors can do even on unsecured debt. They can attach your pay and different things that they can do so you must take that seriously. No question about it. All right John can you stay with us for the rest of the show in case in case there are more questions I'll be able to appreciate it. John Gengler of the Consumer Credit Counseling Service thanks very much. Back to coping next for another update from the job bank back to the phones here at the department of economic and employment developments Job Bank have been very busy all day long.

Again the number here 1 800 572 j o b s. Joining me now Carlo sphere's Carlos is a jobs service specialist at the department of economic and employment development. Carlos give me an ideas as to what a job jobs service specialist does. My responsibility is primarily to provide services for those individuals who are unemployed which includes our job finding skills workshop information regarding changing their career or how to change their career as well as resume writing and developing job leads. Now who qualifies for participating in this series of classes that you have. Well right now we serve all unemployed persons and all services are free. I might add that the job finding skills workshops that we conduct are our. Programs a program that we provide that generally many corporate executives will pay thousands of dollars for and we

provide that service for you. Now do you tailor those special workshops for the types of jobs that need to be filled or for the types of people looking for jobs. Well what we try to do is provide a workshop that will allow any individual regardless of his or her profession to structure their job search in a meaningful and effective way. We know that the majority of people are out of work for a long period of time because they've never had training in systematic job approach. In addition to that we know that most people don't know how to look for work effectively. It is our position that until an individual has a face to face interview they really have not had a real job opportunity presented to them. And so that's what we try to do is to try to give them creative information and techniques so that they can really Epting that face to face interview. Anything else can often cause people to become disillusioned about the job market as tight as it is now. These programs are they hold across the state.

Yes we haven't. Most of all local offices in the department. And we certainly encourage people to participate. We've seen a significant number of increase in the numbers of individuals participating in our job skills workshop and of course we have found that evaluation of those who do participate in the workshops to be nothing less than superior. What has been the most surprising thing in finding the people who are coming to to you and using your services what have you found that surprises you most about who taps into that. I think the most interesting thing is that the kinds of people who are coming in are people now who have what I call highly competitive credential background ph. These people who are former corporate executives mid-level management types of people and supervisors it is very common now for them to come in and to use our services. Now what do you say it's common to see an increase how many ballpark idea how many numbers you're seeing across the state and are there there sort of pockets where you see more of one kind of a

person who's you know type of job has been eliminated. Well at this particular time because I think the labor market is so volatile and because there are so many companies that are restructuring and downsizing it's hard to quantify the numbers but I think it's it's it's fair to say that we have equal representation of people from all kinds of occupation of groups to come in our workshops. Now how do folks find out when these workshops are held and whether or not they will in fact be able to benefit from them. The best thing for them to do is to call one of the local offices but Job Services offices of all department and they can direct them as to where the job find the skills workshop would be conducted. Now are they on cycles throughout the year. No we conduct them every week. In fact two and three times a week. So there's always one somewhere available to whoever might need it. Yes. Yes. And again I would emphasize that those who participated have found it to be very helpful to them information and

ideas that they had never thought of. And much of the information people are are seeking. They go to the library and they look in books that really do not fit their specific need. Does not answer that particular question or does not solve this particular problem. And what we've done is to take a very realistic and practical approach based upon what we know employers demand with regard to our job search technique. So another service to be tapped into by folks who may have lost their jobs recently. That is the jobs service. Hours I guess services yes the job find the skills workshop with the Department of Economic and employment development day to get a reminder to folks who are listening and watching. Our number here 1 800 572 J O B S If you have questions about the workshops. We'll try and answer those as well. All right. So thank you for a lot of people who suddenly find themselves unemployed. It's been years since they've had to hunt for a job they've forgotten how to write a resume and the cover letter and the make a good impression on the job interview. Looking for a job is not

only work itself it demands specific skills that many of us just don't use all that often. Natalie Ballard is a career counselor at community college and should be glad to answer your questions at our toll free number here at NPT it's 1 800 1:58 12 ninety two. Thank you for being with us. Thank you for. What's wrong with the way most people job hunt and and go into that first interview what are we doing wrong. Well I think it may not be a matter of doing wrong so much as not really realizing how broad the opportunities are. Look at having to find a new job as a way of perhaps doing something that you haven't done before. Many of us have jobs where we feel that the boss really doesn't know how well we would do that other thing. So maybe this is the time to try and do that other thing. You know what I am aware of is that most people hate writing resumes. They put it off until the very very end right. It's a most difficult work to do. What is it about resume

