Unemployment and Enlightenment at Barton Springs

THE FLY IN THE COFFEE SHOP buzzed around me: insistent, relentless. I swatted but it returned, greedy, its feathery little legs seeking anywhere it could find on my warm, very much alive body. But was I, in fact, dying? I couldn’t tell. Finding another job felt like a fight for survival, and the fly’s persistence made it seem as though I was losing that fight—that soon, I’d be a stiff corpse.

I sent another job application into the yawning abyss. Thirty-plus submitted with no interviews to show for it. Tabbing over to LinkedIn, I braced myself. In all my time before being laid off, LinkedIn was nothing more than a Facebook clone to use with coworkers, a site I rarely ever checked and didn’t care about. In the spring of 2023, though, after a series of downsizing, cost-cutting tornadoes had ripped through the US workforce, scrolling LinkedIn was like riding in a helicopter to survey the damage.

Comments from the recently unemployed were everywhere. Most of their posts started with a sheepish, bemused acknowledgment of the loss (“Whelp, it happened…”). Many referenced or even directly tagged former coworkers that had been laid off as well. Some used distant, corporate-friendly terms like, “I was part of a reduction in force,” as if they couldn't see through the traumatizing nature of what happened. Or maybe they were trying to stay in the good graces of corporate America. Or maybe it was both.

Either way, the hashtag #OpenToWork was prominent, along with a banner you could use to underline your profile photo with a green stripe. It seemed like every other face I saw on LinkedIn had that green stripe. I had mine on, too. When I and almost ninety of my coworkers were reeling from the loss of our jobs, the solidarity of the green stripe seemed like it might give us some power. But after a few weeks, it was pitiful, as ineffective as an umbrella turned inside out by a gale-force wind. We were all shuffling around aimlessly, holding our spindly little wires and tattered fabric, hoping they might offer some shelter against the torrential rain.

* * *

Unless you’ve been laid off before, I don’t think you are ever fully prepared for what you lose. Before it happened to me, I thought about a layoff as some brief, minor inconvenience, like a cold. You’d shake it off and recover in no time. No one had ever seized me by the shoulders, panic in their eyes, and screamed, “No! Don’t you understand, you fool? I’ve been laid off!” I never got the impression from anyone that it was something to be overly alarmed about.

But the reality is that with the loss of a job, you don’t fall into a safety net of unemployment. You are dumped unceremoniously into a societal trash compactor, one that you have to scramble to escape before you’re crushed alive like that one scene in Star Wars.

For people who are lucky enough to have severance pay, there’s a long chute leading to that compactor, so they have a little time before they’re in immediate danger. In my case, it was more like a trapdoor opened beneath me. I was laid off with no severance (severance being something I had always assumed was a given with a layoff) and my health insurance ended immediately. My final paycheck was even shortened by over a thousand dollars, cooly calculated to the precise number of days I actually worked, which felt judgmental and punitive, as if I’d chosen this outcome.

But what was worse was that in the days after being laid off, I realized I had zero education on the actions you need to take when unemployed. I thought I’d just get a check from the government. I didn’t know that unemployment came from taxes an employer paid, not anything I’d already invested my own tax money into. Or that after applying for unemployment benefits, I basically had a series of ongoing homework assignments to complete if I wanted to get access to any money.

As I trawled the Texas Workforce Commission website to find all the rules and the penalties for not following them, all of my blithe, wildly inaccurate assumptions about unemployment slowly unraveled.

For example, I always assumed that after my (unfortunately hypothetical) severance pay ran out, I’d be able to receive unemployment benefits that were roughly equivalent to what I’d previously earned. Surely, I thought, I could keep going for a while because the government would know how much I earned and would help me out accordingly.

In hindsight, this is laughable. Unemployment in Texas is capped at $563 per week, which ended up being (after taxes, of course), about 33% of my former income. Even before taxes, that wasn’t enough to pay my bills (my rent alone being almost $1800).

After swallowing that oversized and incredibly bitter pill, I thought, You know what? That’s ok. If I work a part-time job, I can scrape together the remaining cash I need, and I’ll be all set.

