My Impossible Conversation With Rush Limbaugh

I listen to Rush Limbaugh. Not often, but occasionally. I don’t believe in virtually anything the ultra right-wing pundit has to say, and I think much of what Limbaugh says is built out of hate, ignorance, a ploy for ratings/cash, or all of the above. So, why do I listen to this man, and others of his ilk, who I so obviously share no political or cultural similarities with?

To see what the “other side” is saying.

To laugh at the stupid and bizarre things uttered.

To get away from crappy music on the radio and not have silence when I don’t have another option of my own music, podcasts, or an audio book.

To give my brain something to do in arguing back with the radio while I drive.

Mostly, it’s the last reason, because I often find myself having full-fledged conversations with people who aren’t there. I don’t mean that I have imaginary friends, but that I have pre-conversations (the kind you have before you have a real conversation with someone) or impossible conversations (the ones where you give your opinions to politicians, pundits, fictional characters, or annoying reality TV show people you’ll never meet). Today, I had an impossible conversation with Rush Limbaugh inspired by his spouting off nonsense about the economy, jobs, unemployment rate, and welfare. In reference to welfare, Limbaugh was specifically referring to food stamps and unemployment benefits. This is the point when my ire was raised. What follows is what I said, out loud in my car to myself, when I had my impossible conversation with Limbaugh:

Can I share something with you? A quick history of my job experience to explain something? I promise it won’t take long. I can? Thanks. Here it goes. I was a middle school English teacher for just under three years before moving away from the Gulf Coast of Mississippi due to Hurricane Katrina. Since then, I have worked myriad positions in a wide range of companies, from big to small and everything in between. In no particular order, I’ve worked full-time, part-time, contract, and freelance positions in marketing, advertising, and documentation departments with PayPal, Dell, textbook publishing company Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, an education software company, a short stint at an ad agency that may have been two of the most stressful work weeks of my life, and spent some time at a cultish real estate agency that tricked me into thinking it wanted to help out those dealing with foreclosures when it really just wanted to cash in on misfortunes. I also teach improv at a local theater for a small stipend. Oh, yeah, and I co-founded an online magazine about technology called Techcitement that I currently act as editor-in-chief of. Yes, prepositions can be the last word in a sentence and still be correct.

I’ve had two job interviews this week and more set to go soon, and I’ve had to do this because I’ve been unemployed for the last five months. My last employer canceled my position due to budgetary restrictions. During those months, I’ve had to use unemployment benefits to pay for things like rent, food, gas for my car, utilities, phone payments, and other necessities. I’ve also used the unemployment benefits to pay for the occasional non-essential items and nights out. Actually, I deem psychological well-being so I don’t dip down into depression over not having a job a necessity too.

So, don’t you dare sit there and tell me I’m lazy. Don’t you dare tell me I want to live off of unemployment benefits. Don’t you dare tell me I like “sponging off the government” or that I enjoy “sucking on the teat of America,” Mr. Limbaugh. Don’t you dare say I’m not trying to get a job. Don’t you dare say I wouldn’t take a lower paying position, when I get turned down for them because I’m overqualified. Don’t you dare say I prefer to get paid for doing nothing than having to work “a honest day’s wage” as I’m constantly looking for and applying for jobs that offer the latter.  Don’t you dare say that I’m unemployed simply because I’m a crappy employee. Even if I admit to past mistakes, I’ve been let go from more than one position in the last five years due to “budgetary restrictions” and downsizing.

Judging you by your words, you’re either ignorant or hateful. It’s a toss-up which is worse. However, you can decide to stop being either of those things. Being ignorant is simple to remedy. It only involves finding ways to be informed on the topics you choose to talk about and make decisions on. Multiple ways, too. Not just going to the same, one-sided sources for information or opinions. Hell, the fact that I listen to you shows how easy it is to find opinions that don’t normally match your own. Luckily for you, a way to remedy hate is similar to the way to remedy ignorance. Opening yourself up to differing opinions, experiences, and cultures can make you question yourself. And questioning yourself is a good thing, because that makes you grow as a person.

While I have your attention, Mr. Limbaugh, and thank you for being so kind as to not interrupt me as I say all of this, I’d like to make three more points.

1. Don’t you dare tell me I’m an exception to a rule. That I’m somehow different than the majority of other unemployed people. I’m not. There are people who abuse the system. There always have been and there likely always will be. They’re the exceptions to the rule, the odd men out, the minority. I dislike them as much as anyone else does, and you don’t have to be a member of any particular political party to find that behavior distasteful. However, there are scores of people out there who are qualified to do jobs I can’t. In fact, that leads to my second point.
2.  There are scores of people out there who are qualified to do jobs I can’t. Plumbing, carpentry, coding, nursing, electrician. I can’t begin to imagine how to do the type of work that many others do, and there are more of the jobs I can’t do than the ones I can do than I can list here. The unemployed is made up of skilled workers of all types, who desperately want to work.
3. The current hiring system is geared to not hire people. Let me give you a personal example. Recently, after having gone through two phone interviews with a rather large company, a human resources person said the department I was interviewing to be a part of was interested in me but had a specific question. They wanted to know what I did employment-wise after October 2009. This was an odd request because of two reasons. One, I don’t include months on my resume. I assume they pulled this exact date from my LinkedIn profile, which is fine as that’s why it exists. The fact that people at the company found my LinkedIn profile on their own was an eye-opener though. Two, my resume is a detailed account of my employment up to present day and is even broken up into sections for full-time, contract, and project work. So, with access to my resume and my LinkedIn profile, there shouldn’t have been any confusion as to what I’ve done since October 2009. Then, I deciphered the reason for the specific request. The job I applied for was a technical writer position. The job I had that ended on October 2009 was as a marketing/technical writer. That’s when I realized the only parts of my resume the people at this company had seen were the jobs that had the specific keywords its computer system found in my job titles. The experience I had before and after those jobs that didn’t fit those exact search parameters didn’t matter. This method obviously limits the number of applicants that make it through the first obstacle of having their resume seen by a human being and not a computer program. Not counting myself in this instance because I had just the right combination of words to get picked, many extremely qualified people’s resumes simply disappear into the ether due to this method. No, I don’t know of a better method for picking through what is likely hundreds (if not thousands for some jobs) of applications. This method clearly doesn’t work though.

Wow, Mr. Limbaugh, I want to thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak up. I thought for sure you’d shout me down or cut me off long ago. I’m happy to see I was proven wrong.

Hello? Hello? Er…. hello?

Oh.

Before hearing Limbaugh talk about unemployment on his show, I was preparing for a job interview while listening on my computer to local morning radio show hosts. The local radio show hosts quoted President Obama’s “You didn’t build that” line that the Mitt Romney campaign has taken out of context for attack ads. I was then immediately able to go online to FactCheck.org to read Obama’s speech for myself.

This isn’t about democrats, republicans, left-wing or right-wing politics, conservatives, or liberals. The spreading of disinformation due to ignorance, purposeful or not, shouldn’t be allowed and can easily be avoided. In this day and age of instantly available information, there’s no excuse for going uninformed on any subject you want to be. Don’t be the inexcusable.