No Job, Almost Homeless, What's A Guy To Do?

[Mrs. Sharon B. Hodge]

No Job, Almost Homeless, What's A Guy To Do?



Buddy, can you spare a job? Paul Nawrocki pounding the streets

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Wearing 'almost homeless' sign
jobless executive's bid for work brings echo of Great Depression
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Daily Mail UK
By David Gardner
Last updated at 8:47 PM on 10th December 2008

http://www. dailymail. co. uk/news/article-1093638/Wearing-homeless...

It is an enduring image of the darkest days of the Great Depression - jobless men so desperate for work that they roamed the streets as living billboards

Now the unthinkable has become the harsh reality once more as America suffers another deep recession

After nine fruitless months of looking for work, Paul Nawrocki decided that desperate times required desperate measures

So the 59-year-old businessman swallowed his pride and took to the streets of New York wearing a suit, tie and sandwich board that read: 'Almost Homeless. Looking for employment.
Very experienced operations and administration manager

'Desperately seeking full-time employment with insurance benefits. For self and family.
Disabled wife on 15 medications

'Request a copy of my resume.
Any kind of help would be greatly appreciated'


Desperate: Depression era

The sight of a bespectacled-executive down on his luck has struck a chord with passers-by and he has had several interviews from people who took a copy of his CV

But he has had no joy in finding a job

His nine-to-five efforts advertising himself have made him a minor celebrity, with spots on CNN and articles in U.S.
newspapers

'People can be very warm here when they see that someone is genuinely vulnerable,' said Mr Nawrocki, who was made redundant from his toy company job after 23 years as an import manager

'I've seen a lot of people look at me and get scared, too.
Not of me, but you see it in their eyes

'They are thinking, "Could it come to this? Could this be me someday?"'

Mr Nawrocki, who has a 22-year-old daughter just out of university and lives in Beacon, New York, made a salary of 'almost six figures' in his old job but has spent almost all his savings

'My unemployment benefits are going to run out in less than a month,' he said

'I was getting a little panicked and didn't know what to do'.