Hard times drown out holiday

The government building exuded ick, all gray and glassy, with a small crowd of unfortunate souls hovering at the locked front door.

It was 7:30 a.m., the day before Christmas, 36 degrees outside, when the security guard opened the door at the Nevada JobConnect offices on Maryland Parkway.

"I've been here every week since last August," said Frantz Max Gedeon.

Gedeon is 65 years old. He said he was a security officer until he got laid off in the summer of 2008. He gets a little bit from Social Security, and so does his wife, but she recently had major surgery. Neither of them is working.

Gedeon carried with him a beat-up manila envelope, stuffed with his resume and a glowing letter of recommendation from his former employer.

After something like 65 weeks of looking at the job boards every week, sometimes twice a week, there is nothing.

"I think my age is my problem," he said.

His unemployment extension runs out in a month, he said. After that?

"I'll be out in the street," he said.

Christmas holds no special place, not this year. He said he and his family -- he has two grown kids who live with him -- are probably going to have to eat hot dogs for Christmas dinner. They have nothing else.

Except hope.

"I always have hope," he said.

Larry Raybuck seemed on the verge of losing his.

Raybuck is 49. He said he's a journeyman carpenter and a bartender. His recent work history seems like a tragic comedy.

A few years back, he was bartending at the Frontier. It shut down.

Then he was bartending at the Stratosphere, but new owners took over, and he was out of work again.

He got a construction job working on Echelon Place, but that project shut down in 2008 because of the economy.

Next, a construction job working on Fontainebleau, which ran into all kinds of financial problems. Raybuck lost that job, too.

"So I'm like, 'What the hell?'" Raybuck said.

He said he doesn't do drugs. Doesn't gamble. Wants to work. But there's nothing out there.

He thinks maybe people aren't hiring him for the few jobs that are out there because he's 49 years old, and that seems too old for them.

He said he applied at CityCenter, got so far as a couple of interviews, but no luck. No job. He's been there since it opened, and noticed that all the employees seemed younger than him. That makes him angry.

"Rookies," he said.

He showed up at the JobConnect offices Thursday because he's trying to get his unemployment extended, but there's some sort of snag. You can't get through on a cell phone, he said, and he can't afford a landline at his house anymore. But you can get through if you use the phones at the JobConnect offices.

So that's how he spent the morning of Christmas Eve.

Al Hansson is another guy who's looking for work. He pored over the job listings on the wall Thursday as he told his story.

His most recent job came after trucking school, where he heard promises of big paydays.

Instead, he said, he got paid $15 to drive a truck from Illinois to Fargo, N.D. That won't pay the bills.

"I was mad," he said.

He lost his house, his car, his motorcycle. He and his wife are separated, he said, and he's living with his mom. He's 42 years old.

"I've been working since I was 14," he said. He wants to work now. He was hoping to line up an interview or two later on Thursday.

Christmas? Doesn't even register.

"It's hard times out there right now," he said.

He said he used to be in the Army National Guard. If he can't find a job, he might try to sign up again, even if it means going to Afghanistan.

"Don't want to go into battle," he said. "But ... at least you get paid."

Contact reporter Richard Lake at rlake@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0307.