‘Running Into Walls’ : Accountant Weighs Options After a Year of Hunting for Permanent Work

Ed Scott never thought it would come to this. Not in his worst nightmares.

An outgoing Texas native with a fondness for gold Cross pens and other trappings of executive life, the Mid-Wilshire resident has been out of a permanent job for more than a year--and out of work, period, for more than a month.

“I went from a very secure type of situation into the real world,” he says. “I’ve been down in the pits.”

Scott, 45, has an impressive four-page resume: at least 10 years of supervising accounting systems and staff at hotels and other hospitality organizations, and stints as chief financial officer and controller of several major firms.

He is familiar with Lotus 1-2-3, D-Base and other accounting software packages. He has taught accounting at the college level. He has a Ph.D. in his field from the University of Illinois.

“I’m pretty flexible,” Scott says. “I feel that with my background, I should have been able to find anything.”

But he hasn’t. No matter how hard he tries, and who he calls, Scott says, his efforts have had the same effect: It’s like running into walls. It hurts, and it gets him nowhere.

“God,” he laments. “I’m a professional person. I spent years getting my degree. If this economy can’t hire someone like me, something’s wrong.”

Scott, who lives in a Reno Street apartment, has become an active member of the state-sponsored “Experience Unlimited” job club for out-of-work professionals on the Westside.

But, while he is making calls, interviewing and sending out resumes, Scott says his time and his money are running out. He has no medical insurance, and has put off spending money on car repairs and other minor necessities. So far, he says, he has been lucky that no major expenses have come up.

Now, Scott must make a decision: pour all his time and energy into looking for a job, or go to a temporary accounting agency and see if they can find him some work.

“That’s the kind of thing that will keep the rent paid,” Scott said of the temporary work, if he can find it. But a recent bad experience has made him dread the prospect of doing temp work again.

When his dream job as chief financial officer for a land development firm in Newhall ended in early 1990, Scott went to Accountants Overload, a Westwood temporary accounting firm. They placed him with a company that had just moved its operations from Georgia to Los Angeles and needed help getting its financial records in order.

Scott says he worked week to week, never knowing if he would have a job the next Monday. He ended up staying almost a year.

During all that time, Scott says, the firm gave him few responsibilities or challenges because of his temporary status. And he said the pay was so bad he couldn’t put anything away for the future.

People treated him differently, he says. It was as if they didn’t bother to get to know him or see what he could do. After all, as a temp, he might be gone the next day. Finally, the work did dry up, and the firm let him go.

It is hard being out of work or underemployed, but it will never cause Scott to lose his faith in himself, or his resolve, he says.