“I don’t know how that works”

I hadn’t eaten lunch and walked over to the local Subway to pick up a late-afternoon sub yesterday. It was around 3:30, so I figured it’d be a quick in-and-out. Unfortunately, it wasn’t or else I wouldn’t be telling you this story.
In front of me were three younger guys, all jumping between speaking Spanish and [...]

Looking for work: a report from the front lines of life

I got one of the nicest compliments I have ever received the other day when a friend told me, “If someone like you got let go, I’m worried about myself.” It meant a lot to me, but honestly, I’m a normal guy like anyone else…I just happen to be good at a certain set of [...]

Coming Home

I moved to Manchester in June of 2001, a fresh-faced kid a year removed from college who left to chase ‘the dream’. I was 23 years old at the time and no idea what I was doing, just that I wanted to leave Maine and try something new. But a strange thing happened along the [...]

Swallowing the unemployment pill

“We’re going to have to let you go.”
This is one of the worst sentences you can ever hear in your life. One day, everything is going great at work. You’re in the routine, making things happen, enjoying a steady paycheck and then just like that, your green field of grass turns brown. The sun hides [...]