Career Damage

By Heather Won Tesoriero

He was known as the mayor. And when people needed something done in a pinch, they would often hear the refrain "Go see Carl." Carl Chambers, 56, worked as an elevator starter, someone who monitored the cars--and helped people if they got stuck--for 27 years at the north tower of the World Trade Center. His station was on the 78th floor, and his instinct to help kicked in when he exited the subway in lower Manhattan on Sept. 11 and saw the gray ribbons of smoke streaming from the building. "I have to go in," he said to a friend. "I know people in there. Maybe I can help." Instead he soon found himself running from hell, trying to escape the crumbling tower, his beloved workplace.

Unemployed for the first time in his working life, Chambers is among the 100,000 New Yorkers who lost their jobs as a result of the terrorist attack. The job market was unquestionably on a downward trajectory well before Sept. 11, with cascading dotcoms and stock values. The Labor Department announced at the end of October that 504,000 people filed for unemployment, the highest number in nearly a decade. With hundreds of the city's businesses in ruins, New York has become ground zero for joblessness.

People who are about Chambers' age, older baby boomers with lots of seniority, face the toughest market in terms of returning to work. Don Davis, vice president of work-force development for the National Council on the Aging, says, "This is a period when mature workers don't fare too well. Employers are not focusing on innovative work practices. It is very difficult for mature workers who are currently out of work to secure a job equivalent to the one they previously had."

For many people who held the same job for most of their working lives, it has been not only devastating to find themselves idle but also complicated to navigate the bureaucracy of unemployment. "Some have had to resort to filing for food stamps," says Ernesto Mora, communications assistant of Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ, whose 70,000 members included 2,000 who lost work after Sept. 11. "It's harsh for people who took pride in their jobs to find themselves suddenly pushed against the wall."

Chambers is trying to look in a different direction, largely because his options are limited; the additional five years the union was willing to add to his age put him at 61 and a few months. The minimum for retirement is 62. His first vocation was photography. Being out of work has resurrected his dream of returning to that first love. "I would like to take a refresher course now, while I still have my union health benefits," he says. His positive outlook is dimmed by the realities of basic survival. "I received financial assistance from the Red Cross to pay October's rent. I don't know where next month's rent will come from."

In addition to financial worries, the psychological toll of unemployment has set in. Elba Rodriguez, 52, a 25-year veteran cleaner at the Trade Center, wells up with tears when recounting her years on the 4:30 p.m.-to-12:30 a.m. shift, cheerfully doing the dirty work that many people shun. Rodriguez insists, "I cannot stay home. I want to go back to work. The World Trade Center was like my home. Everybody was nice to me."

As unemployment numbers creep up each week, some newly unemployed boomers who can financially swing it are reluctantly retiring. Oscar Peres, 58, never missed a day of work in his 28 years as a cleaner in the north tower of the Trade Center. It was the first and only job he has had since he came to the States from Honduras. Because his union is adding five years of service to its members over age 55, Peres feels retiring is his best, though not first, choice. "I feel very bad because I worked 28 years in the same place and I lost a lot of friends."

In an effort to assist the recently unemployed in their job searches, the City of New York sponsored two job fairs at Madison Square Garden. With employers ranging from Kentucky Fried Chicken to the Metropolitan Opera, organizers boasted 3,000 available jobs. One man fortunate enough to make it inside the pavilion (thousands were turned away) was Michael Wroblewski, 55, of Queens, N.Y., who recently became a grandfather. Wroblewski's employment hardships began in February 2000 when the economy started tanking, and have been constant ever since. First the pilot-training company where he had worked in accounting for 16 years laid him off. He was devastated. "I had acquired over 80 sick days. I was very loyal, and I loved my job."

Experts tell 50-plus workers to emphasize their reliability and experience. The downside: they may not be able to get the same salary and perks that their seniority once commanded. Wroblewski says he went through a cycle common to career people who abruptly find themselves out of work. "First there's denial, then the realization that it did happen, and finally depression." He limited his blue period to two weeks and then launched himself anew. Five months ago, he was hired in a temp-to-perm capacity at an insurance company. Right away, he found his rhythm. But two months ago, he was given the news that the entire division was being laid off. "I had the feeling of 'Why me? Why do I have to go through this again?'" At the Twin Towers Job Expo, Wroblewski, a man who genuinely radiates character, handed out resumes, shook hands and scored some interviews. Says Wroblewski: "They say my age is a disadvantage, and I can only hope that it's not."

Another hopeful seeker was Paul Piccolo, 51, a print production manager. Piccolo was told by a graphics employment agency that work was so scarce, members of the staff weren't sure whether the agency could stay afloat. "I've been on interviews where I was offered junior-level pay," says Piccolo, who is fully aware that he may be overlooked for people half his age who are content to live on ramen and brown rice. "I could lose everything I own if something doesn't happen."

Entrepreneurs who are faced with the task of letting employees go and watching their businesses decline in the wake of Sept. 11 have had the dual stresses of their own shrinking livelihoods and having to hand out pink slips to cherished employees. Joe Schramm, 48, founder of Schramm Telemedia, a sports-and-entertainment-marketing company specializing in international soccer events--a big deal in an international city like New York--had to lay off more than half his staff at the end of September. The company was organizing two Latin American tournaments in New York, from which it expected to earn the majority of its revenue. The teams decided the risk of being in the Big Apple was too great. The day Schramm sat down with his advisers and looked at his company's numbers, he wept. "My business is in shambles. It's very demoralizing to be 48 years old and have a nine-year-old company that's so suddenly in crisis," he says. But he is resolute. "I see myself as having no other choice than to pick myself up, dust myself off and move forward."