But the walls of the compactor got closer. Unemployment benefits are reduced by the wages you earn, and they stop altogether if you make over a certain amount of money. As the Texas Workforce Commission’s site so logically spells out:

You may earn up to 25% of your Weekly Benefit Amount before we reduce your benefits for that week. If you earn more, then we will reduce your benefit payment by the amount that is over 25%. If you earn more than your weekly benefit amount plus 25%, we cannot pay you benefits for that week.

It felt like some haughty schoolmarm had rapped me on the knuckles with a ruler for not knowing the answer, and then when I finally found it, she smacked me again for not doing so quickly enough. I did the math several times until I fully grasped that there was simply no way I could completely support myself with unemployment benefits and part-time work.

Don’t get me wrong: I was certainly grateful to have anything provided to me at all. And I could see why there are rules and regulations in place to prevent the system from being abused.

But in the anxiety and stress of losing so much so quickly, my brain could only narrow my options down to two: find another full-time job as quickly as possible, or die.

* * *

But first, there was trauma to process.

Within hours of being laid off, I met up with some of my coworkers at Central Machine Works. In fact, the meetup was planned in the Zoom chat of the layoff call, which felt surreal and absurd, like we were in a Monty Python skit.

I flashed two peace signs to the group, hands high in the air like I’d just hit a home run, and people clapped as I sat down at the table. There were about a dozen of us, all smiling and cracking jokes about what just happened. That night, the adrenaline was overriding the cortisol. We were angry, confused, and shocked, but more so elated to be let go from a company that had unfortunately been crumbling.

It was a warm but comfortable May evening, the blissful period before the severity of an Austin summer reached its full power. There was a palpable energy, with all of us together. We bought each other beers and talked about the bullshit we’d endured. We laughed raucously until someone said something too sobering and real to laugh about. But then someone would dispel that silence with another joke, and the cycle started again. At times it felt like a bachelor party, and in other moments we were like escapees of an apartment fire, huddled together and wondering where we’d go next. We needed tequila shots, and we also needed firefighters to wrap blankets around us.

One inevitable question circulated around the table as different combinations of people moved around to talk to each other. It was one many of us were not prepared in any way to answer, but we talked about it regardless:

“So, what are you gonna do next?”

I sat with the question for a minute. My friend Benito was the one asking, and my first instinct was to think about him. He was a handsome guy, with a kind face and a flashy smile. We used to always joke and compliment each other about our fashion sense in the office, trying to keep up with one another. But now there was a real competition. Remote work afforded us, in theory, opportunities for jobs anywhere, but how many of us would be applying for the same jobs locally? Many of us had the same or similar roles, in the niche industry of book publishing. How would almost ninety people all living in the same place find their way out of that? Who might get a job over someone else?

I stumbled through some generic response, something about taking a little time that week to relax, and then getting started with applications the next week. I really didn’t know what to say. Many of us were setting aside the daunting, uncomfortable task of rebuilding our lives to the distant and vague “next week.” This gathering was, after all, a goodbye to some degree—hours before, we were coworkers. After this, we’d all scatter, not sure where we’d take root next. Part of me didn’t want to talk about what was next because there was a layer of grief bubbling up to the surface. We all had to confront the fact that the place that had brought us all together was now gone.

“Yo, look,” Benito said, nodding to my left. On a large projector on the stage behind me, Raising Arizona was playing. It was the scene where John Goodman’s character emerges from the mud, having just escaped from prison and screaming cathartically into the pouring rain.

“That’s me right now,” Benito said, grinning.

I laughed and watched in disbelief as the camera closed in on Goodman’s face, slathered in mud, roaring at the sky. It somehow articulated the absurdity of this all, and the primal release we needed.

Then he reached into the mud and started pulling up someone by the foot.

“Yo, yo, that’s me grabbing you, bro!” Benito slapped me on the arm, bouncing in his seat, laughing. Goodman’s character hoisted his cellmate out of the mud with one hand, still screaming, as the other man coughed and gasped in the fresh air.

“I got you, bro, I got you!”

