Jobless People Are Not That Scary

An article in The New York Times Sunday found that nearly 240,000 American jobs disappeared from January to April and all those rejects (I use this term endearingly) don't know how to deal with the shame of it all with their friends and neighbors. Instead, they're staying in the house and away from soccer fields. But don't blame it all on them-- they say friends stopped calling, too!

This country has an amazing stigma about joblessness, one that supposes laziness and lack of ambition and something wrong with the person who can't keep a lame job. Okay, some people are exactly that. But not everyone. Ex-coworkers still have a hard time around me... I sense they're worried I'm depressed (no fun) or I'll ask them for a job. I guess it's not really their fault--In D.C., what more do you know about a person than what he or she does for work?

Some great advice - for both the jobless and the rest - was expressed by one man interviewed in the article: Put it out there, give friends a way to be useful if they want to, and stop feeling sorry for yourself or anyone else. I'll add: talk about something other than work, for godssake! Then it won't be so hard to be around your poor, sad, little jobless friend.