No Job? Become A Comedian
CHICAGO (WBBM) - Some comedians joke about the in-laws, growing old or politics. Marc Mulvey jokes about life after the pink slip.
Hard times seem to bring out the jokes for Mulvey, who made his first stab at being a comedian as he stumbled through a divorce more than a decade ago, and again when he lost his job as a production engineer.
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He says that his full-time "job" most recently has been sending out his resume online, by the hundreds.
"Then it just seems to disappear, out into the ether," he says. "You get to the point where you get excited when someone e-mails you back saying, 'No thank you ... You do exist. I've heard you. I don't like you, but I've heard you.'"
He said he has worked hard to develop his "elevator speech."
"In 30 to 45 seconds you have to introduce yourself and tell them who you are and what you're all about and what you can do for this next company," he said.
Mulvey said that his current wife began to manage him after she lost her job. He said desperation shows sometimes when people look for work, and said that sometimes it's so comical when he looks back that it provides some of the grist for his hour-long routine.
He performed Friday night at Harper College, in Palatine, as part of a unique career transition networking event. He has taken his routine on the pitfalls of the search for a job on the road throughout the Chicago area and the greater Midwest, including Zanies comedy club in Old Town.
Actually, Mulvey has "a real job" for the moment -- contract work that began two weeks ago.
"You never know how long one of those is going to last, though," he said, and so he keeps adding to his routine.