writing that puts so many people off. It could be a statement of pride but it's like an aversion. Well I think people hate to really look at themselves or find it difficult to look at themselves. So if I might put in a point for people who do what I do I work at a community college and run the community college and then the career center we help people develop resumes. Other institutions other colleges and there are resume writing services that will help people do this kind of thing. And what I tend to do is sit down and talk to people and pull them out a little bit about what they did. And oftentimes you have to talk for a half an hour an hour or so before you really get to know who that person is and then you can sort of come up with the words to describe the person. Before we get to the résumé writing and we've got some examples of how not to do it and how to do it in just a moment here. But back to the point that you just made that was made yesterday by several people. A lot of us seemed to limit ourselves too much. I've been a widget maker for 20

years and that's the only thing I'm ever going to be able to do. Right. How do you get through the process of expanding the consciousness and saying gee maybe there are a lot of things I could do. You know. OK. Don't look for a widget job if widgets are are passe. You know that's a good point. In fact I read something that said speaking about passée of the whole computer technology area is very big and will be big into the year 2000. However if what you do is keypunch key punches out. So now you have to learn something about micro computers. A lot has to do with allowing yourself to be educated about what is now what kind of technology is used what kinds of jobs there are out there. But getting back to what you ask me the resume part why not take a look at yourself ask yourself over your lifetime how many things have you done that you did very well. Felt very good about. And whatever it was was successful. Write that down. You may get five or ten

things. Then look at it and decide what skills did you use when you when you did that thing that made you feel good. And that was successful. Nine times out of ten you use those very same skills very positively. Doing a job. Don't leave out little league or the Kool-Aid stand or anything. All of it. All of it. But I imagine most people minimize what they've done in the past and you probably hear quite often I'm too old or I can't learn new stuff or computers scare me. That's right. Quite often from women I must say when they go to write resumes and there's this is a block of time when they've been fortunate enough to be able to stay home with the kids and they'll say I'm just a housewife or I was just at home and I have to ask them questions like did you take care of little league and did you cart all the kids from here to there and did you sell Brownie cookies and did you organize this and do you do stuff at church because people really don't understand the kinds of skills that they have and that they use every day.

You're a renaissance woman if you've done that and there are a lot of them out there. Oh absolutely. All right. Let's get to the resumes now and let's start with an example you brought of how not to do a resume. This is a very neat piece of paper. What's wrong with it. Well I have to first to say first say not how not to do it because it's not a good resume and a bad resume. It's just that that's I guess one could say a very scarce kind of resume. It gives only. A little information and gives the very basics of information you know where this person went to school. You know the jobs that this person had. But of course what you're trying to sell are the skills that you have. Right. So you have to say something about what your responsibility was in that company and and the kinds of things you did what you were responsible for. So what I would suggest that a person would do would be to just give another sentence or two about the bones and you're saying put some meat some flesh on the bones. That's absolutely right. All right. So here we've got the same the same person and the same basic resume. But

you have but the person has basically added to it in terms of indicating what he was she was responsible for of whether or not she did any supervision what people want to know is whether or not you motivated people you have to use the proper words you have to motivate. You have to be responsible you have to supervise. You have to cause things to happen so you use those kinds of words. And you also many times now you use a career objective so that the person reading your resume knows why he's got that piece of paper in front of him and you have to tell him very definitely if you know it. And this person wants a challenging position in sales and tells what it ought to be ideally for her. Hopefully the person who reads the resume will see this. OK well this is the kind of person I want at my company. Now people often wonder is my resume enough do I need to attach what they call a cover letter to say hey world here I am absolutely recommend.

