Sign of the Times

Another view of Lake Luxembourg

Do the duckwalk

  The pictures I took here are not the subject of this blog entry.  I’ve posted many pictures of this lake before.  Something happened while I was out taking these pictures.   I saw a man walking by who I recognized as one of my former co-workers.  I felt awkward about approaching him, just in case it happened to be someone who looked like him.  But I did make the approach, and indeed it was him.  I didn’t really know him, but we saw each other all the time, usually in the kitchen.  He ate healthy, and I would always see him washing off his vegetables.  Since I didn’t really know him, I largely forgot about him after I was let go in December of 2008, when the company downsized in the aftermath of the Wall Street meltdown. A large number of employees were regretfully sent packing, and I was one of them.  And they were by no means finished, as more jobs would be eliminated in the upcoming months. 

    I found out his name is Bob, which I didn’t know until today.  My first thought was that he was just taking a day off and enjoying a nice day at the park with his wife.  However, I remembered that hardly anyone who worked with me is still at the company, and indeed, Bob told me he was no longer there.  He survived that first wave of pink slips, but was let go four months later, with a smaller group of workers.  He found another job in the two years since then, but lost that, too.  Apparently, his new employer had to tighten their belts as well, and he was out the door once again.

  Bob’s situation brought two things to mind.  I remember riding with my father during the midafternoon, while the roads filled with cars.  He asked “doesn’t anybody work anymore?”  This was in the late 90’s.  But that would be a more fitting question today.  Most of the people in the cars that passed by us in the 90’s were almost certainly working.  They were either off, or worked a different shift.  Today, I’m not so sure.  Although it doesn’t seem like there are more cars on the road, or more people in parks than before, many of these people I see are probably there because they are out of work. 

  Another aspect of what Bob told me comes to mind.  He found another job after being let go, but he ended up being downsized from that place, too.  That is not the first time I heard about this. I have read several stories like this on the internet, of people who found a new job, but the new job didn’t last long.  They worked for a brief time, and then were told that their employers couldn’t afford to keep them on.  I personally know someone who experienced this not once, not twice, but three times in the last two years.  Another friend of mine told me that he started a new job, and just one week into it, his position was eliminated and he was escorted out the door.  It goes without saying that this must have been crushing.  These people thought they were finally back on their feet again, and that their troubles, at least with unemployment, were over.  But they had the rug pulled out from under them before their probationary period was done, and now they’re right back where they were before.

  There are some things that are just beyond everyone’s control, and I guess this is one of them.  It seems to me, with my limited knowledge, that this can only change through a long and slow process.  I have heard all the opinions about why things are the way they are.  Some people will say that there is too much control on business, too many taxes, too much regulation.   Others say the problem is just the opposite, that there is not enough control over business.  But whatever is causing things like this to happen, I hope and pray that the day comes where there will be no more stories like this one.