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.
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 & PHOTO: Shirley Lau
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.
Turning Lemons into Literature
{ Kimberly Lin, 27, Chinese American }
Previous job: Hedge fund analyst
Current job: Financial analyst, writer
“You start doubting your own abilities. You always teeter on ‘Am I going to end up depressed and on a Cymbalta commercial?’ But things end up working out in the weirdest ways. You can control yourself; you can’t control the environment,” says Kimberly Lin, who, this year, made the transition from crunching numbers to putting her life down in writing.
Part memoir, part fiction, with a bit of therapeutic ranting, Recession Proof is Lin’s latest endeavor. Inspired by her own life events, Lin writes about her struggles with finding her passion during these tough economic times — all through the fictional character of Helen. It’s a drastic change from working stock market hours and being the only female analyst working at her hedge fund.
After cycling through three finance jobs in a matter of about four years, Lin was at a standstill. She hated her job and couldn’t satisfy her boss’ every whim. At one point during a bout of unemployment, she had to sublet her room and was sleeping on her couch because she couldn’t afford the $1,400 monthly rent, or the $3,000 to cancel her lease.
“I had time to really reflect what it is that I wanted and to reevaluate why was I always getting myself into these situations where I was constantly stressed and chain smoking,” says Lin. Now that the self-inflicted pain has stopped, Lin is able to write while also paying the bills as a financial analyst. Lin even has a second novel in the works, focusing on the trials and tribulations of 30-somethings. “It just never occurred to me that I could make a career out of [writing],” she says. “I look at the recession as a blessing in disguise because I truly believe that I would have not been as motivated to complete my book or had fodder for it had [the recession] not happened.”
– Shirley Lau
Purchase the Summer issue of Audrey Magazine here.
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 & PHOTO: Shirley Lau
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.
Business, Interrupted
{ Alfred Fung, Chinese American }
Current job: Marketing manager
“Most people who go to business school, there’s a sense of entitlement. They think they’re going to get a six-figure salary or be the next Mark Zuckerberg. It’s almost this fantasy,” says Alfred Fung, who once chased his dream of starting his own business after he got his MBA from University of Southern California.
But that proved to be the hardest thing to do during a recession.
“Expectations were already low at the point of graduation. It was clear that there would be a rocky journey to find funding,” says Fung. “Despite this, entrepreneurs I knew pushed forward by bootstrapping as much as they could in what was our generation’s most hostile start-up environment. After all, being an entrepreneur was a much more active role than being unemployed.”
So Fung spent nearly a year in search of funding to make his idea of a new educational platform come to fruition. He sent his business plan to venture capitalists, applied for grants, and even pitched his idea during job interviews.
“I approached investors of all walks,” says Fung. “The most promising, and ultimately depressing, meetings were with the U.S. Department of Education’s Small Business Innovation Research Program director, who loved my idea. I waited several months for an answer, only to be denied. The investment environment is just not friendly to people who just have ideas.”
After exhausting every option, Fung says he decided to forgo his business venture. Now he’s working in the marketing sector of a mobile apps company. It’s not exactly what he envisioned, but he says it aligns well with his interests and he’s lucky to have the job. He keeps in mind something a former classmate told him: It’s not just your job for now; it’s undercover research for the future.
– Shirley Lau
Purchase the Summer issue of Audrey Magazine here.
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
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.
Back to the Books
{ Enid Portuguez, 30, Filipina American }
Previous job: Los Angeles Times staff writer
Current job: Graduate student
She’s in graduate school and accumulating debt like there’s no tomorrow. She spent all summer in Europe doing an unpaid internship. At the age of 30 and after nine years of having real jobs, this isn’t the life Enid Portuguez had in mind.
“I kind of realized it was time for something new,” says Portuguez about her choice to go back to school. “I really wanted to do something that was practical and was different from what I was doing before.”
Despite the recent debate over whether college, especially graduate school, is really worth it, Portuguez decided to not only pursue her master’s degree, but also change careers. Her bachelor’s degree was in criminology, her last job was in journalism, and now she’s getting her master’s in conflict resolution.
After falling victim to the second round of about five mass layoffs at the Los Angeles Times, Portuguez decided to return to her old stomping grounds of New York — just a week after the stock market crashed. “That was kind of a downer, to say the least,” she says. She toiled away working at a restaurant, while also freelancing and continuing to blog for the Los Angeles Times for extra income.
“Don’t count anything out,” says Portuguez. “Don’t think about how old you are; don’t think about how ridiculous it might sound. Don’t think about how outlandish or impossible it may seem. Now is the time to try what will make you happy.”
Audrey Magazine‘s Fall Issue feature story, “Picking Up the Pieces,” looks at how the economic recession has affected the lives of Asian Americans. And in light of President Obama’s recent jobs speech to a joint session of Congress, U.S. Rep. Judy Chu, chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC), released the following statement in response.
In spite of the dangerous myth that Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) have been largely untouched by this recession, our community has been devastated by long term unemployment, high rates of foreclosures and downward mobility. Many who have spent decades working to attain the American dream are now falling out of the middle-class or struggling to make ends meet.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Asian American and Pacific Islander community experienced the fastest percentage growth of any racial group over the last 10 years. Since the recession began, AAPIs have experienced a 54 percent drop in median household income and the largest decline in home ownership of any racial group. As a whole, AAPIs also remain unemployed for longer periods of time than any other group. Certain AAPI communities, such as American Samoans, also have unemployment rates that are nearly twice the national average.
The President’s plan is a step forward for our community and our country. By extending unemployment benefits and investing in job creation, we can help AAPI workers suffering from disproportionately long periods of unemployment. The President’s proposal for tax relief on small businesses will also benefit the 1.5 million AAPI owned businesses that employ over 2.8 million people. As elected leaders in Congress, we need to come together and pass a meaningful jobs package that puts Americans back to work and invests in our current and future needs.
To check out our Fall issue, purchase here.
The recession hit just as I was about to graduate from college.
Image via theshootingrange.net
Already having chosen to dedicate my life to an unstable career (in writing and entertainment), I was unprepared for my road to employment to get even tougher.
