 |
By Jane Han
Staff Reporter
The faces of his two little boys were the first things one 36-year-old small business worker, who didn't want to be named, thought of when he was permanently dismissed from work last month.
Having been let go around midday, he contemplated for a few minutes whether or not to go straight home, where his kids would've been overjoyed to see their father early. But he decided to take some time alone and contemplate his situation.
``It was a sudden rush of news to absorb. My whole world had just turned upside down,'' the freshly laid off man wrote in his personal blog under the alias Four-leaf Clover.
He described his immediate flood of emotions as ``a mixture of regret for not working harder, fear for my family's future and utter disappointment.''
But taking them all in, he killed time until the evening, wandering the streets and stopping by the neighborhood billiard house he frequented with friends after work.
``The owner gave me a weird look, as if he knew why I was there at such an early hour,'' said Four-leaf. ``It might have been just me, overanalyzing, but I left out of discomfort.''
After thinking again and again, the former trade firm employee said that he decided to put his ego and fear aside and tell his wife.
``It was painful to hear the words come out of my mouth, but a relief to have her stand by my side,'' he wrote in his entry, dated Feb. 8.
And since then, the blogger has started to keep a public record of his plight and the quirky experience of living as a jobless husband and father.
From applying for unemployment compensation for the first time, doing household chores and cooking dinner for the family, to taking care of his four- and six-year-olds alone _ the entries are chronicled with his personal accounts, raw and real.
The postings attract more than 13,000 daily unique viewers, many of whom share the same story as the pink-slipped writer, but others who envy him for being open to his family.
``I wish I had the guts to come clean to my family,'' said one writer who commented pn Four-leaf's blog. ``I'm running out of places to spend my long, eventless day.''
Another writer, a soon-to-be father, said that he is in a more dire situation, with a baby on the way.
These bloggers are probably among the small newly laid off crowd who recently said in a survey that they are hiding the news from their family.
Online job portal Career said, Tuesday, that a poll of 440 dismissed workers showed that 20 percent of them are opting not to tell the truth.
More than 60 percent said a fear of causing worries was their No. 1 reason, while others said they simply didn't know how to bring up the topic, were humiliated or didn't want to get nagged at.
And among those who've been secretive, almost 50 percent said they'll continue to keep the reality to themselves.
Unemployment counselors, however, say this is an unwise method of crisis management.
``It's better to accept the reality as quickly as possibly, inform family members and get all the support that's needed,'' said Kim Ji-ae, a counselor at the Layoff Counseling Center.
She said the introduction of job-sharing is helping to minimize layoffs, compared to the mass job cuts witnessed during the currency crisis a decade ago. But she stressed that ``a large number of smaller firms are still resorting to layoffs for quick fixes.''
jhan@koreatimes.co.kr
