10 Lessons Learned From Unemployed Movie Characters

"Mo' money, mo' problems." The Notorious B.I.G.'s now-ancient wisdom still holds true, and seems even more pertinent as we enter into yet another new year with the economy still flailing. While having a job and getting paid is important, anyone who's held down a 9-to-5 knows that being gainfully employed is not necessarily the key to happiness.

Director Michael Cuesta (L.I.E.) explores this theme in Roadie, his new film opening this Friday. A modern unemployment tale, the movie follows the titular roadie, Jimmy (Ron Eldard), in the 24 hours after his 20-year stint on the road with the band Blue Öyster Cult comes to an abrupt end, as he strives to make sense of his failure and what "success" actually means.

Jimmy's may be the first fictional-job-casualty of 2012, but dozens of other characters have joined the unemployed ranks before him, and their advice-ripe cautionary tales could put even the shakiest economies and the dustiest wallets in perspective. Consider the hard-earned wisdom we've extracted from cinema's most memorable down-and-out characters: 10 Important Lessons We Learned From Unemployed Characters. Being jobless doesn't pay, but it can teach you a thing or two.

Written by Shanté Cosme (@ShanteCosme)

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You know times are tough when you need to pawn off your flat screen to pay the nanny and your front lawn gets repossessed (literally, piece-by-piece of sod). Such was life for Dick (Jim Carrey) and Jane Harper (Téa Leoni), after Dick's company, Globodyne, collapsed into obscurity, thanks to the shady undertakings of boss Jack McCallister (Alec Baldwin).

Forced to come to terms with their insta-bankruptcy, Dick tries his hand at day-laboring, retail, and various other jobs he's grossly over-qualified for, before he and the wife decide that a life of crime might suit them. After donning a slew of terrible disguises and attempting robbery at squirt-gun-point, the two retire their illegal activity hats, but not before managing to finagle 10 million dollars out of their boss after a failed ploy at robbing him accidentally succeeds.

But this is the movies, and accidental success don't happen to criminals in real life. Have you seen COPS? "Shoot first, ask questions last" may work for Waka Flocka Flame, but you're not that gangsta. Stick to job interviews and thankless jobs that are beneath you like the rest of us.

Brennan Huff (Will Ferrell) and Dale Doback (John C. Reilly) are the ultimate slacker duo, two 40-year-old men who still live with their parents, who dress and generally act like adolescents (the maladjusted kind), and spend their days with their asses firmly nestled into the sofa watching compelling programming like Shark Week and COPS (hard to blame them for that one!).

Fed up, their respective parents force them to attend therapy and seek some sort of employment, an endeavor which ultimately proves unsuccessful being that the two share not a single skill between them aside from an impressive penchant for flatulence. But even with that, and a failed attempt at creating an entertainment company that literally destroys their parent's retirement plans under the belt, the two end up reconciling with their family and finding mid-life success as entrepreneurs.

The moral of the story here? Siphon off sympathy in the form of cold hard cash and a roof over your head for as long as you can from your parents, thus delaying the need to find a real job for potentially as long as forty years. Now that's skill!

When a pack of Brits get laid off from their steel work gig, they don't get mad and they don't get even, they just take their pants off. The inventive guys, despite their blatant lack of stripper attributes (namely good looks and being in Speedo-shape), decide to form their own middle-aged strip-squad. Like Chippendales, only less sexy.

While we're not reccomending that you toss your dignity and clothes to the wayside to make a little cash, we do reccomend you make like our indecently exposed Brits and put your most unlikely skills to work. If they could find success with their unlikely striptease, maybe you can find a way to profit off your planking obsession or your penchant for putting beetles into head-to-head combat. Well, probably not, but it's worth a shot.

Jeff Lebowski, a.k.a. "The Dude," is jobless in Cali and shows no signs of 1) wanting to find gainful employment or, 2) being stressed about his situation. Rather than spending his days scanning classified ads, The Dude tries to finagle seeks little except small financial restitution from a seemingly wealthier Lebowski when a case of mistaken identity leaves his rug urine soaked.

After his half-witted plan unravels, our commendable slacker happily goes back to his former lifestyle, which includes indulging in high-quality kush, throwing back White Russians, and bowling with his boys, without a hint of guilt or ambition for his slacker lifestyle. Laid-off, the laid-back way...take notes!