* * *

Benito’s encouragement and the prison escape scene lingered with me for several weeks. In a city like Austin, there’s a current of social energy that runs through it. People want and need to talk and hang out with each other here. Even if (and especially if) they all just got laid off. It was no coincidence that I’d made more friends in this city than anywhere else in my life. So intuitively, I understood that my relationships here would help me find a way through the fog of unemployment. The temptation to put ascetic restrictions on socializing (because I was afraid I couldn’t afford it, or I felt guilty about it taking up time I could spend doing more job searching) was there, but I knew that would wind up being its own form of prison.

This was not easy. There were plenty of moments where steel wires of anxiety wound around my chest, where the possibility of falling behind on rent and running out of savings seemed very real. And my first instinct was to consume myself with job hunting, to fire off applications like the opening salvo of some blitzkrieg war campaign. Aggressive action seemed like the most attractive and likely solution. But for the sake of my mental health, there was no way I could keep that up without something backfiring.

So I went out. I worked at coffee shops, even though I was embarrassed about someone walking by and seeing my “Unemployment To Dos” spreadsheet. I hung out at my friend Andrew’s pool, keeping my voice down when cute girls walked by so they wouldn’t hear me say the “u” word and look at me like an ugly, jobless monster. I saw my friends play music at Mozart’s, writing in my journal as the sun went down, sorting through complicated feelings of remorse, confusion, and uncertainty.

I even made time for new experiences, like an unforgettable night at Sahara Lounge. Gradually, I realized that embracing the unpredictability was ok—in fact, it was necessary in order to shake off the feelings of unemployment shame and make the most of what is truly a unique and rare experience. I was no longer plugged into the corporate working world, with all the responsibilities and focus and lifestyle choices that it requires. I now had an opportunity to look at myself and my life through a different lens, one I hadn’t had since I was 16 years old—the last time I’d ever been without a job. I was once again free and uninhibited (at least as much as an adult with bills to pay can be free and uninhibited). Making time to thoughtfully consider my life and my goals became paramount, and one place that became an unexpected source of enlightenment was Barton Springs.

* * *

Some of you might think Barton is touristy. I certainly did. But because I thought Barton was touristy, it was ironically new to me: I’d only been to Barton once or twice in my four years of living in Austin. Plus, when I had a job, my almost Catholic guilt about work meant that a break in the day for Barton was unthinkable—there was no way I could truly relax. I would just be pushing off work until later, making my day longer and ultimately more stressful.

But now, with no schedule at all, an entirely new way to live a single day of my life seemed possible, one where I could bask in the sun at 10 AM on a Wednesday morning.

Driving up to Barton Springs for the first time as an unemployed, unencumbered man, I thought I would be the liberated one, free from my work chains and able to roam wherever I pleased. I grinned to myself at the thought of parking being a breeze, since it was, after all, 10 AM on a Wednesday morning. Maybe some old-timers or college kids would be there, but in general, it was going to be wide open.

My grin faded as an encampment of parked cars came into view. The lot was jammed full. I drove almost all the way to the end of before I miraculously found a parking space, and I checked the calendar on my phone to see if I’d missed the fact that it was holiday or that some event was happening. But there was no holiday or event. It was just a Wednesday.

I paid for my ticket and headed down the steps, taking a long walk across the northern side of the pool. Across from me, a swimmer arced through the water in steady rhythms. A little boy tromped along the edge, squealing and pointing at his parents. A couple hugged each other. An old woman eased herself into the frigid water.

I started to feel silly. Had it always been like this? Everyone was just hanging out. It was so ordinary—it felt like I was just popping into the grocery store, not sneaking off to play hooky at the pool. Was I the only one just now realizing that I didn’t have to make work the center of my reality?

I had my eye on the grassy hill of the south side, where people were sunbathing. Although there were job applications to send that day, my plan was to start with some relaxation and reflection on my life. It felt odd, putting something existential at the top of my priority list instead of something tactile and practical like a job application, but I knew it was important to try.

