How not to re-enter the Workforce

It's hard to believe that it's been 7 years since I've last posted, but there's so much pansy-assery going on, sometimes you just need to call it out. I don't even know where to start. Let's start with this article at Vox. It starts off sympathetic enough:

I’m 47 and I’m unemployed. I’ve been in and out of work for seven years now. This latest stint without steady work has lasted for almost two years. After submitting what feels like hundreds of applications and going through multiple five-hour interviews only to be rejected, I am plagued every day with the fear that I’ll never find a full-time job again.There are many men out there like me. 9 million prime-age working men in our country are out of work. 7 million of them have stopped looking for work completely.

I've been there and it sucks. I was single when it happened to me, and he has a wife and kids. It's demeaning and a feeling of helpless not to be able to take care of them:

Every day I go without a job widens the looming gap of unemployment on my resume. While my family is managing financially due to my wife’s job, the stress of uncertainty has taken its toll. The sense of shame, that I’m not providing my family like I’m supposed to be, continues to deepen. 

So of course he starts doing everything in his power to find a job - like working on his resume, improving his job skills, going door to door to companies and selling himself... Um, no. He does exactly what you expect someone who writes for the liberal site Vox to do - waste hours on Twitter:

I wake up, crack open my laptop fully intending to spend a day applying for jobs and sending reminder emails. That’s when the distraction starts. I promise myself, just a quick glance at Twitter to see what’s going on in the world, and then I look up and it’s 1:15 in the afternoon. Twitter is my heroin — it’s endless content, and if I’m bored by one tweet, I just go on to the next one... I’ve become incredibly well-read on the election, spending hours tweeting with strangers about esoteric political topics. I’ve started reading books about economic theories to help me better understand my daily news reading. 

He also waxes poetic about his constant layoffs when he was working. Perhaps it's this lack of focus that is preventing him from holding on to a job. He even bemoans his lack of skills in the current IT environment. But instead of bettering himself with training and books related to his career (which are free at the Library BTDubs), he spends his money on therapy. But this is the kicker:

Sometimes when [my wife] comes home from work, stressed by a bad day at the office, she sees me sitting on my computer in the living room and tells me she’s jealous that I get to stay at home all day. I tell her that she’s the lucky one, waking up and going to an office that needs her, taking home a paycheck for her efforts.... I’ve taken on way more cleaning, cooking, and chore responsibilities since I’ve been not working. I’m not really any good at it. 

She's subtly telling you to get off your ass and get a job Punchy. But at least he's found the time to do some of the chores in the middle of his Tweeting. What a swell guy!