Paradise doesn’t always live up to the hype. * Adobe Stock Image 290598082

Gilligan’s Island and Unemployment Have a Lot In Common

A run-in with pirates amid the COVID cyclone dumped me unceremoniously on this lonely rock.

For nearly 11 months, I have been a castaway on Unemployment Island, longing to return to professional civilization. I could have never known that Gilligan’s Island, one of my favorite childhood shows, would so closely mirror my current situation.

Growing up in the 1970s, I watched reruns of Gilligan’s Island every afternoon. For the youngsters out there, Gilligan’s Island was a television sitcom that debuted in the late ’60s. The plot revolves around an oafish charter boat captain and his bumbling first mate taking a group of guests (a professor, a wealthy couple, a female movie star, and a country girl) on a three-hour tour of Hawaii. The Minnow gets caught in a typhoon, stranding the crew and guests on an uncharted island. Each episode chronicles the wacky interpersonal relationships of the seven shipwreck survivors trying to cope with the situation and return to their prior lives.

As a beach lover, the beautiful tropical island situated somewhere in the Pacific drew me in. I laughed at the antics of the castaways, especially Gilligan. I marveled at the Professor’s never-ending ingenuity and his ability to create just about anything, except a means for escape, out of coconuts, palm fronds, and bamboo. I rooted for the survivors to return to civilization though I thought uncharted island life seemed pretty good all told. That is until I became stranded on Unemployment Island.

A run-in with pirates amid the COVID cyclone dumped me unceremoniously on this lonely rock. I’ll admit my first few weeks involved a lot of weeping, gnashing of teeth, rending of cloth, and no small amount of anger. It wasn’t just the fact that I was cast-off and away; how it occurred deepened the wounds and intensified my reaction. Poor Robinson Crusoe’s meltdown as he surveyed his new life on his island in the Caribbean makes so much more sense now. It took a little time, but like Crusoe, my resolution to survive and thrive returned.

Many episodes of Gilligan’s Island deal with the grind of trying to get anyone’s attention. The Professor, Skipper, and Gilligan constantly devised means to contact the world beyond the island. They explored every conceivable method for achieving their goal, from watchtowers to giant signs spelled out in coconuts to bamboo antennas for their small radio. Life on Unemployment Island is no different. Sending resumes, applications, cover letters, and writing samples through the myriad of Internet job portals and company HR sites is comparable to stuffing notes in bottles and tossing them in the ocean. My observations indicate that both activities are equally ineffective though the latter is a bit more romantic.

Then, of course, there is the daily equivalent of tending the watchfires and standing lookout. Each day, I patrol the employment sites and LinkedIn searching for new openings or leads. Then there is ensuring all my professional profiles are up to date and that I am active on various social media outlets. Not to mention searching for more networking opportunities. I even went so far as to advertise my consulting services on the radio for a couple of months. This scheme was about as effective as the Professor’s plan to get the attention of Russian cosmonauts as they passed over the island while orbiting the Earth. The real difficulty in the daily rescue grind is combatting the feelings of futility as days progress to weeks and months with little or no return.

One of the recurring oddities of life on Gilligan’s Island was the parade of regular “guest stars.” The uncharted island had an awful lot of visitors for such a remote locale. One time a surfer rode to the island on a tsunami, another, a pilot crash lands in the jungle, and a submarine inadvertently surfaces in the lagoon on a different occasion. Each time hopes run high that rescue is imminent. Promises and assurances are made to the castaways by the visitors to either send help or return. The guest stars leave, and nothing happens. I experience networking in the same way Gilligan experienced guest stars. I regularly have meetings to discuss my situation and seek advice and assistance for escaping Unemployment Island. The visitors to my island are very supportive and encouraging. They want to help, but more often than not, they don’t have a solution at hand. I keep searching, hoping that the next visitor will be the key to my deliverance.

Tom Hanks was genuinely alone on his South Pacific island, forced to preserve his sanity by creating a personality for a volleyball. Gilligan and I are fortunate that both of us have plenty of unique characters with which to interact. Family and friends surround me. While my support system helps make the professional isolation bearable, it also increases my anxieties around caring for those closest to me. I have obligations and responsibilities, and I cannot meet those trapped on Unemployment Island.

Time here isn’t wasted. While I dedicate a portion of every day to securing rescue, time remains for activities and undertakings of substance. I spend meaningful hours with my small children, including coaching sports teams and volunteering at school. My father never had the opportunity that I have had to participate in the lives of my kids. Reading voraciously, listening to podcasts, and consuming Master Classes like potato chips fill the extra hours. “Someday” has finally arrived, so I am putting in the time and effort to develop my creative writing. To my surprise, a piece of microfiction I wrote was selected for publication in a magazine once headed by one of my literary heroes. The personal progress I am making is rewarding, but I need to return to professional civilization for many reasons.

Through this entire experience, I draw hope from the precedent set by other castaways. Crusoe, the Swiss Family Robinson, Tom Hanks, Gilligan and the survivors of The Minnow, and the crew of Shackleton’s lost ship Endurance all have one thing in common, each was eventually rescued. In the end, persistence, grit, luck, ingenuity, or perhaps a combination of the four will help me escape from Unemployment Island. In the meantime, I do what I can to tilt the odds in my favor.