Survival Jobs You Never Thought You'd Be Thankful For

Nov. 26, 2009 — -- A year ago, Fred Telmanowski wouldn't have dreamed of entering the pet waste removal business. Then his employer of 30 years sent him packing with only three months' severance pay.

"I had just financed three college educations and three weddings," said Telmanowski, an insurance brokerage executive making six figures. "I was desperate."

Today, Telmanowski is not only thankful for his new job running the Baltimore franchise of DoodyCalls, a national poop-scooping chain. He's reveling in it.

"My family and friends were far from thrilled," Telmanowski said of his decision to buy the business this fall. "But I felt liberated, challenged and ready to prove that I could make this pooper scooper thing work."

Chances are you know someone like Telmanowski: The real estate agent next door who hasn't sold a home in a year and now drives a school bus to make ends meet. The friend laid off from his bank manager job who now subsists on a hodgepodge of handyman gigs. The cousin who had her hours at the software company slashed and now sells organic fruit at the local farmer's market for extra cash.

The Department of Labor doesn't track the number of laid-off or underemployed workers who've landed in a survival job they're wildly overqualified for. It does, however, report that there are 3 million more involuntary part-time workers in the country than there were a year ago. In total, that's 9.3 million part-timers who either have had their hours cut or can't find a full-time job.

Some might regard the odd jobs today's displaced professionals take as turkeys. But $100 says those relying on survival work to keep a roof overhead count their paychecks -- no matter how small or sporadic -- among the list of things they're grateful for this Thanksgiving.