Job Hunting Idiocy, part three

Welcome once again to another episode of Job Hunting Idiocy. 

Today's topic: How to deal with former colleagues who continually check in with you?

In the year I worked at ABC Engineering, I made friends with a few guys.  As most people know, there are "friends" and then there are "work friends".  Work friends are the people you gripe with, go to lunch with, maybe sip a few beers with, etc. 

Two weeks ago, I was unexpectedly thrown under the bus and left without a job.  My work friends are still there, still drawing paychecks, while I spend my days sending in resumes and writing blog entries.  Good for them, I guess.  Not so good for me.

One of my work friends insists on emailing or calling me nearly every day. 

He thinks he's being funny with one-liners like:

    "Man, it must be nice sleeping in every day.  Wish I could."

    "Now that's the life - send your wife to work and sit on the couch all day long."

Or sometimes he tries a different tactic: telling me how rotten the office morale is.

    "You're so lucky to be gone - I fucking hate it here."

    "Everyone's complaining - it's not the same since you left."

What he fails to understand is that I don't want to hear it.  There's very little that's funny about being unemployed.  While I certainly don't miss dragging myself out of bed and going to a job I hated, it still paid the bills.  Sure, I had already begun looking before I was fired, but as the old saying says, "it's easier to find a job when you have a job."  Now I'm unemployed, and every day that goes by widens the gap on my resume and deepens the hole in our checkbook.

I realize I'm no longer trapped by the misery of a lousy job.  I realize my buddy thinks he's trying to cheer me up, let me know he sympathizes, and so on.  But enough already.  I know how bad that office can be, trust me. 

It's a chapter of my life that I want to close.  Hell, it's hard enough to go on job interviews and make the best of it when describing my former position.  I don't want to be constantly teased, nor do I want the constant reminders of how rotten things are there.  It may be rotten, but that paycheck sure helps mask the odor.

If my former colleagues want to cheer me up, they'd call and tell me other things.  Like how the asshole project manager who fired me has contracted a painful, disfiguring, and ultimately fatal disease.  Or that the feds raided the office and frog-marched the management team out in handcuffs.  But no - instead they tell me that the same fucking morons are still employed, still in charge, still coated in Teflon, still driving their luxury cars.  And I'm still on the couch, still sending resumes out into the ether.

I realize I'm still very angry, but I don't think I'm wrong by saying, "I don't want to hear it."  You're more than welcome to disagree. 

In the next installment of Job Hunting Idiocy, I'll look into the anti-worker, pro-business "employment at will" laws that allow your employer to terminate you at any time, with no cause whatsoever.