Last week, I read a story about long-term unemployment. It was an emotionally depressing read.
Here’s an example of why:
” ~Californian Byron Reeves has sent out 1,600 résumés since he lost his job in accounting nearly four years ago which resulted in only 10 unsuccessful interviews….”
Why was I depressed?
It wasn’t because Byron couldn’t find another job in accounting after four years of looking for one.
Instead, it was because Byron wasn’t resilient. He was fragile when it came to earning the living he needs to support his family.
Byron, like millions of others currently unemployed or underemployed in the US and the EU, are living in a fantasy-land.
Despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary, they are convinced that good jobs, good salaries, and generous benefits are just around the corner, and that big government and big business will soon start hiring people to fill their bureaucracies again.
The depressing aspect of this, to me at least, is that many, many people are like Byron. They can’t imagine a working life that isn’t defined by the walls of a bureaucratic cubicle, and this limitation is going to cause them an incredible amount of pain as the global economy starts to contract again (the economic collapse we’re seeing Greece and Spain are very clear warnings of what is ahead).
The Resilient Alternative
What should Byron be doing?
The correct approach, as we’re seeing in Greece and Spain as their government and business bureaucracies shrivel, is to create your own future. To give up sending out resumes and make yourself your next job. Or, if you still have a good job, build some alternative sources of income that can support you when you lose it.
Fortunately, for people willing to do that, there is a large and growing opportunity at the local level.
Jobs, incomes, and in some cases lifestyles that are much better and more meaningful than minimum wage shift work at McDonald’s in a failing economy.
How do you get started?
Start with something small.
A small product that you build in your garage and sell on the Web. A small service you can offer your neighbors in town. Jobs producing food, energy, water, and products locally and helping others to do the same.
Jobs building tool libraries, fix-it workshops, community compost systems, and solar co-ops. Some will pay more than others, but every flow of income matters, particularly if it is recurring.
Looking for ideas? Get together with people at co-working or maker spaces (if you are lucky enough to have one nearby) to float ideas. Talk to friends and family. Use your hobbies and passions for inspiration.
There are lots and lots of great examples available. From resilient people successfully growing food locally to those helping customers harvest rainwater to those building artisanal products they ship globally to those designing new products and finding support for them online.
Here’s a recent example of a design local and get support online effort (the result is a product that may be of interest of the resilient people in our community).
Don Cayelli, a former sales engineer, combined a love of sailing and a passion for solar power to generate an idea for a high-speed solar charging system called the SunVolt. A system he’s currently pre-selling on Kickstarter with some success (picture to the right).
He’s not in a big bureaucratic company. He doesn’t have financing from the middlemen on Wall Street. He’s doing this on his own. He came up with an idea for a product he wanted to own, he built a prototype for it, and he took the idea of the product directly to potential customers for support.
He’s making his future. Are you?
Resilient Ideas?
Here are a couple of ideas that I’ve found interesting. I’ve included the pictures below (two of them are in collages that I’ve found useful for working through an idea). Click them to get larger versions.
The first idea uses solar cells fused to glass as shade for a deck (featured on a Frank Gehry designed home in New Orleans). Initial feedback when I posted this idea to Facebook was negative since it appears that the roof supports are too flimsy to secure the roof.
The second idea uses stock tubs for raised gardens. Initial feedback was great (they can be bought inexpensively), although if you live in Texas and other hot southern climates, these tubs can get so hot they fry your roots.
The final idea is the use of smoothed corrugated piping for raised beds. General feedback was that these were hideous.
Hope you like the ideas section.
Resiliently Yours,
JOHN ROBB
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The corrugated piping beds look great to me.
Accounting goes back thousands of years and would still be needed by some in a purely local economy. Building a local client base, in particular of businesses doing resilient things, would be a resilient option for someone like the person who sent out 1600 resumes for accounting jobs.
My own working history is that I’ve worked for organized companies for about 40% of my career and about 60% for myself. Obviously, working for myself includes having a wonderful boss, but kind’a light on benefits.
Now, at 85 years of age, I work when I want to and have my previous efforts adding as some early efforts are still paying-off. It’s been a good life and still is pleasant.
