Things Are Tough and Getting Tougher

If you bother to check the references of one Michael Timothy Manning, you will find at least one person, and probably more, who would describe him as “very cheerful, very professional and courteous.” Competent, knowledgeable and enthusiastic are words that also come up. He is, I was told, “a team player.”

I wanted to check this, because the first time I chatted with Mike Manning he didn’t sound cheerful or courteous at all. He sounded angry with the world.

Manning called me Monday morning to react to my column on Sunday that described the outpouring of generosity for Mary Barbucescu. She’s an unemployed Romanian immigrant whose picture appeared in this newspaper a few days earlier, showing her tearful reaction to the news that the cost of a monthly bus pass had gone up from $42 to $49. She needed that bus pass to look for a job. Several readers moved by her plight have since sent her money.

Manning churlishly suggested that people might want to send him money, too. “I don’t like to sound like I’m whining,” he said, “but. . . .”

*

Manning’s message for Mary Barbucescu was: Hey, things are tough all over. He talked about what it’s like to be a 46-year-old guy who a few months ago was laid off from his mid-level aerospace job and can’t find work anywhere.

He let it drop that he’s a Vietnam veteran too, with a couple of purple hearts and a bronze star. Yet after sending out hundreds of resumes and sitting down for scores of job interviews, he’s living off unemployment checks and food stamps--”the most demeaning experience of my life.” All that work--and nothing to show for it.

Well, maybe not quite nada. These words mark the second time in recent days that Mike Manning, unlike most of the jobless, has succeeded in attracting media attention to his problem. Last week, Manning sent out news releases alerting the media that he’d be passing out resumes on Prairie Street in Chatsworth, which, not coincidentally, is the address of the Valley Edition of The Times. He held a large poster: “Free Resumes--Please Take One.” Fox News bit on that one. Now I have, too.

Maybe Manning’s boorishness over the phone was an act to pique my interest, but I don’t think so. More likely he was just venting frustration. In person, he turned out to be as friendly, courteous and cheerful as references claim him to be. And he was forthcoming too. Three years of sobriety, it seems, has helped Manning better understand the fix he’s in.

His resume doesn’t describe a paragon of stability, though Manning says he’s never been fired. He listed six jobs since 1979, most recently at Bell Industries. His specialty was working in electronic marketing and distribution. He was there for seven months before being laid off in September. Before that, he worked most of 1993 as a directory-assistance operator for Pacific Bell. Like many who take that job, he burned out.

The years between 1987 and 1992 are not explained, and therein lies a tale.

It started when Manning, then living in Dallas, learned that his elderly parents had each been stricken with Alzheimer’s disease. Manning, an only child, went home to Illinois and cared for them. His mother died after two years and his father after three.

With some inheritance, Manning moved back to the Los Angeles area. With some of the money, he started a business, but it flopped. Mostly, “it was party time,” he says. He rented a house in Northridge and indulged his fetish for big, fast “muscle cars.” He started a business, did a lot of entertaining--and a lot of drinking.

When his money was gone, most of his friends disappeared. There was at least one notable exception. That was the roommate who pulled him out of a running car parked in a garage that was filling with carbon monoxide.

*

Between age 20 and 43, “I was at the same level of emotional maturity,” Manning says. Around his neck he wore a pendant with the Roman numeral II, signifying two years of sobriety. Last month, he marked his third anniversary.

Back at his North Hills home--now Manning rents a room from a friend--he showed me the classified ads he’d clipped that day. He showed me his latest unemployment check. Like thousands of others, he’s found that looking for work is a full-time job.

What Manning understands is that for each opening there are scores of candidates every bit as qualified, if not more so, than he. He has been told he is overqualified for some jobs, and senses that his age is a strike against him.

And perhaps their records aren’t quite so checkered. “I’m picking up the tab for some bad actions in the past,” he says.

Soon, he may get a better understanding of Mary Barbucescu’s plight, because he figures his car will be repossessed. Frankly, he shouldn’t have bought it in the first place. It’s a ’72 Pontiac Grandville with a monster engine capable of doing 150 m.p.h.

It gets eight miles to the gallon--not the ideal car when you’re looking for a job.

*

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to Harris at the Times Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth, Calif. 91311. Please include a phone number. Address TimesLink or Prodigy e-mail to YQTU59A ( via the Internet: YQTU59A@prodigy.com).

*

More Scott Harris

* A collection of the most recent columns by Scott Harris can be found on the TimesLink on-line service. Sign on and “jump” to keyword “Harris.”

Details on Times electronic services, B4