No Jobs and Nobody Wants to Work

My town was listed on MSN as one of the ten best cities to find a job. HAH! I've been looking for a good one all year. (And now I have none.)

One local company announced a layoff of 180 workers, not bad since the bottom line lost $4 million. Another manufacturer just announced a plant closing, kicking another 300 workers into the job pool. The news goes on - almost daily.

The office that laid me off, according to friends in the know, is now populated by three managers (one, I was told, by a woman who quit over unfair expectations, was called back to do what she and I had done for well over a year) who chat, eat, and smoke all day, and two women who do all the work. I have it on good authority that one of these women has been looking for a job since she got there. The other might just work herself to death because she thinks she has job security - or maybe just hates to look for another job. Too bad. I liked her.

Aren't people working for Blackwater for the money? Were I younger and in better shape with military experience and more than one working eye, I might apply. The pay's good and the government seems to excuse your indescretions.

Now the Foreign Service is having a problem finding dipomats to work in Iraq. Train me, Condi, and I'll go. The pay is good (maybe not as good as Blackwater) and the assignment would be educational. Learn a new culture, a new cuisine, maybe a new language.

Better yet, maybe you could recruit my ex-managers, Ms. Rice. They don't want to do any real work. From all the jokes, that qualifies them for a government job. You'll have to offer them some pretty good promises. One might have to bring her daughter. One might have to bring her mother. The other might have to disappear for weeks at a time because she had a date.

If the office where I used to work was left with no managers, maybe they'd offer me a job. Maybe I'd turn them down. I'm learning to have standards.

I liked working for the government in 1990 and would have no problem doing it again. Call me, Condi! I need a job and the local economy is going to hell in a handbasket. If you forget everything I just said, I can be a diplomat.