Absolutely. You don't just send a resume through the mail to anybody because he'll trash it. Actually the cover letter is a relatively short document. Basically a couple of paragraphs the first paragraph sort of says why you are sending the letter. The second paragraph would tell you what it is that you have to offer that particular organization. The third paragraph says I will call you for an appointment and you notice I say I will call you for an appointment rather than you call me certainly with the market as it is it's not about people calling you if you want the job. You have to be aggressive enough to call for the appointment. OK Harold on the phone you have a question for our guest. Just to turn in resumes to put. Why you have left the job on the resume and doing an interview is your last position terminated or fired. How do you present that so that the employer doesn't label you as a trouble maker or a

bad employee. Good grief. OK. First question no you do not put it on your resume that you were fired. When it comes up in the interview situation. If it does come up very pointedly then you have to react to it. And I would say something like. My employer on the last job felt that my productivity was not equal to that of the others. But I have learned since that time that I must do certain things with myself in order to increase my productivity. And you can sort of take an idea like that and play around with it so that it fits your circumstances. Does that make sense. Yeah I think Harold is gone. But but but you've got to you've got to believe that your prospective employer is going to talk to your last employer and that's going to come up so we're not going to be able to hide it. That's true. So you better deal with it. Yeah yeah. I have one thing on resumes and in interviews you have to be

honest. Do not exaggerate to the point that you can't really back up what you say. It's very important. OK another call from somebody on the phone. Hi Albert. Hello. Hi. I have a question the record for resumes. Some people say you a resumes with a summary. And I was told that if I put 23 years or front from employers for any further and 23 years old or 23 years experience hours 23 years or one job if you look at some employees say they're turned off by that are lots of people in that position. Well what you do is not necessarily say you 23 years in one job you say you're offering. So let's say you're offering more than 20 years of experience in supervision and motivation. Inability to increase income. You understand what I'm saying you do the positives of what you've learned how to do you have to always emphasize your positives.

What is it worth the effort to customize a resume for each person you send it to. In other words this job is a little different and a little more sales than something else. Is it worth the effort to customize the resume. You know something that will impress a sales person and the other job is a production job. Absolutely. One must do that the extremes to which you do it while you can. It can be called a targeted resume and a targeted resume is not only customized to that particular area it is only sent to those people who would hire that particular kind of work but it just makes sense if. If you're selling soap that I should tell you how I make soap. Can we talk about interviewees. Right because what I wonder about the interview process is that people go into interviews or could go into interviews feeling really discouraged and not terribly hopeful that it's going to pan out for them. And I wonder what do you give them in the way of thoughts to keep in their head to keep their spirit up so they can

make the best presentation possible. That's a good question. I guess the first thing I would say is that especially in this job market anyone who's out there looking for a job has to have a certain work at having a certain positive sense of self and be able to handle rejection. That's a very honest thing. But when you get to the interview situation number one you know something about the company to which you're replying so that you can ask intelligent questions when the time comes for you to talk about it. You have to know what you've put in your resume you have to know yourself. You have to know the positives about yourself. You have to be ready for questions that may come up. And hopefully that will give you a certain sense of comfort that you need. That's a good point. Every advice every piece of advice I hear on the interview always says No something about who you're talking to. Oh absolutely. Because that will impress them that you've taken the time to learn something about them. Jim do you have a question for our guest.

Yes I do. OK. Let me give you a brief story. In 1987 I was making $75000 a year. I lost my job. In 88. I took a temporary job at 50 that job is finished. Now I would be willing to work for 40 45. But when people look at my salary history they won't talk to me. Well OK Natalie the salary history should be the last thing that you let people see what I would suggest is that you do what's called a functional resume and that resume talks about the skills that you have to offer. You don't talk about money you don't talk about specific jobs even Neither do you talk about years of work. You talk about managerial skills. You talk about people skills you talk about. What other kinds of skills that you have. Therefore your resume doesn't really look

like you. You're talking skills and at least you can get to the interview situation on that. OK. Jim thanks for the question. Natalie Ballard I hope you'll stay with us for the rest of the hour. Well thank you. Natalie Ballard of the Rundell community college. If you have recently become unemployed and haven't even gotten to the résumé writing stage yet there is a good chance you're still trying to deal with a lot of unfamiliar feelings connected with losing a job. Neighed Howard spoke with some of you about that. It's kind of scary. If I don't get a job real soon if it could be over I'm going to have to send my son to live with his dad. Because I can't afford to take care of him. I don't see how. I was forced to move back. My parents. Are now just hoping someone breaks into that job and get money from me again. Our standard of living has gone from typical middle class 40 to fifty thousand a year income between my wife and myself

to where literally we do not spend anything except for groceries and except for my getting on the golf course once a week. That's an absolute necessary therapy for me. It might help people screw it up. Well I'm not a man of great patience but I found one thing this morning standing this line it humbles you and you do get patience with waiting. Very easy for me to get them the dummies that you were in the situation who is in. Because when you are out looking for a job to get 100 rejections before someone will say come in for an interview you'll get 100 rejections before that happens and you keep hearing no no we don't want you and you start questioning well is there something wrong with me that none of these companies are interested in me.

