If I were a good unemployed girl I’d wake up early, get dressed in business or business casual attire and approach my job search as if it were my new job.  Each new day would be an opportunity to network and spin my years of successful multitasking into model cover letters for the next exciting chapter in my career.  Instead, I’ve developed a number of alarming habits that interrupt my focus when I remain at home.  These include the following: misty-eyed reviewing of  old paychecks, gazing lovingly at old business cards, checking the balances of my checking and savings accounts multiple times a day, questioning the strategies employed by players in the daytime version of “Deal or No Deal,” and surreptiously returning my neighbors’ empty bottles to the supermarket  for nickels.

As a lifelong workaholic, I’ve realized that the only way I am going to make it through a period of unemployment while retaining the better part of my sanity is to go with a hybrid approach.  I need to interrupt sending resumes into a black hole and hearing that I am conversely overqualified or underqualified for every position I’m interested in with some type of actual paying work, even if these short-term or one-day gigs have nothing to do with my career goals or pay so little that they make me question the fiscal consequences of having lunch.

A few weeks ago I came across an advertisement for a designer sample sale for an hourly wage of $10, and was embarrassingly excited about the possibility of nine days of consecutive employment.  I’ve taken on a number of odd jobs and money making gigs during the two months since my layoff - birdsitting, mystery shopping, carnival game hosting, focus group participation – but none of these has provided me with the camaraderie of co-workers or the reassuring routine of being expected to show up at a particular location for more than a week .  I used to be quite a shopper myself too, buying at least one new black shirt or black pair of pants at Ann Taylor every few weeks whether I needed them or not.  I’m lucky enough to be the height of a fashion model, but since my figure is that of three fashion models standing side-by-side sample sales have never been my thing.  This job would thus not prove too much of a spending temptation, I reasoned, since the clothing sold at substantial discount is invariably in single digit sizes.

I call up and say that I am available for all days and all shifts, and am swiftly signed up without benefit of a resume or interview.  The sample sale is held in Tribeca and features the preppy cotton collection of the designer hosting the event as well as a number of other vendors on a basement floor.  The schedule I’m emailed tells me that the first two days of work are devoted to set up, and then there are five days of sales and two days of clean-up.   On my first day I show up at 10:00am and am greeted by Erica, the young designer’s assistant who is running the event, and a small army of temporary worker colleagues.  Who are these people?  Some are clearly young enough to be collegians and prove to be students or recent graduates of the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising, a four year program that bills itself as “the college for the business of fashion.” There is also a large group of others who have been displaced from a range of industries and are as desperate for gainful employment and comparatively overqualified for the tasks at hand as I am.

Jenny, a pretty 30ish blonde, has spent eight years as a creative director and designer.  After five years as a shoe designer she lost her job when her company relocated to Irvine, California.  Her next permanent job wound up lasting only six months, and she’s been struggling to find freelance work in a market that she describes as “completely dry.” Richard has spent fifteen years working in finance departments of advertising agencies, and was laid off from his last job in February of 2009.  Edwin, our elder statesman, notes forlornly that both of his children are older than the woman now supervising us.  He has been out of work for over a year since getting laid off from a customer service role at a paper company.  Edwin has spent the last 9 years in administrative positions but has stints driving a forklift and loading in his past.  His blue collar expertise quickly becomes valuable in supervising our two days of packing up at the end of the sale, and he saves me as I struggle to master the art of loading a tape gun.  On the younger side, Terrance is a 2007 college graduate who worked as an accountant at PriceWaterhouseCoopers.  He was laid off in July of 2008, and credits this to being the newest hire on his client team.  His search has been hampered by the fact that he doesn’t have his CPA.  Although PWC sponsored him, the exam was scheduled for after he received the news of his termination and he was just too depressed to take the test.

