"funemployment" series: Mary Ferrara

Dear Capitalism. Your system is failing. We are sick of eating corn, and we are sick of... oh shit. You took away my job. NOW it's personal. Now as an individual starting to collect unemployment (two years ago my on-again off-again funemployment relationship started) first thing people say is "What a great opportunity for a new career! Now you can try things you weren't going to before, don't worry the right job will find you! Go on vacation! Start a new hobby! Clean out the Garage! RAH, RAH!"

yeah, right.

Today was a long day at the Career Center for me. Luckily I had been exchanging emails with Mary about her story for my Blog. I tell you subscribing to "The Secret" as I do, these emails came at the perfect time. All the bitterness I was feeling towards my own situation dissolved a little after I learned about Mary taking her capital to the American Career Institute to learn about Digital Media and Audio and Visual Editing. (they have all these deals right now where the state will pay for your training! So get on that if you are before your 15th week in to unemployment insurance! Yeah they didn't tell me either!) Mary was so excited to start the program right away and not wait for them to help pay. She's been paying for a lot of it herself (with a little help from Mum, whom Mary has a very reciprocal support relationship with) and I couldn't help but be excited for her!

I first met Mary on one of the 48 hour Film Challenges as an Actress in "The Pitch" our 2007 LTJFilms submission. Fortunately she was a fine artist too. As the Art director, when I asked Mary to be "doing something" at her desk since I ran out of time to fully decorate her character's cubicle she drew an AMAZING cat. To which she replied "well, I DO have a B.A. in Art History" SWEET! Cha-ching! Her real life Cha-ching gig was not a creative job, which she wanted. She is going to keep building up her portfolio and even get certified in a few programs; she really doesn't want to get an uncreative web production job again. Even if she has to temporarily work retail full-time while she does these things. I hear ya sista.


Mary also had something else nagging at her besides lack of a career with a creative flow. Ever get that gift that goes viral when you were a kid? Everyone SEES that you have a Barbie, so everyone BUYS you a Barbie... and you don't necessarily like Barbies? Well something like that happened to Mary. But let it be known MARY's dolls were several notches above a Barbie, Franklin Mint value and above even.

"My father would buy me these dolls that I never asked for, and I always wanted to take vacation time to put them away but I never did. Now I have about 40 some-odd in storage" Time off offered her the "new opportunity" to successfully get them in storage, so she can move on. She doesn't not like the dolls, she is planning on getting them insured and hopes to sell them off someday, she says when she's elderly. Forty of anything is lot in your closet. ( I know. I HAD 40 pairs of shoes, all gone now thanks to selling them off, giving them away... etc.)

The creative flair of her forced vacation besides school was that in her time studing she was chosen (from an open call) as an extra in a major film. "I was chosen to be an extra in that Tom Cruise film [Knight and Day], now I didn't end up being in front of the camera but my car did, it was parked between Tom and Cameron's cars after they finished their big car chase scene on the top of a parking garage. I got to watch them film up close too! And of course I got paid. Not too shabby, anyways I nicknamed my car Ginger (she was the movie star in Gilligan's Island also she's sort of a gingery color)." You can make a good $250 a day if they are using your car as a picture car! (Note to Jess: I wish I had made that much, was less than $100. Note to Mary: WHA? Those cheap... anyways)

As she starts a new year and a promising new journey to a more fitting career, her story gives me hope that ONE of those 50 people in the Career Center with me today, also get to have that cliche come true. I'll be looking for her car's name in the credits of "Knight and Day." I'm sure Ginger can't wait to get her IMDB credit page started. Looks like Mary should take some Agent classes too.