Losing your dream job to a less-qualified co-worker is a tough break. So when Bruce Nolan (Jim Carrey) raises his fist towards the heavens and blames God for his misfortunes, we understand the state of fury and desperation he is in. Unfortunately, God takes the jab personally and sticks Bruce with the hardest job in the universe—His.

After watching Bruce struggle with the weight of being the world's go-to guy for, well, everything, being inundated with billions of emails and perturbed by an endless prayers and requests, we realize that Bruce got a raw deal. Total responsibility for every human on Earth is a bitch, even if it does mean being able to pleasure Jennifer Aniston from another room. So instead of rushing into another high-pressure gig, take a tip from Bruce, and revel in your newfound lack of responsibility.

If you've ever boozed your way into getting fired and abandoned by your wife in a single day, you are not alone. Nick (Will Ferrell), the movie's lead slacker and former salesman, does just that, but manages to escape from his Pabst-drenched nightmare of a life by unexpected means. And by unexpected, we mean, he has a four-day-long garage sale.

But somehow, Nick finds solace in selling all of his stuff, as if auctioning off his possesions helps clear some room in his life and his mind. And while we're not suggesting this would work for you (hold off on hawking your Xbox for $5 dollars!) we are saying that a little therapy might do us all a world of good. Talk it out, or sell it off (just don't take it off or drink it down, if you know what we mean).

Also a mini-lesson: Where an empty six-pack of PBR can be found, a sad story is never far behind. Remember that.

At the start of the Great Depression, James J. Braddock (Russell Crowe) is a retired boxer who is forced to call it quits after shattering his hand in the ring. Down on his luck and in ample company, Braddock is forced to compete with masses each morning to snag some work slinging coal that can barely feed his family.

But, instead of bitching about how they used to drink Cabernet in their picket-fence-enclosed house and now drink watered-down milk in the tenements, his wife Mae (Renée Zellweger) remains loyal to her husband, even when they descend into the depths of poverty. She is supportive and understanding, even when he resumes boxing and brings home nothing but fresh bruises every night. She shows him kindness, not anger, during their difficulties and doesn't once complain about their situation. Find yourself a down ass chick like that, and hard times won't feel so hard, trust.

Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston) and his co-workers Samir (Ajay Naidu) and Michael (David Herman) are hell bent on getting their asses out of their cubicles. Unfortunately for Peter, professing his hatred for TPS reports and lifelong dream of "doing nothing" somehow convince consultants he has "upper-management written all over him," while his friends are unceremoniously fired. Oh, sweet corporate irony!

So, instead of focusing on your inability to interview your way into another claustrophobia-inducing space where the only joys come from Swingline staplers and co-workers who bring in baked goods, celebrate your newly found elbow-room! You, my friend, have acquired what many only dream of—freedom from the Man! Rejoice in that fact, even if only briefly.

When the life of Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) starts to lose its luster, he gets himself fired in an impressive fashion and blackmails his boss for a hefty severance package so he can have more free time to indulge in his mid-life urges. His ambition-obssesed wife (Annette Bening) isn't exactly cool with his new plan, which substitutes a 9-to-5 with smoking pot in the garage, hitting the weights so he can "look good naked," and rose-imbued reveries of his daughter's seemingly sexually mature friend, but Lester seems pretty damn satisfied with his choices.

After scoring himself a 1970 Pontiac Firebird with his severance settlement, Lester proclaims, "The car I've always wanted and now I have it. I rule!" and succeeds in pissing off his cheating wife (win!) and getting the object of his (illegal) desire to drop trou (no explanation neccesary). Not bad for an old man! So instead of wallowing in unemployed defeat, take Lester's "nothing to lose" motto and make something new and beautiful our of the rubble that is your life!

When Chris Gardner (Will Smith) makes a bad investment on a useless bone scanner he tries to hock to doctors, he literally loses everything—his money, his wife, and his home. At this point, many might turn to wallowing in self-defeat. But motivated by his desire to provide security for his young son (Jaden Smith), Gardner does the opposite. He manages to snag a coveted internship at a brokerage firm, and devotes every solitary fragment of his energy, ambition, and resources to the task, without so much as a mumble of complaint about his situation.

Despite his limited resources, Gardner used his setbacks as fuel to ignite his ambitions, and ends up winning himself a job as a stockbroker in the process. So, if your best attempt at being industrious is cruising Craigslist for jobs in your pajamas all day, maybe it's time to up the ante a bit. Just a thought.