The first days of work consist of turning the designer’s empty showroom into a fully functioning store.  Boxes of sale items arrive at the site continuously, and we rip into each of them with the excitement normally given to children’s Christmas presents, reviewing the packing slips to make sure that each box contains the listed items.  The boiling hot sub-basement houses disassembled display racks, and several of us are charged with bringing the parts up two flights of steps and putting them together.  The ladies quickly realize that this is a heavy lifting job better left to the men in our group, but figure out that the supporting poles can be more easily maneuvered than the base and top components.  We divide the pieces by gender with the women focusing on the poles.  After several trips up the winding steps with two poles in each hand I begin wondering why the nonexistent job description hadn’t included the ability to lift above forty pounds, but am pleased by the thought that I am burning more calories and developing more muscle than I ever had in any of my corporate desk jobs.  I can fight against the prospect of osteoporosis and make extra cash at the same time!
One particularly cathartic phase of the set-up involves ripping through the plastic wrapping of a large roomful of hanging items.  We set upon rows and rows of displays, pulling the plastic at the neckline of each item, and yanking it to the bottom for a second phase of scooping up the wrapping.  It is impossible to do this with too much fervor, and the items are so tightly packed against each other that the act of stripping the pieces feels alternately like molestation or murder.  As I violently grab men’s shirts and jackets around the neckline I think of my former boss as he seated himself in my office and said casually, “You know those layoffs you’re working on?  You’re part of them.”  As the boxes are opened and items tallied, we devote ourselves to strategically displaying them, questioning whether all items of a similar style should be grouped together, or sorted by size and then by style.  While all the women and the younger and more fashion conscious men seem comfortable with fussing over dresses and handbags, the vision of the burlier older men debating the arrangement of cashmere shorts and miniature leather purses seems simultaneously sad and sweet.

The start of the week soon brings to mind all those articles appearing lately about workers whose hours have been cut, or who are faced with mandatory furloughs or unpaid vacations.  On the first day we are scheduled to work until 6pm, but everything is done by 4:30pm and we are told to go home.  On the second day the work for the entire group can’t even be stretched past 4pm, and Erica requests volunteers to leave early.  She has clearly underestimated the pent up passion of the laid off for manual labor, and is amazed at the hyper-speed with which we’ve completed each assignment.  We look at each other sheepishly, each of us afraid to confess to needing the few extra hours of pay but wanting to be accommodating.  Erica is worried about her boss discovering that she has lots of workers idling around, and for the set-up phase there’s constant pressure to be busy and prove our usefulness.  She makes the rounds of the workers on different floors questioning anyone who doesn’t appear to be occupied.  “What are you doing?” she asks, or she will point at various groups and confirm aloud what activity they’ve been tasked with.  “I can’t just have people standing around doing nothing,” she confides a bit too loudly to the other permanent employees working at the sample sale.  On the third day my shift runs from 12pm until 8pm, but by 12:30pm we are done with the set up and the sale won’t open to press and friends and family until 4pm.  I grab a broom and stretch for an extra thirty minutes of activity preparing the sales floor.  Although I’ve managed a quick lunch before arriving, I’m told to sign out at 1pm and not clock back in again until 3pm, leaving me with an awkward two hours to kill wandering around lower Manhattan in search of cost-free diversion.

The sample sale, when it finally begins, reassures me that the retail sector may not be in the downward spiral that the media now portrays.  Abercrombie and Fitch may be slashing prices while Filene’s Basement folds, and Ann Taylor is closing multiple stores – perhaps suffering from my abstention from buying identical black outfits every three weeks – but the appetite of New Yorkers for designer labels marked down dramatically cannot be underestimated.  Once the doors open the shop is filled with trendy looking downtown types, gazelle like models and a remarkably large number of Japanese people. The behavior of the onrushing hordes ranges from suitably enthusiastic to proof positive that one, if not both, of the parents of the shoppers are wolves.

The lack of dressing rooms stops nobody from stripping to try on clothing.  Women cluster around every available mirror in stages of undress, with at least one topless patron parading around as if she is on a beach in the South of France.  Although I’m used to seeing women disrobe publically in communal dressing rooms, I am unaccustomed to the sight of men shedding clothing in the aisles.  Some modestly strip in place near the mirrors, but I also encounter men wandering through the racks with their pants down to their ankles as though they are at home wobbling out of the bathroom for an extra role of toilet paper.  Clothing, once tried on, is discarded in every possible location.  The tops of counters near the mirrors are stacked deep with abandoned items, and everything displayed on these counters is buried, exhumed, and then buried again.  Since nothing can be held, secret stashes appear in every conceivable nook and on the floor, and we must continually question undressing shoppers about whether items belong to them or can be removed.  One afternoon a fight breaks out between a woman who has squirreled away an item for future purchase and one who has snatched it up, and it ends with the first woman loudly daring the second to try to it on and see if it fits.  The amount of bending and re-shelving in the women’s room downstairs versus the relatively tranquil men’s area also brings out a sudden misogyny in those working in this room.  “I hate women,” one of my colleagues complains as yet another hanger whizzes past her head.

