Unemployment Pt. 2

About two years ago, I passed a very pleasant unemployment period. My department folded at work and when given the option of relocating to the Miami office, I decided to stick it out in New York and just enjoy the summer living off a nice severance package and weekly unemployment checks. It was heavenly—3 months of catching up on my reading in Central Park, actually “finding the time” to hit the gym or run along the East River, meeting friends for lunch at their office (and breathing a sigh of relief when I got to escape back into the world of the shiftless), visiting with other unemployed friends, taking up random sports (swimming, tennis), exploring the city by foot, taking day trips to far-off locale’s like Boston—by August I had reluctantly accepted a new gig and it was back to the drawing board. But I’ll never forget that summer as one of the most enjoyable of my life—it felt like being on high school summer vacation again.

So last week, after returning from my 2-week holiday in the States, I got an email from my boss saying that the company was ending my contract (yes, via email) because my position had become obsolete. I wasn’t entirely shocked considering they hired a marketing agency last year to handle all their marketing stuff and I had sh*t to do—plus they’re cheap bastards and if they could get out of paying someone (I won’t even tell you how much of a fight it was to get my expenses reimbursed on time) they would. In any case, they agreed that I could wrap up my last project this week and they would pay me through the end of the month. Considering that I had been trying to work up the guts to quit anyway, this was the perfect little push.

Interestingly enough, most of my friends in Paris are unemployed; either by choice or because of the lack of opportunity here in France (the unemployment rate is ridiculous) so I don’t think I’ll be out of things to do. Today, for example, it was my first day of freedom and I spent it shopping with a girlfriend all afternoon followed by 3 hours of gabbing in a café. Tomorrow I plan on finally checking out Shakespeare & Co. and next week, my friends and I are planning a trip outside of Paris. And when the weather warms up, having all this free time will be lovely.

Problem is, I have a feeling things are going to get pretty sketchy really quickly. Life in Paris is NOT cheap, especially when you factor in the exchange rate. In New York, I knew lots of tricks to make my money stretch without drastically altering my lifestyle pre-unemployment. Here, on the other hand, it’s not the same story—you’re lucky if you can send a text message without spending $2. So, we’ll see how things go… it’ll be an interesting experiment. I may be moving back into the ghetto soon, who knows…