Just then, from behind a tree on the hill, a topless woman emerged and began walking down toward the pool. I jolted back a step and looked away, as if I’d walked in on her in a dressing room. Jesus! I stared at the ground for a few seconds, embarrassed, until I remembered that it was perfectly ok to be topless at Barton. This was natural. Her nipples had as much right to be out as mine did.

As I climbed the hill and saw even more toplessness, the false-alarm panic faded and a sense of freedom grew. People came here to relax, to be unburdened. I just had to reconcile that such freedom could exist at a time when the corporate world expected you to be present. But Barton, it seemed, was a reminder that the corporate world was just a construct we’ve made up. Life as God intended was all around me.

I spread out my beach towel and thought about what I’d normally be doing if I still had a job. It seemed absurd. Why on Earth would I open a spreadsheet at this time? Or answer emails from people I’ve never met? Why was I conditioned to clickety-clack some numbers and letters on a keyboard all day, sending snippets of data via satellites or undersea cables or other invisible things, repeating that cycle over and over in order to earn imaginary income represented by numbers on a screen and a piece of plastic?

More importantly, how could the loss of my ability to do any of that work possibly, in any way, hurt me?

For the next couple of hours, I read a book and listened to some music. I thought about my goals and desires, about what had felt good in my life over the last several years versus what didn’t. I stared at the sky or the grass beside me and sometimes, briefly, thought about nothing. Was it entirely serene, devoid of any concerns about my responsibilities for that day? No. Of course not. But it was a shift in perspective, a way to put something simple and natural at the forefront of my day, instead of relegating that to the margins. And that felt revolutionary.

* * *

Of course, it’s easy to throw my hands up and say work is pointless and we should all get naked at Barton Springs. But that’s not what I mean. Although many types of work are more abstract and complex now, work obviously still plays a vital function in society, and always will. There are many, many careers that are not faceless, inhuman clickety-clacking on a keyboard. And aside from its many issues, I actually considered the job I’d been laid off from to be one of the most meaningful ones I’d ever had.

But as I came back to Barton Springs many times in my few months of unemployment, I reflected on what a special place and time I was living in, and how I’d lost sight of some very basic humanity lately. Floating in the cool waters, with the tops of The Independent and Sixth & Guadalupe peering down at me, I realized that Barton itself is a perfect example: a slice of spiritual wilderness right in the middle of a modern, rapidly growing city. The skyscrapers represented work, progress, technology. They were watching, and they weren’t far away. But the people around me, relaxing, playing, talking, connecting—that was the true wonder that I had been missing, simply because I was too preoccupied with things I thought were more important (i.e., spreadsheets and emails). And it wasn’t limited to just Barton Springs. There was something special everywhere I went in Austin, and it had been that way for the entirety of my four years here. All I needed was a forceful reminder of that, which the layoff ultimately proved to be.

If unemployment taught me anything, it was how to hold on to certain things more loosely. Money comes and goes. Jobs come and go. You can grind yourself into dust trying to optimize your finances and career only to find out those things are transient, subject to external forces you can’t control. And I’d argue that life only becomes more difficult the more you try to control it. I knew through the countless conversations I had with my friends and family, though, that the relationships in my life would be a bedrock of stability no matter what. Only by accepting and embracing that fact did the fear and scarcity mindset about what I’d lost or what I might find in the future start to dissipate. As long as I showed up for people like they showed up for me, I’d be fine. I wasn’t going to die jobless and alone. I’d find more work, and I could trust that the relationships I’d built would support me in that. In the meantime, Austin was still here, as it always had been, and there was still creative, social energy for me to tap into and make something out of.

So, thanks to Barton, I got inspired to start this magazine. The Austin Bluebonnet is meant to explore life in Austin and the everyday magic that I think takes place here all the time. I have met too many special people and seen too many beautiful moments of creativity and weirdness to not share them with this community. As long as Austin is around, I believe that will always continue. If I can spread awareness about what makes Austin special and hopefully learn something in the process of studying the people and culture here, then I’d consider that an accomplishment. And I know there’s a lot to learn from this city, because I’ve already learned so much myself.

Like, for example, how to sunbathe at 10 AM on a Wednesday and not give a damn.