He Learns How Easy It Is to Become Another Labor Statistic

Bill Fields is down and out in Woodland Hills.

He didn’t plan things this way. The low-down, no-good economy ripped the 46-year-old’s life apart like you would tear a sheet of paper from a loose-leaf notebook, crumple it up and chuck it into a wastebasket.

Fields wants to make sure that shot bounces off the rim. He wants to turn things around and get back to work. But March marks six long months without a job. And he is starting to wonder what it takes for a qualified professional to find work.

Not too long ago, this single father made $60,000 a year. He owned a home on a tree-shaded street in Woodland Hills. He traveled the world.

Then, last summer, he became another recession statistic--one of 682,000 workers nationwide to lose their jobs during 1992, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Fields was laid off from his job as a quality assurance manager for a Burbank company that makes aircraft landing gear.

No offense, his managers told him. You do good work, Bill. But you must have seen this coming for months, the way our industry is declining.

Since the recession officially began in July, 1990, more than 2.4 million workers have lost their jobs in America--one-third of them in California. In February, there were 8.9 million Americans out of work.

Now, Bill Fields feels the frustration of not being able to pay his bills, of swallowing the chagrin of telling his college-age daughter she’ll have to pay her own tuition this year.

“I feel embarrassed,” he says. “I no longer have the money to take care of the things I’m supposed to. I’ve never been in his situation before. Never. Ever.”

Slowly, painfully, the fall and winter marked the economic tailspin of a man who had always worked--including washing cars or packing groceries. This is the story of what 180 days--and counting--of unemployment has taught him about himself.

On Aug. 28, the day he lost his job, Fields learned how ruthless a recession can be. Like Michael Keaton’s character in the movie “Clean and Sober”--a cocaine addict who begs his parents to take out a second mortgage to subsidize his drug habit--Fields has since done things he previously could not imagine doing.

For the first few months, he aggressively solicited work as a consultant. But as he watched his savings account dwindle, Fields felt fear. His $230 weekly unemployment check only went so far with a $1,600 monthly mortgage.

He began looking for minimum-wage work in convenience and video-rental stores. An artist and photographer, Fields even approached a gallery where his work had been shown to ask for maintenance work.

He watched his neighbors troop off to work each morning, unaware of his plight.

Meanwhile, his art became therapy. One photograph, taken downtown, shows a traffic light blocking out the “S” in a gas station logo so the sign in the picture reads “hell.”

“I really love life,” he says. “I’m happy with who I am. I never invested my whole personality into what I did for a living. There was no identity crisis because I know I have nice friends and a dog who love me.”

But there were tough days. Like when he called his daughter, 19-year-old Jennifer, to explain that for the first time in her life, Daddy could not help. Or when he called utility companies and banks holding his car loan and mortgage--to say he simply could not pay his bills.

That’s when Bill Fields learned about grace. He learned how quickly his daughter could find a job to pay her own way. He saw creditors give him four months of leeway and wish him luck. And others who graciously extended his credit deadline for another 24 hours.

Once he even called the United Way to offer them a deal. After years of donating a portion of his paycheck, Fields wanted a bit of his money back to see him through the hard times. Some help, if you will, from those he’d helped in better days.

Nothing doing. The understanding folks explained that their hands were tied as long as he had money in the bank, he said. “It’s like a plane going down,” he says. “They can’t help until after the crash. Only then can they help pick through your wreckage.”

He went to lunch with Nick--a 10-year-old boy he was matched up with by a Big Brother program. “He was being real careful about what he ordered and I told him, ‘If you want a burrito, go ahead and get it.’

“He looked at me and said, ‘Bill, I know that money is tight with you right now.’ It was real touching. But it also hurt like hell.”

These days, Fields is still pounding the pavement, scratching for work like a dog digging for a lost bone. Being jobless has been an education.

“I realize that we’re all this close to losing the lifestyles we’ve worked so long to acquire,” he says. “We’re all just a paycheck away from losing everything. And feeling the powerlessness of watching it go.”

Sure, Bill Fields isn’t alone. There’s 8.9 million others like him.

He doesn’t blame his old bosses. He doesn’t blame the President.

He doesn’t blame himself either. He just wants a job.

He’s working on that.