Jeff Moss. Let's let's talk about this this notion of grieving for a job that it does the more you think about it seem real appropriate to think about grieving for a loss you have lost something of yourself and grieving is incredibly difficult work to do. It's not easy stuff. You know it's painful. It's absorbing. It's hard work and I can understand why people want to avoid it altogether. But there are some positives to grieving. You know for one thing it allows you to work something through so that you can kind of like move on to the next piece of your life. It's like you have weights on your shoulders from the loss from the disappointment and you've got to get it off of your shoulders so that you can move on. The other thing about the unfinished business of the job loss is that it gets in your mind it gets in your thinking. You can't think clearly your perceptions get blurred. And it's important to be able to talk and think in a very clear way and when you're grieving you let people know that so that they can provide you with the support that you need to get through it.

But there are some people who are uncomfortable letting people know that and talking about it at all. It's impossible I get what you're saying to skip this to skip dealing with it. It's impossible to skip dealing with it and people who try to skip dealing with it. You know they sit with their anger it becomes a real intense thing for them. They can't get beyond their anger or they stuff they put a lot of energy into stuffing their feelings down. They stay depressed and then they are listless. There's nothing they can do. They don't have the energy to move ahead. You know there are a lot of things that seem to happen and then when you keep the pressure on the inside and the tension builds and you're not willing to deal with what's going on you can count on physical illness. You can count on getting sick over it but eventually the grieving ask to stop. How do you know when it's time to move on to say OK I've grieved. Now I'm going to get a job it's when you don't carry a lot of weight with you when you're not carrying a lot of negative hostile feelings with you and you say to yourself I've done my work with it I'm finished with it. I can move on and you go out there and you try it. You're not carrying a lot of residue with you what happens there.

I mean you say you have to deal with it but there are some people refuse to deal with what what what are the consequences if you don't deal with this. Don't recognize that you're grieving OK if you're not willing to recognize that you're grieving you're going to be feeling sick and depressed and angry all the time and that should be the cue to people that they are feeling they are feeling the depression or they're feeling the grieving as well. And if they don't move on from it and they decide I'm going to be angry I'm going to stay with it I'm not moving on. They can forget about looking for a job. Going to be carrying that into the job interview and that's certainly going to be a waste. They're not going to be able to get some energy up to be positive or constructive. OK. We'll talk more about the emotional and the physical stress of unemployment with our next guest in just a moment after we check in again with Sue Copen at the job bank. So as you can probably see behind me just about everybody who is operating a phone here is busy I believe there may be one or two lines available. Our number here at the department of economic and employment development jobs bank 1 800 572

j o b s. And Dave as I understand it we had a viewer call in asking a question about a job fair when there might be another one scheduled. I've been told by the folks down here a deed that if you call area code for 1 0 that's the new area code 3 3 3 5 3 5 3 they'll be able to tell you when and where the next job fair will be held. Dave joins me right now is Ron Windsor. Ron is the coordinator of the dislocated workers unit under the Department of Economic and employment development. Dislocated worker what are we talking about. Well this look at a worker generally is defined as somebody who has lost their job due to either a plant closing or a mass layoff. It can also be someone who's long term unemployed. But majority of the people we work with are people who have been notified that their job will be ending due to a plant closure or the mass layoff. So I would imagine you have no lack of folks looking to you to help. We've been very busy. Vigeland And say that generally the way we're notified is there is a plant closing law called War and where we import as wolf in time gives advance notice 60 days

notice. We are the state the central contact point for that notification. Once we get that we notify the employer and do some fact finding and then go proceed to work with with the impact of workers. Now you say you proceed to work let's get down to some of the specifics. I remember going down to the lower Eastern Shore last year and there were a couple of major plant closings and Crisfield and there was a dislocated workers center there in cooperation with Saulsbury state university. What is it that you all can do for these dislocated workers. Well there's a variety of things the decenter and Critchfield was was one where it was a large local closure. Kelly Springfield has been one similar to that Mack truck. General Electric. In a case like that we walk actually operate an assistance center on site lards site specific for that work force of that particular company. We do the same type of thing elsewhere all the time within the local auspices of our department of economic employment development local offices or the local private industry councils. There were 12 of those throughout the state that we worked very closely with. And the types of things we do immediately upon

