The time I took a Government "Handout"

I got out of college (the first time) when I was 21. Unlike most students I had worked my ass off through school and a year later, I had quite a large savings in the bank and a good entry-level position in a good, solid company in purchasing which is what I wanted to do.

Then the economic reality that the company I was working for (a large Canadian department store) was run a bit ineptly by the kids of the guys who had done it for the previous few decades and I was laid off with a lot of other people.

No worries... I had some great job skills and my former manager said I did great work and could be a great reference for me.

I wasn't going to have trouble finding a job with my skills and connections and I was against "welfare" and "handouts" and people like me didn't collect unemployment. So I just lived off the rather large savings I had which was going to last me a few months and by then I'd have a job. (not a lot of 21 year-olds fresh out of college can say that. I wasn't irresponsible with my money)

Except I didn't get that job.

I wasn't the only one laid off and my short time at my previous job meant that I had less experience than the guys 10 years older than me got all the jobs I'd have been qualified to take.

So a few months later I had to eat shit and go to the unemployment office. I went in dressed like I'd be dressed for a job interview and the guy looked at me with disgust. I was a bit confused. He asked me a few random questions and found I hadn't been working for six months. He looked down his nose at me and spat "have you even been looking?"

When I explained that yes, I had but hadn't found anything that I'd qualify for but that my search continued, he looked at me again with a look of distain and said "well, this isn't just free money, you know... you're going to have to be looking for work and we're going to have to check up on you."

I told him that I hadn't worked in six months but that I'd supported myself on my savings BECAUSE I didn't want "free money" and that although I was young, I had held a job since I was 16 and had paid into the system that was supposed to be there for me if I needed help.

He begrudgingly handed me a few forms, told me I was going to have to wait 6 weeks for my claim to be processed and if I needed money in the meantime to go to Welfare and get an emergency check. While the idea was horrifying, I had spent every dime I'd saved, run all my lines of credit to their limits, sold everything I had of value and borrowed more from friends than I was comfortable with... AND I had enough food to get me through another day or two and my cat was out of cat food.

So I went to the Welfare office and I have to say it was one of the most humiliating experiences of my life. The way they looked at me - a well-dressed and clean guy - asking for a "hand out." It was awful. Now.. yes, I saw a few people walk in and get their checks that I thought looked like they didn't really need it and were totally capable of working. I caught myself judging them until I realized that I'd have thought the same thing about myself.

I got one welfare check. And was hired by another company the next day. I called the guy who'd interviewed me at the Unemployment office to tell him that I wouldn't be needing assistance and he said "I guess you just needed a bit of a slap with reality."

He was an asshole.

Quickly to end the story: I stayed in the corporate grind for years until one day at 32, my husband looked longingly at a Big-Screen TV (which in 2000 retailed for about $15,000) and said "why can't you buy this for me?" He was joking, of course, but I got a big sad as we moved walked past it.

I thought to myself "we deserve nice things, too" and realized that I was no better off or safer than I had been 10 years earlier... when the company I worked for got mis-managed by any idiot further up the chain, my lifeline would be cut and I'd be back at the welfare office being told I was lazy and asking for "free money."

Soon after my new plan was set and now I have my own business and I'm in control of it all. (and without government involvement making the internet accessible to all and overseeing online money transactions and regulating online piracy, I never would have been successful.)

The moral of the story is that not everyone who gets "hand outs" is a lazy person who hasn't worked or doesn't deserve it. Just like there are plenty of those "job creator" billionaires who took their big tax cuts and didn't create any jobs other than hiring a second massage therapist.