The stench of failure

I've noticed something since being out of work. As the office was shutting down and I was on my way out, a lot of people said they were sorry to see me go. "Make sure you keep in touch!" I collected email addresses from lots of them. So from time to time I've sent email to one or another -- most especially after I started a professional blog under my own name. "See this silly blog I started? What fun, eh?" And reliably, what I hear back are ...

Nothing.

Crickets.

And still nothing.

Who all have I contacted in this way? Let's see. There's been ...

• the guy I described here as "my only real friend from work" (but I don't think I ever gave him a name for this blog)
• Hil
• Elly
• Bill
• Frank 
• and I count at least five others, none of whom I've bothered to mention here.

From Bill and Frank and one of the other guys, I got a brief one-line reply. Also from my friend at the top of the list. When I asked my former manager if I could use him as a reference, he replied right away "Yes, of course." But when I followed up by thanking him and sending some general conversation, ... nothing. I've gotten a couple of short notes from a former employee, mostly when I am congratulating her on some accomplishment I've recently heard about. 

You know who I have heard back from? People who no longer work there. 

• There's one guy who lives in the same town I do. We worked together quite a bit, and when I was first looking for a new job I saw one that might have worked for me but was a better fit for him: I told him about it, and he got it. We've exchanged a few emails, and we've gotten together for dinner twice. 
• There's another guy who was never really friends with me, though we got along just fine. But he contacted me a month ago because he realized in his new position that the company needs someone who does exactly what I do. So ... am I available? (I've told him sure, let's talk.)
• And a couple months ago I saw some news in LinkedIn about the former Regional President in my area, so I sent a note to Kathleen to ask for more details. At that point she was one of the very few people I used to know that I had not yet contacted. I got a long reply, which told me that (among other things) she was leaving the company and moving across the country to a place maybe two or three hours' drive from where I live right now. We've sent some more emails back and forth, and I think we are going to have coffee some time next month.

Why the discrepancy? What am I seeing?

At some level it's just that "work-friends" aren't real friends. You get along together because you have a common task and you basically like each other, but there's no real engagement with each other at a personal level. But I think there's a little more to it than that. If I were to have estimated how close I was to the "real friend from work" above, or to Hil or Elly, or to my former employee, I would have thought that I was closer to any of them than to, say, Kathleen. But she wrote back and they didn't. It's possible that I was simply wrong in what I thought about our respective friendships. But I think there's another factor too.

I think one factor is precisely that I'm unemployed.

And I think my very unemployment frightens people. How does it look to them? I send a chatty email, light-hearted and not very informative, maybe telling them about my blog. And then what? Isn't it possible that they are just a little bit afraid to answer? If I say something to Hosea, if I encourage the conversation, he's probably going to hit me up for job advice; or he'll try to use me as part of a networking chain. That's what all the job-hunting counselors out there tell you to do. Or maybe he'll start sobbing on my shoulder about all the bad luck he has had in interviews. And look how long it's been already. [I had been unemployed already for six months when I contacted some of these people, and nearly a year when I contacted others.] Why isn't he working yet? Is there something wrong with him? Is it ... contagious, somehow? Will his clammy desperation rub off on me if we get too close? And really, we weren't actually all that close anyway ... were we? I don't have to reply, ... do I? Of course Hosea's a nice guy and all, but how much do we really have to talk about? Of course I really should answer. I don't know. Maybe I will. Anyway, I'm busy right now. I'll think about it tomorrow.

Maybe I'm wrong. But I think there's something about the unemployed that is just a little bit scary to the still-employed. That's why I could connect with the guy in the same town, because he was laid off before I was. The fellow who wants to hire me was laid off on the same day I was. And Kathleen is quitting of her own volition, because she wanted to move to be close to her family and they wouldn't let her work remotely. So she's no longer invested in it.

I think that when people see an email from me show up in their Inboxes, they smell just a whiff of the stench of failure. And they'd rather not have to deal with it.

Kind of like in this wonderful cartoon that I posted -- gosh, it looks like ten years ago.