I run into this often. For those who grew up within the “traditional” work system (as opposed to freelancers/entrepreneurs) making the transition to a resilient work lifestyle requires a significant paradigm shift. To go from “I need to find a job” to “How do I monetize what I’m good at?” is easy on paper, and much much harder to actualize in practice.
One of my friends was so successful at her custom gardening projects that other people offered her significant pay to do the same for them; it took her quite a while to shift from thinking of herself as an employee going to “work” to seeing herself as being her own boss with a skill-set that other people found valuable enough to not only pay her, but to work with her schedule and needs.
One of my friends, an operator and survival instructor, opined that people won’t make that paradigm shift until they feel pain: they lose the job, they can’t find a job, they have hungry children or they actually feel hunger themselves.
Personally I hope that people in that transition will avail themselves of the expertise and experience here on this site and spare themselves the pain.
cheers, m
I share your interest in maker culture and innovation John, but your points above fill me with a slight sense of unease because I think many of us (myself included) fall into the trap of focusing too much on being the “idea guy” rather than just doing work.
If the salaried white collar jobs that your Mr Reeves is applying for no exist, then that says to me, as it does to you, that America needs to be more resilient and focus more on domestic industries that actually produce the things that America needs. Over here in New Zealand, we’re in the same boat. In moving more manufacturing back into America, obviously there will be some room for innovation, as much manufacturing has not really considered what materials are available, how things could be re-used, etc. However, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the number of hours of sitting down and thinking of innovative products and production methods needed is dwarfed by the number of hours of just plain knuckling down and making things that will need to occur.
Much of the stuff that we need to make in a resilient economy is already invented, and understood. Much of it is undervalued because there is some cheap plastic alternative available from a factory in China (based on our demands of course). If an American white collar worker switches to blue collar work and works really hard at locally fabricating an important product really needed in America, the sad truth in this transitional phase is that they might not really be able to earn a living wage.
Instead, we’re still motivated by the great American dream (even us non-americans). We don’t want to be the guy who simply welds joints or hammers nails all day long and goes home exhausted and poor. We want to be the brilliant inventor who comes up with the reason not to need to do those things. Most of those brilliant inventions have of course depended on more energy being available. I suspect that the next round of “pioneers” will be those who rediscover the psychological ability to actually do a hard day’s work, and find ways to live on much more slender means.
It’s going to be very hard to do for many of us, and wont really be fun. Those of us involved in maker culture in small ways should probably try and help by finding ways to particularly value and support those who’s primary work isn’t innovation, but is in fact just “making”.
Another example is the Walden Effect blog — all about low-budget homesteading and running a mail-order business selling a watering device for small-scale chicken farms:
http://www.waldeneffect.org/about/
http://www.wetknee.com/microbusiness/
nice post craig, I wish everyone could realize what you’re saying (maybe me the first..).
I am really thrilled by all the maker/DIY/opensource stuff, but sometimes it just feels like everyone’s dream would be to become the next open-steve-jobs or something.
On the other hand, there is a pertinent race toward more and more productivity in DIY, and so a search for more and more clever ideas. That is quite pertinent in my opinion when the idea behind is to be economically sustainable on the smallest possible scale.
Robert,
You are right, there is a big difference between a hobby and a business. However, it’s more than possible to teach yourself to make things. I’ve done it.
Also, I’m loving the scale of the ambition in most business projects I’m seeing. This isn’t about getting rich, it’s about making an honest living or income stream doing what you love.
JR
“Get together with people at co-working or maker spaces (if you are lucky enough to have one nearby) to float ideas.”
Of course you really meant “(if you don’t have one nearby then start one)”, right?
Of course!
I’m definitely looking to diversify my skills in a future economy that will make irrelevant most company’s media and advertising needs. I am a graphic designer and while I am doing well at the moment, and I love being my own boss, I also look to examples in Greece and Spain where they have reinstated the barter system in some areas, to the benefit of the people. I would like to learn how to help others build sustainable food systems, as well as learn carpentry so that my skill set will always be in demand for someone!
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