Unemployed, and Not Getting a Job Anytime Soon? Why Not Build a Better World?
Belief:
Is Blind Faith in God and the Bible a Modern Invention?
Devilstower
Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace:
What Can the Morass of the 1970s Tell Us About the Current Economic Crisis?
Alejandro Reuss
DrugReporter:
Why Are We Locking Up Traumatized Veterans for Their Addictions Instead of Offering Them Treatment?
Penny Coleman
Environment:
Why Max Baucus' 'No' Vote on the Climate Bill May Really Help Its Passage
Jeff Mcmahon
Food:
Soda Helps Make Americans Unhealthy and Fat -- Will Soda Tax Prevail Despite Pushback by Beverage Industry?
Christine Spolar, Joseph Eaton
Health and Wellness:
Does the House Bill's Public Option Kill Off the Senate's?
Booman
Immigration:
Recent Democratic Victories May Grease the Wheels for Immigration Reform in Congress
Marcelo Balive
Media and Technology:
Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh Stoking GOP Civil War
Eric Boehlert
Movie Mix:
The Yes Men: Pranksters Out to Fix the World
Mark Engler
Politics:
What Obama Is Up Against in His Own Branch of Government
Russ Baker
Reproductive Justice and Gender:
"Precious" Star Claims the Spotlight
Emily Wilson
Rights and Liberties:
Hard to Believe: 73 U.S. Kids Sentenced to Life Without Parole at 14 or Younger, and All Are Black
Liliana Segura
Sex and Relationships:
9 Silly Things People Say When They Hear You Don't Want Kids (And Ways to Counter Them)
Liz Langley
Take Action:
G-20 Meetings: Nothing Much Happened in the Suites, and There Was Too Much Punch in the Streets
Laura Flanders
Water:
Radioactive Wastewater in New York Raises More Concerns About Oil Drilling
Abrahm Lustgarten
World:
Afghanistan Is Worse Off Than Ever, Thanks to the Sham Army We're Propping Up
Chris Hedges
In most parts of the world, mass unemployment brings the specter of mass social unrest. Not in the U.S., though, where 13 million people have accepted joblessness with nary a peep of protest.
Many reasons -- from Prozac to Pentecostalism -- have been cited to explain American passivity in the face of economic violence. But the truth might be far simpler: In America, being unemployed doesn't mean you have nothing to do but run around burning police cars. Unemployment has been reconfigured as a new form of work.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the white-collar world, where the laid-off are constantly advised to see job searching as a full-time job. As business self-help guru Harvey Mackay advises: "Once you're fired, you already have a job. The job you have is tougher than the last one. It's more demanding." How demanding? He says you need to "plan on 12 to 16 hours a day."
Picture it: People across America rising at the usual time, suiting up in full corporate regalia and setting themselves down at their laptops to fiddle with resumes, peruse Monster.com and pester everyone on their address lists for leads.
Some people no doubt have found jobs in this manner, but there have been no scientific comparisons of the technique with, say, printing a resume on a sandwich board and parading around Times Square.
If there is something familiar in the image of laid-off workers soldiering on, it may be because of films such as "Tokyo Sonata" and the 2001 French film, "Time Out," in which the heroes -- laid-off executives -- conceal their status from their families and continue to mime the daily ritual of going to work. In the movies, this behavior seems pathetic -- a case of terminal denial -- but it's exactly what the American "transition industry" of career coaches and outplacement companies recommends: If you don't have a job, fake one.
In real life, it's OK for a man to tell his wife he's lost his job; he should just never reveal that he has time on his hands. A February article in The New York Times featured a laid-off Illinois man who justified his refusal to do more around the house by saying, "As one of the people who runs one of the career centers I've been to told me: 'You're out of a job, but it's not your time to paint the house and fix the car. Your job is about finding the next job.' "
At the kinky extreme, laid-off white-collar people are advised to simulate the office environment further by finding someone to play the part of a "boss" -- a spouse, a friend, a paid career coach -- to whom you report every few days on your progress.
Is it any wonder there's no time left for lobbying for universal health insurance or reading Marxist tracts on the "reserve army of the unemployed"? It's all a person can do to keep up with the relentless pressures of an imaginary job.
See more stories tagged with: activism, barbara ehrenreich, unemployment
Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of thirteen books, including the New York Times bestseller Nickel and Dimed. A frequent contributor to the New York Times, Harpers, and the Progressive, she is a contributing writer to Time magazine. She lives in Florida.
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