Which of the three following attitudes best sums up your attitude toward the downturn, recession, depression, oh my:
A. The laid-off temp who says she can make a planned happy hour for a company's downsizees: "I could bike on over i suppose. i'm sure i will still be unemployed and have all the free time in the world. in fact, by feb 17th i might be less than 2 weeks from moving back in with my parents …"
B. Two Baby Boomers who were talking the other day, one saying to the other, "Welcome to the world of our fathers, who didn't do what they wanted in life, they did whatever provided a living."
C. My wife, who believes if the media (and the husband) would only stop talking 24/7 about the economic calamity, the calamity might not be such a calamity.
D. No, all these people are nuts. Here's how you ought to think about it ….
I’m totally in agreement with Cristie on this one! People simply cannot be in a panic forever, no matter what’s going on.
Eventually, you run out of adrenaline and crash. Then, you get back to the business of living and just get on with it.
Having lost my Job Dec. 5th, I prop myseft up each day and look for the positive. It is very strange after all these years of working, not to have a job. I was hit again yesterday with the “hiring freeze”! I do get annoyed with those not in my situation suggesting this will end soon. I would be in panic mode had I not saved for this rainy day. My lack of desperation is exactly what I think will land me a job. It is impossible not to hear the media, but I try to avoid it as much a possible. I never left the business of living, but to “just get on with it” requires a job.
D. This is a time of unprecedented opportunity if you’re willing to innovate.
Tyler, I like the way you talk. Give us an example.
Susy – while I would never presume to judge someone else’s situation, I have been down-sized (or whatever they were calling it that year) two different times over the past 10 years. In one case it wasn’t a surprise and in one case it was.
I did not have huge amounts of savings in either situation, nor did I find a job immediately in either case (in one situation I was unemployed in my field for almost a year). So, speaking strictly from my own experience with unemployment, I must respectfully disagree with you about “to ‘just get on with it’ requires a job”. The world keeps turning, and you have to keep living whether you have a job or not.
I’m not suggesting it is easy – again from personal experience – I know that it isn’t. But my point was that the world doesn’t cease just because you, or I lose a job and to allow the constant media shrieking like chicken little to convince us that we’re going back to the 1920’s breadlines, is in my opinion, excessive and irresponsible fear-mongering.
Kristen,
I agree that that there is excessive and irresponsible fear-mongering. I am not retreating into a cave, but still need to pay my mortgage. Employment keeps the wheels turning.
A serious conversation with my husband before leaving for work this morning had this result: we have to drop health insurance for him and my daughter and hope nothing really serious happens to either, because paying for that is costing literally half my monthly pay. We’re on the heels of five months of unemployment for him; he’s now working again, part-time, making approximately the same hourly wage as my daughter makes at her job at Blockbuster, but he’s hanging in there in the hope that with springtime and the cyclical nature of jobs in Alaska’s economy, things will pick up.
The long stretch of sub-zero temperatures has kept our monthly utility bills at right around $900 a month for several months now, and we still have to eat and drive to work and pay the mortgage and help my daughter stay in college.
I’m always glad to hear about success stories like yours, Kristen, but blithely advising “not to worry” doesn’t do much when I’m looking toward the very real possibility of bankruptcy within a year if we can’t turn this around fast. And we’ve been pretty conservative, spending-wise. I don’t buy a daily latte on the way to work, or eat meals out. I bring my lunch of leftovers every day. I don’t go to movies. There are a couple more economies we can make, and they’re next on the list. But they won’t be enough if nothing else changes. And if the economy worsens, I have no idea what to do next.
If this keeps up, despite the world continuing to turn, it’s going to be a very different world for my little family. Now, rather than regretting the poverty of my young years, I’m looking back to see what of my parents’ methods I can incorporate so we’ll know what to do to stay alive–and I mean that literally in this climate–if we can’t afford fuel anymore.
To your question, though, David, I guess I’d say that any one of those attitudes is legitimate; it just depends on where you fall in this mess.
