My place of current employment is in the process of laying off people. It’s a business decision because we’re not making enough profit the way we’re doing things right now and so a bunch of my co-workers have to go.
I’m not crazy. I don’t like this, since I’m also in the “You Are Eligible To Get The Hell Out Before We Throw You Out — IF We Throw You Out And Really You Won’t Know When It’s Gonna Happen - Ever - Like, Even If You Survive This Layoff Period” group, but I do understand the economics of the move. Capitalism isn’t pretty. It often isn’t fair. But it works a lot better than the rest of the economic systems the world’s great thinkers and societies have thought up so I’m in favor of it. I’m also in favor of ice cream three meals a day but I’m not in favor of ballooning up to the size where you have to be wedged out of your home with a crowbar. So yeah, I’m often torn between seeing the reality of things and wishing things were happy for everyone.
When we were all summoned to hear this news, my colleagues appeared stunned and had that “Whatever will I do? Where ever shall I go?” look. Thankfully, nobody slapped the back of their hand to their forehead and swooned outright. I mean, none of us had fans to bring them “to” so they’d have been out of luck. Plus we were all on deadline and really needed to get back to the work we still had until we were told to pack it in. But I thought to myself that, while we were hearing the harsh, harsh reality of it all, many people were acting as if The End Was Nigh.
Newsflash: It isn’t. You’ll just have to find another job.
Americans have been finding another job since… well, since before there were Americans. When Merrie Olde Mother England kicked out all the citizenry who weren’t down with the king, those folks hit the high seas for The New World. They had been fired from England and found new, rewarding work at America, the hip, funky, cool new country on the block. And they thrived. England pulled a Starbucks and tried to keep on expanding its franchise all over the world but they eventually ended up closing most of those stores. Even France copied America’s business model and started its own little boutique, “Libertie, Egalite, Fraternitie,” which has been pretty successful except when it was overtaken by German management for a short time.
When in America, prepare to work. And don’t get comfortable doing what you do because times change and with that shift comes an alteration in how many jobs are needed in which industries. This country’s expansion westward was a product of the “manifest destiny” idea and for my colleagues and me, our manifest destiny now is to be ready to expand our own horizons. That means you’ll either find work elsewhere to earn a living or, if that’s too tough and you can’t make ends meet, you could just kick off and never have to worry about paying that ginormous Visa bill.
Personally, I’m totally in favor of living and I hope my colleagues are too. Which is why we’d all better start looking into what, for most of us, will be at least our second career. My own manifest destiny appears to be “X-Ray Technician,” since it doesn’t involve many math skills and I am absolutely OK with that if it ever comes to pass. Perhaps the pursuit of happiness involves wearing scrubs to work each day and if that’s the case, I say Westward Ho.
