When the Great Recession hit in 2008, millions were downgraded to part-time, furloughed or simply laid off. But if there’s one thing the recession has proven, it’s that sometimes a downturn in life can be a blessing in disguise.

ISSUE: Fall 2011

DEPT: Features

STORY: Shirley Lau

PHOTO: Kristy Lee & Luke Cho

It’s impossible to look in any direction without seeing someone playing the Words with Friends app on their iPhone or messaging a friend on their Blackberry. Despite government-issued checks being the sole source of income for many, it’s not hard to find restaurants with people waiting in a line that goes out the door, eager to spend their scavenged cash on a nice meal. It may look like the economy is getting better, but looks can be awfully deceiving.

Being unemployed or making a career change during what is considered by economists to be the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, is anything but an anomaly. As of this past summer, the unemployment
rate was nearly 10 percent, about 31 million people. And with constant fears of a possible double-dip recession, it doesn’t look like things are going to get better any time soon.

So what is one to do when she’s living off unemployment and sending hundreds of résumés into a black hole? Some may choose to make a career out of being couch potatoes, while others are just trying to stay afloat, holding out for the day when they can make a career out of what they’re most passionate about. And then there are those fresh (and once fearful) faces who’ve changed their lives for the better — and they have the recession to thank for it.

A New Global Perspective

{ Cat Manabat, 25, Filipina American }
Previous job: Copywriter for start-up social media marketing company
Current job: English teacher

As a fresh college graduate from University of California, Irvine, Catherine Manabat wasn’t moving up at the start-up company she was at, despite being there for a year. Her paycheck barely managed to cover her school loans and monthly bills. And she had to sacrifice her freedom — without any residual income to live on her own, she was living back at home with her parents.

“It was very odd to come back [home] and try to assert myself as an adult-child, rather than a child-child,” says Manabat. “It can be a rocky transition for most. The obvious downside was I was still getting bothered almost all the time about going out, being out too much, being asked to run a lot of errands whenever they saw I had any free time, and not really feeling like I had my own space.”

So she decided to make a big move. Not to another state or across the country, but to Korea.

It seemed like the most viable solution to her money woes. As an English teacher in Korea, she has her rent paid for, finally has health insurance, is paid overtime and gets more vacation days.

“Life in Korea is great, and I enjoy my independence and the perspective it is giving me,” says Manabat. “It may be cheesy, but this experience helped me realize this dream, and also propels me to consider the world — and not just my neighborhood — in my future.”

 
Dream Job to Having a Life

{ Celena Cipriaso, Filipina American }
Previous job: Writers’ assistant for All My Children
Current job: Ad sales, freelance writer

It was always Celena Cipriaso’s dream to work for a soap opera, especially All My Children — the show she’d been watching since she was only 5 years old. So when she was laid off as a writers’ assistant after four years, she was heartbroken … and in a financial bind. Her annual income dropped by $15,000 — almost a third of her previous salary.

“I kind of fell apart,” she says. “I totally panicked. I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t panic.”

Dozens of employees were a part of the unexpected mass layoff, some who had even been a part of
the show since its inception, says Cipriaso. She planned on making a career out of her job “until I died or [soap operas] died,” she says. Luckily, the show gave Cirpriaso a few gigs as a writer, which helped tide her over as she waited for unemployment to start rolling in. But that position, too, was short-lived — though monetarily it was worth three months of pay doing what she did as a writers’ assistant. “I felt like I was getting laid off for the second time,” says Cipriaso.

In order to pay her bills, Cipriaso took an ad sales job through a temp agency. “It forced me to be
very conscious with my money [and] look at my budget,” she says. Yet despite the smaller paycheck, Cipriaso is more satisfied with her life. At her old job she worked endless hours. “It never used to be daylight out when I got home,” she says. “My husband would be sleeping. I would see my husband on the weekends.” Now that the layoff forced her to find another job (“When I get really comfortable with a place, I love to stay. I never challenge myself for the next thing,” she says), she gets to spend more time at home while she freelances and works a straight 9-to-6 job.