learning that there is a closure we are going to need access to workers and provide an orientation for those workers. We tell them about unemployment insurance job service and various retraining possibilities retraining could be either occupational retraining on the job training. It could be simple. Educational upgrading a lot of times people want nothing more than a course in lotus or display right or something very simple words of skills enrichment type of thing. And we do we will do that either through the local service delivery area or in a case like that. We will bring in the Salisbury state university Allegheny community college whatever it might be to actually do their services on site. Now as I understand it these centers are not permanent. They are in fact up for a specific period of time and then everybody's pretty much left on their own. And in cases like that we generally do not have enough. Funds to actually operate them with existing funds so we write to the department labor discretion and grant request. And usually those if we are granted those funds they run for about 18 months.

Ideally if we get advance notice from the employer we can really hit the ground running and services workers before they're actually out the door. So you know we can prepare and do a lot of preliminary stuff. And then when they actually do have the last day of work they may have already gotten some remediation done or a lot of the preparedness stuff out of the way. Let me ask you to answer this a little quickly. It has to do and listening to a lot of the folks who are calling in and trying to get a handle on who's being laid off a lot of the folks or folks in their. 40s 50s and trying to provide them with retraining must be a real challenge. It is very definitely. And we're finding with the dislocated workers it's a it's a different type of workforce in that they've worked for companies for 20 25 30 years so certainly you're going to have an older workforce. We do need to tailor the training to do that. A lot of the things they need beyond just the training is you know the financial counseling the you know the the the assurance that you know there is a safety net out there for them. A lot of times we see people who have skills and they will want to simply. A hobby they've had in the past. We've seen people actually

start their own businesses quite successfully and that's not real common but we have seen that in a number of cases and once it's worked out quite well. So the dislocated worker center opportunities are still are still one more way to provide some assistance to folks who are out of work. Again we are here at the Department of Economic an employment development jobs bank. Our number 1 800 5 7 j o b s. That applies not just to folks who are looking for jobs but for employers who may have jobs to offer. Back to you Dave. So thank you. We want to continue talking now about the effects unemployment can have on your emotional and your physical health with Dr. Ramiele Bendit Sheppard Pratt hospital and the doctor will be glad to answer your questions as well. Add 1 800 to 2 to 12. Ninety two. Doctor thanks for being with us. Good job I guess by definition you cannot avoid stress when you talk about unemployment it's it's by definition a very stressful time for people. Your problem then becomes helping people deal with it. Are there some general guidelines on dealing with what has to be one of the low points of the person's professional life.

Well if you imagine yourself having just been given a pink slip what happens to you is it's an assault. You're out of control. You're waiting for the next shoe to fall. And the thing that we try and do is help people get back in control of their lives getting mobilized doing some of the things that you've been talking about in terms of job searching doing credit work. But you were speaking before about the grief process and I think that's one of the stages that can be very important and where people are and how they deal with things. There is the initial denial of the problem and there's the anger or the bargaining depression and finally acceptance where you are in that process will make a difference in how you handle it. You know we spent a lot of time talking on yesterday's program about getting getting the ability to separate yourself from a job in other words because you lose your job does not make you a worthless person. So you have not failed in life because you lose a job. Sometimes it's just bad luck and the thing that you need to do is be able to talk to yourself about that

and get oriented towards the future and how to build your career back on. And you need to take care of yourself physically and emotionally as well as do these things to get a new job. On the other hand it has got to be helpful to examine yourself and say Are there some shortcomings I had that maybe led to my being on the top of the list when it came to cut 5 percent of the people. I mean you can't say it is also all the bosses fault and I'm I'm totally blameless. Perhaps no. But what most people end up doing is exaggerating the extent of that and having trouble getting some perspective on it. If you can get a friend to help you talk it through or if you need a counselor to help you put things in perspective that's often very useful to do. Talking to a family member is also another way of approaching you. Certainly one of the things that we've heard over the last couple of days and we've talked to people who have been unemployed for long periods of time and they've had severe hardship and they felt that assault on their self-esteem. And I'm wondering if there is a toll that that stress takes over time on someone's body in an individual's body certainly does.

