No clowning around

Meet one of my former bosses. Just kidding. Slightly. Today marks five months since I was downsized out of my job. Since then, a few million others have joined me and are doing anything except clowning around.

I’m hearing from friends and contacts in a number of companies and the picture on the inside is not cheery either – they’re insanely busy trying to pick up the slack left by staff shrinkage. Working harder and harder to get less and less done, and losing pay and benefits in the process.

I’m regularly finding job listings that look like they’ve melded two or three jobs into one position and at less pay than any one of those jobs paid a few years ago. When companies are in survival mode, all bets are off, apparently.

So in times like these when nobody is escaping the economic earthquake and its aftershocks, it’s best to remember the sage advice of one Wavy Gravy - clown, activist, Woodstock emcee (the first one) and Ben and Jerry’s ice cream flavor:

"We’re all bozos on the bus, so we might as well sit back and enjoy the ride."

We're all in this together. Lose the pretense, be real, tell it straight. Otherwise you just come off looking like a clown.

Photo: Fall Fest, Sister Bay, Wisconsin, October 2008. Click on picture to enlarge. Photograph © 2008 James Jordan.