"Then I remembered that President Obama was about to speak to banker barons assembled at Federal Hall, a few blocks away from my office," Jennifer continued. So she dashed into a drugstore on her way, bought a poster board and two markers and made her sign: "Laid-off today, 9:30 a.m. Hire Me (MBA)." She then climbed some steps behind the Hall's front entrance, where a crowd was growing. Obama, speaking inside the Hall, didn't get to see it, but the media did, and next morning there it was, the sign and Jennifer prominently displayed in both the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
Costa Rica RPCV Jennifer Flowers was "surprised but I had to laugh" to find she was among 12 employees laid off
Sunbeams: Making the most of losing one's job
By Harriet Ainsworth
Columnist
Posted: 10/09/2009 12:00:00 AM PDT
When I was told that after 2+ years of dedicated, productive employment that I was being laid-off I quickly assessed my options for how I would spend that first day. I knew that President Obama would be giving a speech on the state of the economy on Wall Street, the date marked by one-year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers. I decided that I wanted to be both positive and productive so I purchased a poster board and two markers. Leaning against the side of a building I wrote the words, "Laid-off today. Hire me". I then made my way into the crowd and held my sign high.
LAID-OFF LAMORINDAN JOINS OTHER "STARS" LOOKING FOR WORK: On Sept. 13, Jennifer Flowers was happily working at her office on Manhattan's Wall Street, beginning her third year as director of volunteer services at the Council on Accreditation, which evaluates and certifies international social services and adoption agencies.
At about 9:30 a.m. the next day, 41-year-old Jennifer - class of '86 at Miramonte High, UC Berkeley, an MBA from Arizona's Thunderbird Graduate Business School, then the Peace Corps in Costa Rica - was "surprised but I had to laugh" to find she was among 12 employees laid off. Jennifer describes all of them as "stars" in their fields of expertise.
"Then I remembered that President Obama was about to speak to banker barons assembled at Federal Hall, a few blocks away from my office," Jennifer continued. So she dashed into a drugstore on her way, bought a poster board and two markers and made her sign: "Laid-off today, 9:30 a.m. Hire Me (MBA)." She then climbed some steps behind the Hall's front entrance, where a crowd was growing. Obama, speaking inside the Hall, didn't get to see it, but the media did, and next morning there it was, the sign and Jennifer prominently displayed in both the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
I called her dad, Fred Flowers, an official arbiter whom has finished 30 marathons (he ran the New York Marathon with daughter Jennifer in 2002). He hadn't seen
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it yet, but his phone was ringing off the hook, because both of them are well known in Lamorinda for their running exploits.
On Tuesday, I saw a video interview with Jennifer and her huge chocolate schnauzer on CNBC's program "Faces of the Recession: Boom, Bust & Blame."
"There are so many highly trained people job-searching it seems like now is the time to find the job you trained for so long, and really want, so as to make a difference," Jennifer said she and her colleagues feel now.
Right after being laid off, "I turned to a former colleague whom I knew firsthand to be an expert, and we started discussing how we could help others while benefiting from their skills and experience," Jennifer said. "I'm preparing a Web site as well as opening an account with Twitter."
In the meantime, Jennifer is busy with informational interviews and attending workshops in her field; Monday and Tuesday she spent at the World Business Forum at Radio City Music Hall, and when I talked with her Tuesday afternoon she had two of the winning networking sessions planned for Wednesday and Thursday nights. See this attractive, accomplished lady yourself on CNBC's Web site: www.cnbc.com/id/33071877