Joan, wow, thanks for your honesty, however brutal it indeed is.
It’s hideous that this sliding happened simultaneously with fall and winter, isn’t it?
Let’s hope things look (a little) better to all of us, in April.
Joan – first I’m sorry for your situation, and I hope that things get better for you and your family.
But I feel I really need to clarify that I never “blithely advised” anyone “not to worry”. In fact nowhere in either of my comments do I say, or even suggest: “don’t worry”.
What I did say is that we have no choice but to find ways to keep living when the economy tanks, which is exactly what you are doing. You are making the necessary choices (sometimes very wrenching ones) in order to manage the often harsh realities of life in times like these.
I am a B person, even though I’m a few years under the boomers. I feel like I need to take opportunities as they arise, not caring if I’m overqualified or not. I’m ready to plant a victory garden. I’m trying to figure out how to do more with less in our family, let alone at work.
I’m with Eileen. Choice “B.” I freaked out at my husband last night because he keeps buying books for our kids when there’s a perfectly good library down the road.
And Joan, I very much feel for you. Have you checked into any professional organizations to see if they offer health coverage at a lower rate? I remember long ago when I was looking at a group called Washington Independent Writers here in D.C. — they had something like that. Just a thought. – Amy
The only advice I’ve got for any of us is what I’ve been trying to keep in mind. My dad’s old pilot advice.
No matter what happens, and if you lose control of everything else:
Keep your airspeed up.
And another version, also from my dad:
Let’s do something … even if it’s wrong.
Glad to be traveling with you all,
David
As someone who hasn’t held a real job in 12 years, I probably am not the best person to ask, but I put myself in Kristen’s camp.
That doesn’t dismiss the real pain and suffering people are going through. At my son’s basketball game last week, one of the dads was telling me now, after six months of not working, he had to take a job in Tampa, and is commuting down there EVERY WEEK, Monday to Thursday, until the school year is over and he can move his entire family down there.
He doesn’t want to move. He loves where he lives. He loves his school. He doesn’t feel he has a choice.
I know the recession is real . . . but I also think everybody, including our president, should shut the fuck up about it.
I understand that Candidate Obama had to instill a certain amount of fear in the electorate in order to help get himself elected. I understand that the worse he paints the picture now, the better he comes off when it turns around.
But every time gets in front of the public and starts talking about how dire it is, how bad it is, how it’s going to take a LOOOONG time to pull out of this—-which he does, in part, to gain support for his agenda—I cringe inside.
I keep waiting for the Audacity of Hope to show up, but the dude is all gloom and doom.
Steve C.
As someone who hasn’t held a real job in 12 years, I probably am not the best person to ask, but I put myself in Kristen’s camp.
That doesn’t dismiss the real pain and suffering people are going through. At my son’s basketball game last week, one of the dads was telling me now, after six months of not working, he had to take a job in Tampa, and is commuting down there EVERY WEEK, Monday to Thursday, until the school year is over and he can move his entire family down there.
He doesn’t want to move. He loves where he lives. He loves his school. He doesn’t feel he has a choice.
I know the recession is real . . . but I also think everybody, including our president, should shut the fuck up about it.
I understand that Candidate Obama had to instill a certain amount of fear in the electorate in order to help get himself elected. I understand that the worse he paints the picture now, the better he comes off when it turns around.
But every time gets in front of the public and starts talking about how dire it is, how bad it is, how it’s going to take a LOOOONG time to pull out of this—-which he does, in part, to gain support for his agenda—I cringe inside.
I keep waiting for the Audacity of Hope to show up, but the dude is all gloom and doom.
Steve C.
Steven:
Obama instilled exactly no fear in the course of getting elected.
During the campaign, you made fun of his hope talk, which you thought was empty.
Today he’s got an op/ed piece in the Washington Post. What’s your quarrel with this?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/05/obama-washington-post-op_n_164178.html
I know you’ll be the first to alert us when Obama strikes precisely the right tone for your sensitive ears.