You have things like hypertension colitis ulcer disease or some of the manifestations physically chronic fatigue difficulty with sleep loss of weight even Frank depression or severe anxiety can be some of the manifestations of it. Let's get practical about stress management because we're dealing with people have to regulate their stress they have to go out there and sell themselves to an employer. What are some of the useful things that an individual can do hands on things a person can do to be able to regulate the stress that they're experiencing. First thing is to try to get a regular schedule back when you are employed you have a schedule that helps structure your life and you need to do this again in that schedule you should have things like exercise. Exercise can include walking it doesn't have to be overly stressful if you want to do stressful exercise you should see your physician first get cleared. But things that you can take control over your life and in that way you begin to feel like you had some chance of grappling with the problem.

OK. One of the things too that I wonder about is can you talk yourself down from feeling stressful. Sometimes you can and what you need to do is recognize when you are exaggerating things or when you're putting them out of proportion. Often though it's useful to talk to a friend and help them get some food. Have them help you get some perspective. Until you get some practice with it it may be difficult to appreciate that you are exaggerating again a phone number if you have questions for any of our guests 1 800 1:58 12. Ninety two. Kathy you have a question for the doctor. Kathy are you there. Hello. OK. 1 800 to 11:58 money to all three of our guests are still with us. So questions for any of them. I did have a question here that did not get on the air. Mr. Gengler if we can go back to you for just a second. A woman on the Eastern Shore has told us that her family could not qualify for your services at Consumer Credit Counseling because they didn't make enough money. Wow. That's the way they might put it. First of all there are no qualifications for getting service from

us but we're not at a lending institution or anything like that so we have to work with the person's money and their particular set of circumstances. So evidently after analyzing it and so forth and allocating what money she had for living expenses housing and food and all that there was not enough money left or a significant amount left to give to creditors. So she's interpretating as we weren't able to help her I'm sure we didn't refer maybe to someone else that might help in some kind of like we got a chance to clear that up. Donna on the phone you have a question. Hi Dawn. Basically my question is I've been on now for about three months before I was unemployed. I was working part time at a hospital. I guess you could say part time as a volunteer Emergency Service and I was also going to school full time. This was quite a heavy schedule. And it ended up in the water causing what I would consider to be

stress related illnesses and headache and ulcer related problems and had caused me to eventually miss a lot of time from work and I haven't been asked to leave the position due to the fact that I could not maintain a regular schedule at this time. I started taking off time. Right now I'm looking for a job. I've laid down my schedule to going to school part time and I no longer volunteer. But what do I tell an employer in an interview and when they ask me what kind of attendance record do you have. You tell them Well my last job asked me Can I please leave because my attendance very well but OK. That's kind of a chicken or the egg problem in and I mean one at one causes the other and leads into the other sort of I guess should handle this in a way it's sort of like when you ask what are your weaknesses. And you'd

say something like I tend to take on more than I can handle. This is a problem that I know I have because I was working and I was going to school and I was doing this that and the other thing and found I couldn't really keep it all up. So now I recognize that I have to really wisely plan my time and know that when I am working I can work and maybe do a volunteer thing but I'm not able to do all of those things but at the same time. Oh yes oh yes yes. You have to take one or do you have a question for one of our guests. Yeah. I was working for an organization for with some of this lady. Not not on this distress. I. Helped everybody. I did. I was lied on. You know where everything was to be you every day to be able to perform certain things as well as my own John. And then a new person came in and typically

harassed me into believing that I could do this anymore. OK so now I'm out of I'm out of a job. I left. My father was sick. I left and went to him and I came back on a Monday and was told that an Arab was being run for my position because I was no longer happy with my business. I learned I learned that I don't want to cut you short but I want to get the doctors answer on this. A lot of people who will who when times were better who would never have been fired for cause for being you know unproductive are being fired just because of economic reasons nowadays and it's hard to take. It is very hard to take and it's very understandable that people would have a lot of emotional reactions. Unfortunately these things do happen and people have to cope the best they can. Once again they need to be aware that they're going to go through some stages in the response to that kind of stress. And the best thing they can do is focus on the future and try and plan how they're going to get a new job. It's tough if you if you don't have any anybody to blame it's kind of tough to diffuse the

