Silicon Alley Media, Inc. has beta launched businesssheet.com to "focus on the stuff you really want to read: scandals, lawsuits, deals, moguls, and the biggest names in business, from Wall Street to
Hollywood and C-suites in between." "We're still in beta, which means we still suck," warns the site. This past week they spared us "the biggest names in business" and played off a
New York
Post story to provide
"13 Tips For Dealing With Your Laid Off Friends." The
tips ran the gamut from the expected "Offer to brainstorm career moves, suggest informational interviews or review cover letters and résumés" to the sensitive "Treat them to a cup of coffee
or lunch" to the harshly practical "Don't loan money, especially if it will harm your own financial well-being." On the whole, a remarkably sweet piece of writing from the folks who make a living
ripping out your vital organs and eating them before your brain registers that you can't live without your heart or liver. But it misses a few additional pointers that could help you deal effectively
with your formerly employed pals. Just the kind of opening Over the Line lives for.
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Constantly reassure them that you are networking among your other employed friends trolling for job leads.
You know you're not and eventually they'll know you're not, but it gives you a couple of guilt-free months.
When jobs open at your company, patiently point out how your friend is not nearly
smart enough, socially skilled enough or--you know--hip enough to work there. They will never believe that part about how the salary isn't right for them or that they'll be working for a hard-hitting
dumbass. Solves the other problem about why you never invite them to your parties or to go out drinking.
Share your porn site passwords. There are just so many online job searches you can do in
a day. Kills time and motivates them to get back in the game. Everybody knows that fashion models have finely tuned internal systems (derived from Israeli military intelligence research) that can
deduce your bank balance from across a fog-shrouded dance floor --* two counties away.
Send them postcards from the Caribbean when you head out in January or February. It will let them know you
are thinking about them and sorry they too can't chill on the topless beach or languish in the warm tropical night over dinner and drinks until the disco opens at midnight. Do NOT talk about having an
orgasm that would cripple a charging buffalo--there is just so much punishment they can take.
Bring over your compressed gas and blast the crumbs out of their keyboards. You eat a lot of
cookies while you fill out online job applications.
Treat them like Ben-Hur's mother. Don't even breathe the air in the same room. If they head your way, cross the street or duck behind a palm.
If they can't take the hint and still try to talk to you, pretend how glad you are to see them and mention several folks you JUST talked to about them. Go so far as to ask for another electronic copy
of their resume. Say banal things like: "It's cold out there, I feel you, man." Don't believe that nonsense about how you can't catch unemployment from exchanges of bodily fluids or even a handshake.
You can and you will. Be vigilant.
Forget the fact that they helped you get your first job. That was then, this is now. Every man for himself. The pie is getting smaller. This is no time to put
your own income at risk by recommending someone who might not be up to the job. Besides, if they are out of work long enough, maybe you can get their rent-controlled apartment when they go back to
Ohio.
The story you have just read is an attempt to blend fact and fiction in a manner that provokes thought, and on a good day, merriment. It would be ill-advised to take any
of it literally. Take it, rather, with the same humor with which it is intended. Cut and paste or link to it at your own peril.