New Haven Independent

Doesn’t everyone on Earth know about this yet? Strangely, no. It’s a shock to discover that other than your cat, and perhaps your spouse and close relatives, no one cares.

So, you have two options when people ask you about being laid off.

Say something vague and ominous. How are things going? “Oh, not so good.”

One of the benefits of this approach is that it does not require outright fabrication.

It’s trickier if someone asks, “Are you still shelling pinto beans down at the beanery?” or the like.

This is another branch on the social flow chart of unemployed lepers. “No,” you say, “my days shelling pintos are over. I just got canned.”

The inquisitive acquaintance, who is now sorry she asked, has two well-defined responses. She could rip her shirt and start keening. Hardly anyone does that. The cat might if she could, but she doesn’t wear clothes.

(As far as you know. You can’t watch the cat 24 hours a day.)

(Actually, yes, you can).

The more common responses are nonchalance or encouragement. Men tend to brevity. They’ll say “That sucks,” or “That’s bad.”

They mean it sincerely, but how do you respond? “Yes, indeed, it sucks with great magnitude. Nothing has sucked this much before.”

No, that’s just goofy. It sounds like Butthead talking to Beavis.

Empirical data suggests that women are more apt to offer encouragement. Some clearly don’t believe what they’re saying, which makes it all the more poignant. “Ohhhhh,” one will say in a descending scale. “That’s horrible. Those chumps at the beanery are just a bunch of yahoos. You’re better off.”

Oh, yeah. Instead of earning money to pay bills, I’m in the basement, huffing Krylon fumes. Or at least that’s how you feel. Like someone pulled a plastic bag full of spray paint onto your head when you weren’t looking and now the view is kind of hazy and wiggled.

And speaking of debasement, the cry of empathy is usually followed by magical optimism. “I know unemployment is at the highest rate in 50 years, and you have the marketable skills of a 16th century poet, but you will find another job easily. Or eventually. I mean, with your enormous talent?”

Well, no, not necessarily. Kind of you to say so, however. But saying doth not make it so.

Sunt lacrimae rerum, after all. Sine ioco, dude. If only you had some idea of what any of that meant.

Face it: Just about whatever they say will strike you as humiliating. Good wishes, sympathy, outrage, boredom, or disinterest. That’s because you’ve got the problem.

So, what are some good things to say, utterances that will not jar the sensitive psyches of the jobless?

• Take a few days off. Take it easy. Let it all settle down before you start going on about living in cardboard boxes, and the fiery wreckage of the Hindenburg.

• Right now you feel like a miserable failure, sure, but in a few months — it may take that long — you’ll be back misquoting Latin. Trust me.

• Had to major in English, didn’t you?

• You know, if you’d been able to get into Yale, none of this would have happened.

• Your father was a bum, you’re a bum, your son is a bum, and his son will be a bum.

This is what pop psychology magazines call “reverse psychology,” as distinguished from regression. It helps people from taking themselves too seriously.

That tends to happen after you’ve ruminated and brooded your way into a solipsistic state of discouragement.

Get out of there!

* * * *

Science writer Abram Katz was laid off Nov. 13 from the New Haven Register after three decades at the paper. Previous entries on his encounters since then:

Help Wanted — Out West
Oh, Rude-y!
Can iTunes Save Newspapers?
Unemployment Tx? Or Dead End?