Nate Doggy Dogg Has to Get Himself a Jobby Job

There is a good reason that people get unemployment after getting fired despite our country being incredibly harsh on workers. With bosses it’s a different story but there is a widespread belief, even among a horrifyingly vast percentage of the working class, that capitalism is a sane and fair system that rightly rewards the rich while punishing the poor for not having more money, power or opportunities. Yet even we acknowledge that getting fired in a capitalist society can be a deeply scarring, even traumatic experience and that after getting unexpectedly relieved of their job workers might need a little time to recover, to lick their wounds and re-gain their confidence. 

That was me back in April of 2015 when I got laid off for the first time in my adult life by someone I long considered a best friend and invaluable mentor. 

I was depressed. I was dispirited. I was crushed. Everything that I had clung to desperately over the course of my career was gone in an instant. The most important relationships in my life and career became former relationships it made me sad to even think about. 

Overnight, I went from seeing myself as a company man who would always need the security and stability of a full-time job with benefits to thinking of myself as someone who might never be able to secure full-time employment ever again. 

I figured that I would give myself a little time to recover and heal and then I’d get back into the game and start looking for work as a film critic. 

That was over eight years ago. I’m still looking to get back into the game. 

When I was laid off from The Dissolve I was fortunate in that I had a name and a body of work and a following, albeit modest. 

I was able to leverage everything I had accomplished over the course of my eighteen years in the business into a series of ongoing columns with some pretty big names and sites like Rotten Tomatoes, The A.V. Club and TCM Backlot. 

At one point I had somewhere in the area of 12 to 14 ongoing columns that collectively paid me about what I made as a staff writer for The A.V. Club and The Dissolve. 

I figured I would be okay as long as all of my columns weren’t cancelled. Then, over a period of about two years every single column I was writing was either killed or the site I was writing it for went out of business. 

Every last one. TCM Backlot was the last to go, and my wonderful editor there Yacov was kind enough to let me re-run all the work I’d done there on my site and in The Fractured Mirror. I would be even more screwed if I did not have an angel like Yacov in my corner. 

When I started my own website in 2017 the goal was always to make it financially sustainable. I LOVE running my own website. I love the freedom. I love the control. I love the community that has grown around this silly site. I love you guys. 

So it has been incredibly frustrating watching this site that I love, and that represents all that is good about me and my career stubbornly refuse to grow beyond a size that is just not sustainable. 

I’ve given this site my everything for six long years. Six years of never making enough money have put me in a massive hole that I now need to get out of. 

To that end I am looking for a job! In my field would be ideal but I’m open to anything: part-time, full-time, contract work, consulting. 

I am a man with two exceedingly expensive, complicated and wonderful neuro-divergent children and my need to provide for them is more important than my ego. 

I would be more than willing to work for the kinds of sites that I have parodied here at the Happy Place. The idea of a regular paycheck and benefits is INCREDIBLY appealing to me.

Nate Doggy Dogg has to find himself a jobby job. Or freelance work! Anything, really! I just want some day for my wife to be able look at me with pride instead of disappointment.

I have a lot to offer. I’m hard-working, have at least some talent and have what I can safely say is a unique and impressive skillset. Lots of folks are struggling and looking for jobs. Fewer can say they’ve spoken at the Juggalo March on Washington, spent a weekend as the guest of Robert Evans, done 13 episodes of an AMC movie review show hosted by an Academy Award winner or written multiple books with, or about, “Weird Al” Yankovic. 

Of course I would love it if I was able to make enough money from my five core businesses—Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place, Nathan Rabin’s Bad Ideas, the Travolta/Cage podcast, the books I put out under the Declan-Haven Books imprint and my freelancing for Fatherly—to get by but that hasn’t happened yet and may never come to pass. 

I’m officially putting my shingle up all over again. Nathan Rabin, Writer for Hire. Contact me at nathanrabinauthor@gmail.com and let’s get into business together! 

Check out The Joy of Trash: Flaming Garbage Fire Extended Edition at https://www.nathanrabin.com/shop and get a free, signed "Weird Al” Yankovic-themed coloring book for free! Just 18.75, shipping and taxes included! Or, for just 25 dollars, you can get a hardcover “Joy of Positivity 2: The New Batch” edition signed (by Felipe and myself) and numbered (to 50) copy with a hand-written recommendation from me within its pages. It’s truly a one-of-a-kind collectible!

I’ve also written multiple versions of my many books about “Weird Al” Yankovic that you can buy here:  https://www.nathanrabin.com/shop 

Or you can buy The Joy of Trash from Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Joy-Trash-Nathan-Definitive-Everything/dp/B09NR9NTB4/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= but why would you want to do that? 

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