Thanks Rae,

Of course, you have no idea what I do, how I do it, or why I like it.

All work can be work, but some work can be play, too.

Yet, ultimately, we ALL must work at something if we want to survive.

Fine with me, Inherit The Wind…

“Tomorrow I start work again at a small consulting firm that I expect to be very exciting and fulfilling.”

One person’s “exciting and fulfilling” is another’s “ball and chain.”

The “Joy of Not Working” is NOT A GET RICH SCHEME and the author knows what he’s talking about. I hope your clients in your “consulting” role will at least investigate your suggestions before dismissing them out of hand as you did mine.

I was beginning to get excited as I read further into your response and got to the part where you realized that saving $300 by doing a lot of the work around your house yourself was essentially the same as going to a “job” to earn the $300 to give to someone to do the work for you. (Actually it’s a lot better than that. You’d have to earn almost DOUBLE the $300 at a “job” to end up with the after taxes $300 to pay out, and then you really should add in the cost of being employed… clothes, transportation, lunches out, etc. etc.)

But then came “I prefer to go back to my profession and do what I like to do best.”

You’ll get no argument from me. It’s all about CHOICE. For me… it’s all about having the freedom to be my OWN boss. I realize that others NEED the security, real or imagined, that comes from being an “employee.” It takes all kinds.

Let’s hope the “firm” chooses to let someone else go the next time they need to balance the budget.

The very idea of going back to work in a Corporate Hell Hole has people setting up appointments with their Doctors to get a pharmacological mechanism to take the edge off of the sociopathic prison. These lost souls have decided that they must self-mutilitate to assure their ability to gather the almighty dollar.  They don’t have time to question what they “like” to do, it’s simply about survival. I’d call this a war, in which corporate ‘Murica has score many victories by destroying the will of their “human resources.”  For many Americans, losing an ulcer inducing, life shortening but well paying slow death is a blessing in disguise.
  Their alternative - where they work harder and with more joy then they’ve ever had in the destructively abusive cubicle farm.  You found great pleasure in using their hands and minds to create, art, literature - which is profit to the world, not some miserable bastard’s bottom line.

RAE, September 6 at 9:09 pm #

Just a word to the wise.
*******************************************

Great.  Just what I need: A get-rich-quick book.  Thanks, but no thanks.  Tomorrow I start work again at a small consulting firm that I expect to be very exciting and fulfilling.  It ends almost 5 months of unemployment.

Today in the NYT, there’s an article on 4 people who have been SO hammered despite their excellent quals that they’ve dropped out of the job market.  I know exactly how they feel as my wife and I were plotting alternatives if nothing came through.  I was looking to start an eBay business, buying, fixing and then re-selling stuff. Plus taking on being “Mr. Mom” and meanwhile re-training.

But the most important thing I did was set up a daily task list, both job-hunt related and non-job related. I would set it up either the day before, or several days in advance and check off each item.  More stuff got fixed around that house than gets done in 2 years—and at substantial savings.

We took the attitude that anything that I fixed because I had time and didn’t have to call someone was the same as if I earned that $$$.  So…if an appliance repairman would charge $300 to repair something, and I did it myself, it was like we earned that $300.

But that only goes so far (though the repairs on a house are endless and timeless).  It’s a survival mechanism.  I prefer to go back to my profession and do what I like to do best.

To Inherit the Wind and all others currently unemployed…

Go to the library and read the book THE JOY OF NOT WORKING by Ernie J. Zelinski.

As he says…“Corporate employment is SO last year!”

Take this opportunity to shake off the harness of being an “employee” at the whims of an “employer” and earn far more in doing so.

Just a word to the wise.

Well, at least the rate of INCREASE in unemployment is falling. 

For me, personally, the unemployment rate is falling as I finally return to work this Tuesday following Labor Day, after nearly 5 months of unemployment.  It has brought home to me just how personal unemployment is. Hopefully, I’ll be better off.  This is the first time in over 30 years that I have been involuntarily unemployed.

ChaoticGood is right on. The unemployment rate reported to and by the media is a FICTION - it bears little, if any, meaningful relation to reality.

I remember a prof in grad school explaining the ins and outs of such numbers by saying there are “Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics.”

The “average” citizen is not schooled about such things in sufficient depth to be able to critically analyze the published data.

Those employed as statisticians have a thousand ways to make data tell whatever story “those in authority” want told. What’s the average Joe or Jane to do about it? We don’t have access to the raw numbers so what good would it do us even if we did know how to do the calculations?

The rate of 17% rings a bell with me. The way the prof explained it was very similar to how ChaoticGood laid it out. I’m surprised it doesn’t get increasingly higher every year. Automation has made tens of thousands of jobs redundant.

But then, “people” shouldn’t be chained to many of these traditional “jobs” anyway. What a complete waste of time and energy to get yourself together only to perform mindless, repetitive operations day in and day out for decades, and then die. What the hell is the point of living if that’s all there is?

The human spirit soars when stimulated and set free to discover and create and express itself. THAT’s what people should be doing with their lives! Let the robots make the widgets then use the revenue from the sale of the widgets to support the humans (instead of just increasing the profits of the few fat cats at the top).

But I get ahead of myself - I don’t expect to see that sort of social structure in my lifetime - likely not until the year 2500 or more. But the day will come when everything that needs to be made will be made by machines. Hopefully, humans will by then be schooled in how to live a meaningful and creative life in a world without “jobs” as we know them now.

Get rid of the “At Will” employment terminology as just one step to clear unemployment. Employee Rights reform is needed just to make it fair to reward loyalty & good service employees. Give a company the kind of employee they want and you can still be gone in order to have the company look profitable and upward moving. Don’t make this a government run project, just allow the unions to function in behalf of the employee. Give them some leverage. and if those unions are able to work with the company to weed out bad employees, a better end result can be reached. rights reform is certainly needed in some new fashion. Unemployment & the economy both benefit.

So much for ‘stimulus’ in action. We’ve had Wall Street bailouts and we’re getting
‘health care reform/overhaul’ and ‘wars of necessity’ and still NO jobs. The talking
heads on Bloomberg stated “we’re in a jobless recovery.” What a load of bullshit.
Without jobs there is NO recovery. Period.
The Obama plays patty cake with the Reform scam and working America gets laid
off.
Given the “Reagan convolution” and eight years of Bushco, America may never
recover. Not even the Obama can save us now and that would be IF the Obama
were concerned about jobs. The Obama is concerned with his freaking wars and
the health care scam and Wall Street but NOT about jobs.

Why don’t you report the real unemployment rate.  It is closer to 17% right now.

This is one of several rates prepared every month by the Bureau of Labor statistics.  Currently the Bureau uses a multi-tier rating system. U-1 to U-6

The U-3 rate is the one that the media reports and is the “official” rate.

It is important to note that the U-3 rate does not count people who have been unemployed for so long that their benefits have exhausted, or those who are grossly underemployed.  If you worked outside the home for 1 hour last week then you are “employed” and you don’t count in the “official” rate.

It is the one that politicians like to use because it makes things look better for them, but it is not even close to the truth.

The U-6 rate is close to 17 percent right now.

Funny, wasn’t it just a month a go when authors were touting
improved employment? - Baker, Krugman touting savior Obama.
Even Wall Street doesn’t react much to the news, market rises today. The measure is inaccurate, the tripe about manufacturing and services ignores long term white color unemployment for a start, the numbers the Government collects are hammered superfluous by factors deemed “too expensive” to measure.
If you can’t get a service job at Sears or Costco it won’t be long before riots are underway. Some people have fallen out of the economy starting post 9/11 when we had another “mild, passing” recession.