After a few days in the basement with women’s clothing I become fairly expert at managing the inventory.  I can distinguish many of the designers from the fabric alone without consulting labels, and can make many consecutive loops scooping to pick up clothing, hanging the items and returning to my home base without dizzying and falling over.  I joke with my new colleagues about the penchant of the unbelievably soft Laloo shirts and cashmere Demy Lee sweaters for slinking off their hangers, and we brainstorm strategies for hanging them securely. Despite my burgeoning proficiency with the merchandise, I’m still having difficulty answering the most basic question - the superficially simple “Do you work here?”  “Yes,” I want to say, “but only for nine days.”  I also think over alternate responses such as the unfortunately defensive “Yes, but I have two Ivy League degrees.”  When I can muster up a one word affirmative response I am surprised by the satisfaction that comes from doing my job well.  I enjoy being consulted by some of the needier shoppers on my opinion on how they look, and form friendly relationships with the rather large contingent of women who return to shop several days in a row.  Still, some part of me cannot help but resent these women who are relishing bargains and walking around with armfuls of clothing when I have gone months without buying anything new, and can focus only on paying my mortgage and maintenance each month.

The key to making it through the long and busy shifts is switching roles as often as possible. The best of all the assignments we’re given has to be sitting on one of the two chairs positioned at the top and bottom of the staircase to prevent customers from traveling with merchandise that has not been paid for.  This task can yield up to two hours off your feet, and requires only the ability to stop people who cannot read the multiple signs posted above the stairs instructing them to pay for items on each floor separately.

On Saturday afternoon, at the height of the weekend rush, I’m stationed at the seat at the top of the stairs.  I’m minding a corduroy jacket from upstairs that I’ve confiscated from a gentleman who has headed downstairs when I see one of my former colleagues head into the shop.  I’m seized with a need to run before she discovers that I’m working there.  Although Erica has gone to secure a lunch replacement for me, I cannot leave the chair until my substitute comes.   My former colleague has seen me take on international mobility assignments in London and Bangalore, and receive a promotion to vice-president and unless I move soon will see me reduced to guarding corduroy.  I quickly concoct a story in case she sees me; I’m waiting for my imaginary boyfriend who is downstairs and have to sit down and hold his jacket because I’m exhausted from shopping.  Despite the fact that I’ve been writing about my temping experiences and posting the blog links for all my facebook friends to see, I’m horrified by the prospect of being caught in the act.  It feels like I’ve been discovered turning tricks on a street corner or shoving extra rolls into my pockets on a line for free soup, and as soon as I’m relieved from duty I start fake shopping and bump into my former colleague with feigned nonchalance.  I can’t lie and say I’m shopping or confess to working there so I tell her to check out the great deals downstairs and that I’m famished and rushing out to lunch.

Since it is busy, I’ve been instructed to take only half an hour for lunch.  I head to the nearby McDonald’s, one of the few places I’ve found where I can have a hearty meal for less than my new hourly wage.  I’m worried that this short break won’t leave her enough time to finish shopping, and I’ll have to go back and pretend to browse.  This concern distracts me from the now posted fact that the chicken sandwich meal I order has enough calories for my entire next week, and I add two apple pies in addition. Perhaps I can metabolize the extra calories from shame? Luckily, as I head back to the sale I encounter my former colleague and her companion walking in the opposite direction.  I don’t slow down to chat, and as I breeze by she calls out me “You’re really making the rounds, aren’t you?”
We wrap up the sample sale on Sunday afternoon, and have the beginning of the next week for clean-up.  On Monday, in addition to the draining tasks of boxing up all the remaining items and carrying the boxes up to the front of the store for pickup, I’m asked to go to the designer’s permanent store a few blocks away to create and print out UPS labels.  It feels strange and wonderful to be sitting at a desk with a computer and co-workers seated beside me, and I relish the few minutes I have to toil without a supervisor monitoring to make sure that I am fully occupied at every minute.  If I wanted to I could actually make a personal phone call, look up something on the internet or engage in one of the many time-killing work activities we take for granted in the land of full-time executive positions.  On Tuesday the showroom is nearly bare and there’s nowhere enough work to retain the crew that has originally been scheduled to stay until 6pm.  One woman who asks for more work because she’s commuted in from New Jersey stays, and two of the men are retained for additional moving duties.  I gratefully line up to receive my $585 cash payment, and Erica thanks everyone sweetly for all the effort we’ve put in.  After nine straight days of heavy lifting and frantic selling I’m excited by the prospect of sitting at home in front of my computer spinning out more cover letters, and even more so about my upcoming jury duty.  It will be the first time I’ll be eligible for the $40 per day payment for service, and the thought of sitting around waiting to participate in the judicial process looks awfully good to me now.

-By Janet Raiffa, Contributing Writer, Member & Recruiting Manager