Dear Joe...

I think it all started to happen at that last interview. See, I'd been on about 9 previous interviews, and had been unemployed for months. I was at that point during your unemployment, where you start to begin to doubt yourself. What they don't tell you about losing your "stable" career, is the amount of emotional turmoil your life begins to get ravished by. First, you're happy right? This is the start of new, big, changes! Change is good! New chapter. Lunch dates with your girlfriends to discuss future plans over champagne. Beach trips to soak up the sun and finally get that much needed, undistracted vacation you'd been craving for years. Years that you gave up simple pleasures such as, sleeping in until noon, and disconnecting your work email from your cell phone so you don't have those moments of panic at 11 pm when you boss is frantically emailing you and you're just trying to watch the Eagles game with your friends. You finally get that tim...

We sat there. 23 black and Hispanic women, 4 white women, 3 men. Ages ranging from early teens, to late thirties. We all woke up, brushed our teeth, showered (well, most of us), maybe we grabbed coffee, maybe we dropped our kids off at school. We all had a morning before. And then we had a MORNING. A mourning. Once you got past the protesters telling you that you were basically going to Hell, a large man with a body full of tattoos ushered you in. Checked your name off of a list. Like this was an ultra exclusive industry night at Tao. But, you know,that was another life. In this life, you're herded in, branded, and stuck in the coop with the rest of the chickens. Or cattle. Or whatever animal gets tagged and tossed into an assembly line. Pig. We sat there, everyone carefully avoided eye contact. Everyone isolated by whatever mental hell they were currently trapped in. Staring blankly at everything and nothing all at once. A movie was playing in the background (white noise ) as ...