Unemployed, but not out of work

from Maine Today  By ANN S. KIM, Staff Writer
- June 29, 2009

Mainers use the freed-up time to toil as volunteers, retrain or help family. 

Jack Milton/Staff Photographer
Jerry
Dumont's hospitality consulting business is slow, so he's using the
time to volunteer at ReStore in Portland, an operation run by Habitat
for Humanity.




Jack Milton/Staff Photographer
Patricia
Washburn of Wells was laid off the same week her 80-year-old father,
Stewart, of Massachusetts, had a health crisis. She was able to help
him with his recovery and new living situation in Portland, including
setting up his laptop.

It was hard at first for Larry Tinsman to imagine that business had
truly dried up. As a courier driver, he had always been busy and could
work Saturdays for overtime when he wanted.

The layoffs finally came in February, and Tinsman found himself
without a job after 18 years with the company, Maine Overnight Air
Express, an agent for DHL. People he knew at UPS and FedEx encouraged
him to apply at their delivery companies, but it turned out they
weren't hiring.

"I always thought I could get another job in transportation, in driving as a courier," said Tinsman, 49.

The South Portland resident has since regrouped and is retraining in
a new field - medical billing and coding - and fixing up his home
between classes.

Tinsman is among the unemployed people who, stalled in a job search
and hungry to keep busy, are finding productive uses of their newfound
time. Many say they are volunteering with charitable organizations,
getting involved in political causes, learning new skills and spending
more time with family.

Tinsman enrolled in medical terminology and basic computer classes
through Portland Adult Education and will take more classes in the
fall. Making the experience even more interesting is that his
18-year-old daughter, Faith, is enrolled with him.

"I haven't gone to school since high school, (so) I wasn't too sure"
about returning, Tinsman said. "But we got into it and it was a lot of
fun. And taking it with her was fun too."

Patricia Washburn was laid off the same week in May that her
80-year-old father collapsed. Washburn had been working from her home
in Wells as an online community manager for a lawyers' social
networking site. Her father, Stewart, was living three hours away in
Massachusetts.

Washburn, 44, is glad she had the time to be with him. It would have
been more difficult if she had job responsibilities while he was in the
hospital and going through cardiac rehabilitation. She's been caring
for his house and finances, driving him to appointments and has moved
him to Portland, where she was already planning to move before her
layoff.

"I would have had to either take leave or probably quit," Washburn
said. "My dad is a wonderful person. I want to be there for him. I
would have had to rely on other people or pay other people to do a lot
of the things I had to do."

Washburn is also looking for work in the online world and is
considering going back to school to earn a master's degree in computer
science. In the meantime, her father, who had been working part time as
a banking consultant around New England, is edging his way back to a
more independent life.

"He's going to need some ongoing attention from me, which I wouldn't have been able to do if I was three hours away," she said.

Many people who find themselves out of work are putting their energy into volunteerism.

"Volunteering is a way to gain new skills, network," said Rochelle
Runge, a spokeswoman for the Maine Commission for Community Service.
"That's one of the reasons people do volunteering, to get new
experiences."

Jerry Dumont of South Portland has been volunteering four or five
days a week at Habitat for Humanity of Greater Portland's ReStore. He
accepts donations of building materials, fixes and cleans them as
necessary, helps customers and records transactions.

"It gave me an opportunity to work with the public and also work
with my hands, prepare and restore items. I think that's kind of
interesting. I enjoy the opportunity to recycle items - and it's for a
good cause," he said.

Dumont, 50, has been working in hospitality for three decades, much
of it managing hotels and resorts - including a stint for "Queen of
Mean" Leona Helmsley, the late New York City hotel operator and real
estate investor. He started his own consulting business for companies
that want to identify properties for acquisition and development, but there's little work these days.

"When the world is normal, I have much less time for volunteer
activity. But I've always had a passion for volunteer work," he said.

When Dorian Cole of Portland lost her job at the Alzheimer's
Association in Falmouth, she jumped into several volunteering
situations.

"I couldn't stand it, being home all day," said Cole, 30. "What
would you do, just keep hitting 'update' on (the employment Web site)
jobsinmaine?"

There's an element of doing anything and everything in some of her
volunteering work. At the Ronald McDonald House in Portland, she may
manage the front desk and prepare rooms for guests.

Cole is also able to put to use her professional experience in nonprofit fundraising.

She created a template for the Ronald McDonald House's electronic
newsletter and worked on the auction for the Cancer Community Center in
South Portland.

Cole is also doing data entry for Equality Maine in Portland. She's
motivated to keep in place a new law that allows same-sex marriage in
Maine.

Cole is serious about the cause, but she's having a good time too.

A big part of the experience is socializing with the other volunteers, some of whom are also out of work.

"We have a great time there," she said. "We get a lot of stuff done, and we're all talking about life."

Staff Writer Ann S. Kim can be contacted at 791-6383 or at: akim@pressherald.com