anger or is it just the opposite. I mean if you How do you get mad at the economy and how do you get over that anger. Well oftentimes what it takes is talking it out with somebody else either a colleague or going to professional counselor. Some people do it through exercise. There are people who really push their exercise to the limit as a way of diffusing their anger punching bag throwing a tennis ball at a wall. OK. Holly Do you have a question for one of our guests. Yes. With the doctor. All right wondering offered to have on unlimited income. People don't get a chance. As well as they might normally. What do you think Jack. Maybe get help people are on very limited income because they want to work. Or maybe job at a pretty good draft. When they point out that your question is well taken unfortunately I'm not an expert on nutrition but I would encourage you to seek out

some information about that either through your local library or are co-operative food services the University of Maryland has that provides that information. Nutrition is very important in taking care of yourself as is getting appropriate rest and exercise. And remember there are lots of organizations out there that are providing lots of help and I would imagine that if any of you folks who get calls get recognize it's something not in your area of expertise you've got phone numbers to tell people where to get in touch with the experts before we go before we have to close. John gangan let me add that the Consumer Credit Counseling Service does have a 1 800 number and we've had several calls from people wanting to get in touch with you folks. It is 1 800 correct me here 3 8 8 2 2 2 7. That's correct. 1 800 3 8 8 2 2 2 3 3 8 3 8 8 8 8 8 7 2 2 2 7 3 8 8 2 2 2 7. If we say it enough it will be true.

Do we have a final comment from you Dr. Jeff Moss as we wrap up day 2. We certainly are hearing that there are a lot of very constructive things that people can do to take a very positive position in how they present themselves which is what Nathalie's talking about and being really honest with John. And then also taking care of themselves accepting that grieving is natural and necessary for people to be able to move ahead and present themselves on the right foot. OK. Before we leave let's go back once more to the job bank and NBT Sue Koeppen. So Dave everybody is busy here. The calls keep coming in. I want to remind folks that the phone lines here will be available until 5:00 this afternoon. They'll reopen at 8:30 tomorrow morning and they'll go again through 5:00 all the way through the rest of the week. The number 1 800 5 7 2 0 0 B-S and again to address the concerns of folks who might want to know what the next department of economic and employment development jobs here will be to call the office here at area code 4 1 0 3 3 3 5 3

5 3. Dave thank you. Before we say goodbye for today a quick reminder about two other phone numbers you can call if you are in search of a job and need some help help in dealing with the stress and the strain of unemployment. The job bank is Suq open has been telling you is open from 8:30 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. All this week and that phone number is 1 800 5 7 2 jobs J.B.. 1 800 572 J Olby. Another number you might keep handy is for a service called first call for help. This basically is a clearinghouse for those who have problems but who don't know exactly whom to call for help. The people at first call for help will listen to your problem over the phone and it's their job to figure out which agency or group or service can help you. And they'll help you get in touch with that agency or service first call for help. As to numbers in Baltimore it's 6 8 5 0 5 2 5. Again 6 8 5 0 5 2 5 or you may call toll free across Maryland. 1 800 4 9 2 0

6 1 8 1 800 4 9 2 0 6 1 8. In addition here at Maryland Public Television we have put together a packet of information which we'd like you to have which also includes help in locating other valuable resources. We'll be glad to send it to you if you will write to us at jobless care of Maryland Public Television Owings Mills Maryland 2 1 1 1 7. Once again jobless. Maryland Public Television. Owings Mills Maryland 2 1 1 1 7. And in closing Jeff will be back tomorrow same time same channel with more advice. And and again it's it's good to note that there are lots of things of a positive nature that that you can do for yourself. Exactly. OK. If you are watching us by the way live at 3:00 something almost 4:00 in the afternoon. This program is repeated at 11:00 tonight on tomorrow's program more help in dealing with the emotional and psychological problems everybody goes through when

unemployment hits. And we'll get some advice on dealing with money and legal matters from an attorney and CPA matters that for some include the option of bankruptcy. I'm Dave Turion. For Jeff Moss for Sue Kovan for neighed Howard and all of our guests. Thank you for joining us and we'll see you again tomorrow same time. As