t h e g a z e t t e · montrealgazette.com · S a t u r d a y , July 19, 2014B2 sec t ion

B2 a weekly look at the city we live inmtldiary@montrealgazette.com MONTREAL DIARY

QuotesThINgs

ThEY sAID IN MONTREAL

ThIs wEEk

saturday

vIEwfINDER: Lachine Canal, ThuRsDAY, 6:32 p.m.

Allen McInnIs/THE GAZETTE

Gen Larocque strikes a difficult pose during a yoga session in the park along the Lachine Canal near the Atwater Market.

JuLY 12“It’s not a good feeling coming in here and losing, believe me, or walking around the streets of Montreal when you lose games like this.”

– Montreal Impact manager Frank Klopas, after the team’s 2-1 loss to Kansas City.

sundayJuLY 13

“The town is living beyond its means with all these new develop-ments. People don’t come to Lac-Mégantic to shop, and everyone seems to forget that there are only 5,000 residents.”

– Sylvain Gilbert, president of Groupe Action Mégantic Inc. speaking on Quebec investing an additional $60 million in compen-sating and rebuilding the down-town area.

MondayJuLY 14

“We already have water under every single street: we wanted to give people access to it.”

– Alexandre Joyce, who worked on the design of the fire hydrants in the Plateau doubling as water fountains.

TuesdayJuLY 15

“Any time that you have a holiday, a period where there’s more people on the road, there’s going to be more collisions and more crashes,”

– Paul Leduc, head of the Sûreté du Québec’s road safety division, reminding drivers to slow down during the busy summer construc-tion holiday.

wednesdayJuLY 16

“These aren’t great statistics, we want to see things change.”

– Gisèle Jolin, president of the Syndicat des professionelles et profesionels municipaux de Montréal (SPPMM). Nearly a third of the managers hired by the city of Montreal in 2012 weren’t prop-erly vetted, according to the union representing 2,000 of the city’s white-collar workers.

ThursdayJuLY 17

“I put my confidence in people and some of them betrayed my con-fidence. It wasn’t for the money because you don’t go into politics for money.”

– Former mayor Gérald Tremblay, in an interview with the Catholic radio station Radio Ville-Marie.

fridayJuLY 18

“I know the atmosphere will be amazing no matter what.”

– Eugenie Bouchard, on support she’ll be getting from fans, dubbed the ‘Genie Army’, at the Rogers Cup next month.

MArIssA MIller

SPECIAL To THE GAZETTE

Young crossing guards char-ging children a toll. Backtalk during a job interview. Ask-ing customers at a fast-food joint to make their own bur-gers.

Millennials having a tough time entering the job market might find some laughs — and some comfort — in a sa-tirical web series created by Montrealer Daniel Harroch.

The Unemployables docu-ments the trials and tribula-tions involved in landing, and keeping, a job. The ser-ies unearths a new life stage called “unemployedhood,” where childhood has been put to bed and adulthood (often defined by steady em-ployment) is out of reach.

These five- to 13-minute vi-gnettes, which can be found on the UnemployedTV chan-nel on YouTube, are equal parts crass and insightful in their look at young people’s unemployment angst.

Harroch, who lives in Côte-St-Luc, drew from per-sonal experiences, lending the series a bleak yet all-too-relatable subtext. The venture was also a means of creating acting work for himself and co-producer/co-star Jason Szwimer, a fellow Montrealer.

A recent Statistics Canada study, titled Unemployment Dynamics Among Canada’s Youth, indicated that a sig-nificant proportion of un-employed youth are people trying to enter the labour market, most often after com-pleting their education. In

2012, the unemployment rate of those aged 15 to 24 (14.3 per cent) was 2.4 times that of those aged 25 to 54, the big-gest gap recorded since 1977.

The StatsCan study also pointed out that one in four millennials (defined as people who were born be-tween 1981 and 2000) settle for jobs for which they are overqualified.

Harroch, 25, said he felt pressure from his parents to find stable employment when all of his friends start-ed doing “cool business-y things after graduation.”

In the web series, the duo float between odd-end jobs, playing exaggerated versions of themselves and appearing particularly incompetent for comedic effect.

Getting interviews isn’t the hard part, thanks to their friend Ben (Kevin Shustack), a job-placement agent who at one point is far more inter-ested in an In Touch feature on Justin Bieber than talk-

ing to Dan and Jason. It’s the inability to abide by the elu-sive and unwritten etiquette for job interviews that caus-es trouble.

While their friend is help-ful in their quest (Ben: “How

would you guys like to work for a culinary gastronomic industry?” Jason: “I’ve al-ways wanted to go to space! This is perfect!”), Dan and Jason are ultimately left to fend for themselves on “the streets” of Côte-St-Luc.

One would expect the odds to be in their favour, with the pair aiming for entry-level positions. But while apply-ing to act in a commercial, for example, the secretary asks them if they have the lines on them or need a copy. “We have our lines. Horizon-tal, vertical,” they retort.

On their first shift at a bur-ger joint, a patron asks for the two-for-one special. “Let me just confer with my man-ager,” Dan says, glancing at his equally inept counter-

part. Jason replies: “I think that’s the one where they said it’s a burger for him, a burger for us, and he makes both.”

It’s difficult to sympathize with the duo when they make Beavis and Butt-head look well behaved, but their behaviour prods at a real in-nocence many of us embody early in our careers.

No great tale about job hopefuls comes without ri-vals. Tyler Lemco and Alex Perrault, of Epic Meal Time fame, play the Bluetooth Brothers, who try to foil Dan and Jason’s efforts. While also unemployed, they don suits and wear “Blueteeth” to pretend to be accountants. As the stakes get higher, the “associates,” as they call themselves, get more com-petitive.

The Unemployables sheds light on both sides of the coin: recent grads who can’t land a gig, and those who miraculously have it togeth-er, as demonstrated by Ben. While this 20-something professional may seem es-tablished, he (spoiler alert) gets fired, proving no one is truly safe.

The best part for a group of young adults who had not yet landed steady employ-ment? The series was cre-ated for zero dollars.

“The idea was for the ser-ies to double as an experi-mental project,” said Har-roch, who is now working as a full-time actor.

“I wanted to see how far I could go without relying on money. I find that these kinds of limitations force you to become more creative and enable you to find alternate ways to achieve the same goals.”

Unemployables create own work

#mtlfriday challengeEvEry wEEk wE chal-lEngE our Instagram followErs to show us a slice of their Montreal. The theme for this week’s challenge was “beyond the doors.” We asked our followers to open up the doors and show us what’s outside, or inside! This photo by @trontelljordan is a fantastic catch. Follow us on Instagram at @montreagazette and join us for next week’s challenge.

Online series lampoons trouble

involved in landing, and keeping, a job

UNEMPLoyEdTV/yoUTUbE

Jason Szwimer, left, and daniel Harroch play exaggerated versions of themselves in The Unemployables, stumbling from one potential job to the next, including an ill-fated stint at a fast-food restaurant.

“The idea was for the series to double as an experimental

project.”Daniel HarrocH