Hey! How’s your job going? Do you like it? Are you working longer hours than you used to – maybe settling for no Christmas, er, “Holiday” bonus and no raise because you feel like you should be satisfied for no other reason than you have a job when so many Americans do not? Are you employed? If not, has your unemployment run out? These questions are being asked every single day to millions of Americans.

Many of us in the United States are still unemployed with a national average of 9% (which is bad, by the way) and our fellow brothers and sisters who make the Land of Enchantment their home, are struggling with an average of 6.6%.* Employment in the private sector has risen with modest growth in professional services, leisure, hospitality, healthcare, and mining – Government jobs are still falling – which, depending on who you ask, may prove that Mr. Obama is not only creating government jobs as Mr. Limbaugh claims on a daily-around-noon basis.

In the latest issue of TIME magazine, Stephen Gandel writes about how more of us are quitting. With 14 million people unemployed (and assumedly trying to find work), why are so many on the other side of the fence telling their bosses to eat it? According to Gandel (and the Bureau of Labor Statistics) 2 million people gave their two weeks in September, the highest number of documented workers to do so since November 2008. Why? Well, according to the deserters themselves, unhappiness. I think this is a good thing for two reasons:

1) (And most important) American workers are finally standing up for themselves, stepping outside of the looming shadows of their bully bosses who have been reducing pay, eliminating bonuses, increasing normal work hours, as well as doing away with other “perks” and gratitudes all under the guise of good business sense – when in reality many of our nation’s business leaders and office managers are taking such measures because they know the statistics and they know those numbers frighten their employees into accepting less than acceptable employment parameters simply out of survival instinct (or fear). And –

2) For those of us that are not unhappy in our work, or have not been able to pull out the marbles necessary to tell our bosses to eat dicks, our counterparts departures have created an opportunity for the rest of us to finally get that Christmas, er, “Holiday” bonus or standard of living increase in pay, or hell, if we’re lucky enough – both.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the twoindustries seeing the largest exodus of workers are Professional and Business Services (@ 426,000) and the Trade, Transportation and Utilities sectors (@474,000). This makes sense. If there is something any one of us could agree upon as unanimously as the lousy unemployment statistics, it’s this: as the horizon of the recession grows more infinite and unemployment rates remain high, Americans’ enthusiasm, pleasant demeanor, and overall ability to be around exponentially depletes. It’s getting harder and harder to endure one another.

We’re starting to embarrass ourselves – what happened to the badass, freedom loving, this is America – so be who you wanna be individuals that made the rest of our neighbors envious? Our country is having a colossal morale problem these days and it’s affecting our attitudes – we’re an entire country sharing a menstrual cycle and it’s doing us no good at all. Many of us are displaying signs of senioritis for LIFE! We’re starting not to care anymore. We’re starting to give up. And when that happens we forget what it is we’re supposed to do and much of it is coming through in our attempts at getting new jobs.

I work in an environment that revolves around hiring and firing people all over the world and in a time when more people need jobs than ever they’re screwing it up on a large scale. Believe it or not, regardless of your newly acquired cynicism, there are mores that we are expected to follow – an outline that has been created and distributed freely to us that not only reminds us how to act in the company of others, but actually does very well to help us get hired for jobs that we just may want.

In the coming week I will attempt to help you get your act together for building your resume and crushing your interviews all the while not coming across as so many of us are – as someone who just doesn’t give a shit anymore.

Stay tuned, friends – we’re not out yet.

*statistics courtesy of U.S. Bureau of Labor

Tags: Attitude, interview, Joblessness, Jobs, TIME, Unemployment

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 26th, 2011 at 3:33 pm and is filed under LBS Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.