Well, this isn’t a cheery update on the economy.
Not just because of my own situation, I’ve suddenly become aware of just how spurious the idea is that we’ve begun recovering from the recession — at least down here at the bottom of the trickle-down economy.
The studio apartment I’ll be vacating in a few days is in a small (28 unit) building. And the design is such that my front door is on a little balcony shared with three other units.
The neighbors in the three adjacent units (and much of the rest of the building — most of the tenants know each other at least a little bit, which is one reason I’ve liked it here) know I’m moving, either because they’ve seen me starting to carry things out and have asked, or because they’ve heard from others in the building who are aware of it.
They’ve asked why I’m leaving, and I’ve told them. (I’m doing my best to not buy into the idea of feeling ashamed or embarrassed about losing my job; I tend to think those feelings should lie with the people who wielded the ax.) As a result, I’ve learned that two of my immediate neighbors have also lost their jobs in the last couple of weeks.
This means three out of four the four units who share this landing have been struck by unemployment in a matter of weeks. I know there’s a healthy degree of coincidence involved there, but it’s also a pretty sobering reflection of the current state of the economy.