Songs From the Pit

“May you live in interesting times.” The old Chinese curse (it was definitely a malediction, kids, not a greeting card wish; probably dating all the way to the Warring States Period of ancient China) is alive among us all. It is the Crawford chicken come home to roost, carrying with it the virus of an economic pandemic. For the jobless among us, there is just a vast, blank silence: hundreds of resumes sent, applications submitted; and the only sound from the telephone, the only message in the inbox, is from desperate salespeople, trying to plant a seed in a boulder.

Fellow job hunters: isn’t it amazing how, just at the moment when you don’t have a dollar to spare for anyone, everyone’s hands come stretching out? Resume services, career coaches, training institutes, online colleges, interviewing experts, and one service after another that pitches to push your name to the very front of the line, straight under the noses of corporate deciders. Meanwhile, you’re probably a lot like me in terms of being able to pay for any of this shit: I’ve got $14.72 until Thursday; and every nickel the state ponies up for the next few weeks will go straight toward June’s rent.

One of the outstanding writers and journalists of our era, a woman named Barbara Ehrenreich, exposed this tragicomic folly in a book from a few years back, appropriately titled Bait and Switch.

Ehrenreich is also the moving force behind a new online movement called United Professionals. You may wish to consider joining in. As Ehrenreich says:

It has become painfully clear in recent months that there is no real safety net for the nation’s middle class. Tens of thousands of Americans are feeling powerless under a crippling economy, but the unemployed, under-employed, and anxiously employed now have an opportunity to make important changes. By banding together through UP, the overlooked voice and needs of the nation’s white collar workers will be heard.

Note that membership is free for those of us who don’t have work, though unemployment is certainly not a requirement for membership. If you are one of the many who are hanging on by a thread to your job, UP is for you. Bottom line is this: corporate America is not going to transform itself (hell, it can’t even admit that it has a problem yet); and government definitely won’t mandate that the Bill of Rights and the human values that inform it be allowed into the cubicle kingdoms of our nation. If you want to meet the person who is going to transform corporate America, get thee to a mirror.