WHITLEY:
For the newly unemployed, trying not to worry is a full-time job.
COMMENTARY
Jacky Holland’s recent trip to Italy was coronavirus-free. When she got safely home, the pandemic caught up with her.
“I got the call,” Holland said.
It wasn’t from her doctor. Her boss called to say coronavirus had killed Holland’s job.
Thousands of Central Floridians have received similar calls in the past couple of weeks. Most of the layoffs have been in the tourism and service industries, but Holland’s call shows how almost no job, no household, no grand plan is safe from COVID-19.
Holland worked for RedTeam, a company that provides software for construction projects. Holland managed client accounts, but new accounts suddenly dried up.
“Construction came to a halt, and all those companies canceled,” Holland said. “They didn’t have any new business coming in.”
For the first time in her adult life, she’s out of work.
“It’s very weird,” Holland said. “You just sit back and wait, you know. But what are we waiting for?”
One piece of advice: Don’t wait for someone to answer the phone at the unemployment office. The Department of Economic Opportunity has had an 800% jump in calls this month.
“Trying to get ahold of someone is crazy,” Holland said.
As frustrating as that is, she knows she’s luckier than many of the 3.3 million Americans who filed initial unemployment claims this week. Holland has enough savings to get by for a few months.
Her survival instinct is also coming in handy. Holland’s family immigrated to the U.S. from Brazil when she was 4 . She fell in love young and had her first child when she was 16.
Holland’s husband died 10 years ago. She was 31, with four children. Angelica was 14, Patrick was
12, Julia was 10 and Emma was 4.
“It was tough,” she said. “But, I don’t know, I guess I’m self-made.”
She didn’t go to college, but she’d worked for a CPA and had a knack for numbers. That led to a career as a project engineer for construction companies.
She and her two youngest daughters lived in a townhouse in Dr. Phillips until last summer. That’s when an idea hatched that made perfect sense at the time.
Holland’s three older kids were in serious relationships. Why not get a big house and all move in together?
Holland bought a 7-bedroom house in Winter Garden. All her children live there now, along with one girlfriend and two boyfriends. Everybody agreed to pitch in with the $2,500 monthly mortgage.
It’s like a Gen-Z version of “The Waltons,” the 1970s TV show in which a multigenerational family of 10 lived in one house during the Great Depression. Only at 41, nobody would mistake Holland for Grandma Walton.
“I feel so blessed,” she said. “My kids are like my best friends.”
She took a new job with RedTeam in December. Things were going so well she went ahead with a long-planned trip to Florence, Italy, at the end of February.
The museums were great. She became a huge Michelangelo fan. Nobody could know that Italy would soon lead the world in coronavirus deaths.
Holland got home and picked up where she left off.
“Then all hell broke loose,” she said.
This was not supposed to happen, not at this point in her life.
“I felt very secure,” she said. “I thought I would always have a position.”
Now she’s worried about having a home.
Julia’s boyfriend got laid off from his restaurant job. Patrick’s girlfriend quit her job as a waitress out of fear of contracting coronavirus.
Julia, Angelica and her boyfriend, George, work for Tijuana Flats. Business is so bad, they fear for their jobs more every day.
There’s one more thing. “I’m going to be a grandmother!” Holland said.
Yes, George Jr. is due to arrive April 15.
His soon-to-be grandmother is still getting up at 5 a.m. to do yoga and prepare for the day. But the days are nothing like they used to be.
“It’s boring, lots of coffee,” Holland said. “I’ve been submitting resumes and looking for jobs like crazy.”
She’s on employment search websites like LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter and CareerBuilder. Some let clients know when a prospective employer has looked their resume. A company did that this week.
“I’m like ‘Yay, I got one!’” Holland said. “But I’m just one out of many.”
Like everybody else, all she can do is wait and hope and try not to worry. That’s suddenly become a fulltime occupation for millions of people.
It might be the hardest job they’ll ever have.
“I’m trying to stay positive, that’s the one thing I’ve always done,” Holland said. “But in the back of my mind, I’m like, ‘What am I going to do?’”