Today is Labor Day in the USofA and Canada. You may be off at the State Fair or taking one last long summer day up at the cabin on the lake. I understand that very few people will read this in the middle of the last day of summer routine.
But that’s fine with me. What I have to say might be better on the Tuesday after Labor Day.
This is the day that we celebrate the workers of this continent and celebrate work itself. We do this largely by loafing, by taking a day off to not work. It’s not just that everyone needs a break. The idea is that we should all spend a day contemplating how much we are defined by what we do and how important the efforts are innovations of millions of people are to each other’s lives.
Today, in the USofA, about 23 Million people are officially “unemployed”. About half of them have been so for six months or more. These are a people who have been cast aside, their skills unwanted and their efforts undesired. Their slow daily spiral into poverty and depression starts with thousands of job applications eagerly filled out with great care without the slightest acknowledgement that they were ever even received. Gradually the fine art of survival takes up more time than the routine of more and more applications, and they start to lose hope.
Most of the long term unemployed learn to live without material things. They might go months without buying new clothes or getting their haircut. They might turn away when their friends show off their latest iPod or other gadget. They might even learn how one strong cup of coffee can take the place of a meal early in the day. These all come down as more of a challenge than a deficit. It’s the complete loss of hope that comes from the feeling that they have been thrown out as garbage that slowly destroys them.
This Labor Day, please remember more than just the value of work. Please remember what the lack of it does to a person. If you are back at work the day after, bleary eyed and trying to get back into after a long weekend, take a moment to imagine what six months off of work without a paycheck would do to you.
Thank you.
Barataria - The work of Erik Hare 
No need to imagine. Thanks for the thoughtful piece.
You had tears forming on my eyes.
Thank you very much. I try to be grateful every day that I have all the things I have and remember those who are being left behind. I know you’ve been struggling constantly to keep yourself going even as you work to make the world a better place. I will remember all the people like you who struggle to find their place in the world today. Gratitude for what I have is the very least I can do.
Wow. THIS is exactly what Labor Day should be about.
Here, here!
I am lucky after nearly three years without work I commnce work on a short contract and if I am very, very lucky I have another short term co ntract dove tailing onto the first this would see me through to the end of 2010 as an employed person.
Whilst I would not wish unemployment on anyone – for me it has been an enriching experieince. Also a humbling one and a time during which I regained my personal bearings. As I am fast exceeding my half century; age has played a big part in keeping the doors of conventional employment closed to me this time around.
I would like to think that I will not be so flipant in my attitudes to employment again. That the “lessons” that I have learned, that have been imposed by a period of unemployment, rejection both of my skills and me as person because of my age; I ‘d like to think that I will carry these with me and my dealing with the people I will encounter in the future and that they will stand me in good stead and further help me to become the human being that I know I can be.
Thank you for remninding us all Erik that there is more to life than possessions or paychecks.
Gwen, thank you for your comments we need to hear/read more of these.
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