ON THE BREADLINE: AARON SALVO

Salvo, of McDonough, Georgia, was the assistant pastry chef at an Atlanta fine-dining restaurant. He lost his job in January of this year.

How do you cope with getting up every morning? What motivates you?

My daughter was born on November 8, 2008. She’s usually up early in the morning wanting to be fed, so for my wife and me, getting out of bed isn’t a problem.

Likewise, how do you cope with getting to sleep at night, or getting any sleep, period?

Right now, I’m not sleeping. I went from being in such a high-energy line of work to doing pretty much nothing all day. The insomnia is getting tough.

Give an example of the sort of changes or cutbacks you’ve had to make in the way you live your life.

My wife and I are both out of work, and I’m the only one who was able to get unemployment. So we’ve cut back a lot. Dinner out is a real treat and usually something very inexpensive, and even then we’re doing things like sharing a Coke. The cable TV is gone, but we’ve had to hold on to the Internet to look for jobs and just keep from going crazy. We’ve been cooking at home a lot, which I know sounds odd coming from a cook, but truth be told, a large number of cooks don’t cook at home. We’ve found a lot of creative things to do with ramen noodles.

Share with us some of your recession gallows humor.

I always laugh when someone asks me what time is convenient to meet. I always reply with, “I’m home all day.” Or when my wife asks me to take the trash out, I’ll zing back with, “Why don’t you get a job?”

What, if anything, gives you hope that the future holds better things?

Well, oddly enough, my wife was offered a job in Ohio. Unfortunately, they’re still working on paperwork, etc., and can’t give her a start date or even a salary. (Don’t worry, it’s a legit job with the government.) So there is a light at the end of the tunnel, but apart from that, nothing, really. I know it sounds terrible, but there just doesn’t seem to be any good news out there. I hear over and over again from my family, “Why can’t you find a job? Why can’t your wife find a job? You just need to look harder,” and on and on. I wish it were just that easy, but when you have 19,000 people showing up to a career fair with only a couple hundred jobs to offer…well, do the math.