Making the most of a poor economy
Although economists had hoped the unemployment rate would have improved by now, CNN Washington Correspondent Louise Schiavone told “CNN Monday Morning” viewers on Jan. 6 that the job market is still grim. The Dec. 2002 unemployment rate was 6 percent, unchanged from the November unemployment rate of 6 percent, and 8.6 million people remain unemployed in the United States, Schiavone said.
Considering the shape our job market is in, it is not surprising that many formerly high-salaried executives and professionals are working as clerks in hardware stores or doing house painting. Under other circumstances, we might find such work degrading, but not when it puts bread on the family table.
Many young folks on their way up who work, say, for the sanitation department in their town realize it’s not going to be forever and they have a healthy attitude toward their work — almost as if they can see the future story possibilities in the situation. I still like to talk about the days when I was a laborer for the state highway department, cleaning out the catch basins along the side of the road with that long-handled scoop and sweeping the sides of the street.
Of course, it’s easy to be cavalier about jobs like that if you know it isn’t going to be your life’s work. But under many conditions such jobs can be viewed as degrading. It is easy to understand why — until people started getting laid off in great numbers, we were having trouble getting people to do “the dirty work” as some may call it. Everybody aspired to wear a suit to work.
What society must do to save itself, some have suggested, is accord the manual laborer the same status the executive or professional enjoys so that a person is proud to say he or she works with their hands. It is interesting, however, that most people who are making this kind of suggestion don’t want to be truck drivers or other kinds of laborers themselves, nor may they want their children to be.
Some say the answer lies in getting over our obsession with college education. Almost everyone today wants to go to college and I don’t know too many college grads who want to be a sanitation worker or bricklayer.
Yet, some will tell you that there are graduates who would be happier as bricklayers — and make more money than they are currently earning in their entry-level corporate jobs.
This is undoubtedly true. But I can’t help thinking that hopes for happiness lie more in the area of education than in finding the right job. We have made our jobs too important.
I knew a cobbler in Boston who loved to play the violin. Whenever anyone asked him what his line of work was, he would say “violinist.” If the person mentioned seeing him in the shoe-repair shop, he would explain, “I mend shoes to make ends meet.” But he was a violinist.
We work at least 40 hours a week and sleep about 56 hours. That leaves about 72 hours. If we can fill those hours with worthwhile cultural pursuits like reading or listening to music, we will very likely be happy — regardless of the jobs we work.
In such a society one can imagine the driver of the town garbage truck asking the fellow dumping the trash in the back, “Who said, ‘The quality of mercy is not strained?'”
And the fellow emptying the cans in the back replies, “Portia in ‘The Merchant of Venice,’ Act 4, Scene 1.”
So who should do the dirty work in such a world? We must learn to do our own. If we all do it, it won’t be degrading for anybody.
Where we used to live, there was no town rubbish collection. Every family had to haul its own rubbish to the dump. It was quite a sight there on Saturday mornings — Cadillacs and Ford Country Squires lined up along with the rest of us, waiting their turn to unload.
Nobody really minded. We certainly didn’t find it degrading.
(George Plagenz is a syndicated columnist.)