In a message dated 1/31/01 7:30:14 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: <<this is exactly the kind of mentality that the CEOs of corporate America would love to return to: ala the workforce of the 1990 recession, happy just to have a job, willing to take pay cuts along with more work hours, and say "thank you" and the end of the grueling soul-destroying day.>> You're spoiled. *Unrewarding* hard work is "soul-destroying", no matter what that labor might be. How can an expression such as "Please be thankful you have jobs" set you off so? I sense you either came from a well to do family, or your folks were so dirt poor you (and Richard Nixon) have vowed to despise poverty and the people who live in those conditions. How else can you so easily spout such invectives against a person who may have just suffered a long bout of unemployment? Or had you considered there are people in America, who, whatever their station, (and unlike you) who actually *like* being able to work, and on waking, praise their Creator for letting them wake so they can rise into the glorious day given them so they *can* go to work? Nah, such simplistic faith in the American ideal is beyond you, reference your early comment above. <> You are *not* "doing an employer a favor" in that they can find your well-educated kind in any serious employees jobs bank. For the past fifty or so years, there have been more qualified people looking for work than jobs. The Clinton administration changed that equation somewhat. From about 1892 to about 1995, America graduated 18,000 PhDs' every year in a jobs market with only 11,000 Ph.D. openings. *While many computer owners despise Microsoft and Bill Gates, that cadre of Americans and those like them, fueled the roaring American economy we've all enjoyed these past eight years. **I make a note that as soon as Americans (and the stock market) sensed George "Dubya" Bush had a real chance, the stock market headed south, taking jobs** with it. **138,000 high tech and middle to upper level management jobs since the beginning of the year. Prognostication for the year 2001? As of the first of the year, more than 600,000 highly skilled, highly educated (you come swiftly to my mind) employees will be laid off. Gerald, can you say: "Got parachute?" But with your mean spirit, you probably need to work for yourself. That way, you would have no one to blame for the boss' poor attitude, sorry work conditions (and stingy purse strings) but yourself. <<Unlike the barely skilled autoworker, I went to college for 15 years in order to have a career that would remain fruitful and enjoyable.>> Get thee hence to a nunnery (or winery), where you could drink your imagined troubles into submission. Or does it take money to make things "fruitful and enjoyable" for you?" <<While the money is still present, the enjoyment here is going. All my hard work educating myself to be productive should get me more respect than it does around this place.>> You actually expected *work* to be enjoyable *AND* respectful? Change jobs, find a field where you can express yourself. *Carve totems to your self-pitying ego in your spare time. <<BTW, the hand-writing has been on the wall for some years now regarding barely skilled workers like autoworkers - their labor rates are too high compared to most of the rest of the world, and downsizing (and outsourcing) is then a natural course of events.>> Spoken like a true capitalist-Republican snot-nose: "They" (unskilled laborers) are literally taking money out of your pockets to line theirs. <<One can thank the UAW for making this type of labor so expensive. Why should some unskilled worker in Detroit earn more than a high tech worker with advanced degrees and capabilities an auto worker can't even dream of acquiring? It just doesn't make any logical sense. Cheers, Gerald >> Gerald, that is utterly corrosive, ill-tempered and contemptible. This country and its real religion (capitalism) thrives on the kind strife you are promoting here. Classism it's called, a classist, ill tempered social phenomenon that is nearly as invidious a national character trait as America's blatant racism. *Since 3 million of the "auto workers" you are railing against, American workers who were displaced when "free-marketeers" (capitalists) sent their jobs overseas, are of African heritage, I sense your angst about auto workers (and probably unions) is race based, more than any expressed anger over their wages or benefits. FYI: if you want to blame "auto workers" (Union members) for something, remember too it was their rising wage tide that lifted a hell of a lot of boats in America. Blame them if you would, for fighting for a living wage for *all* Americans, for on the job and continuing health care, 401k retirement plans, day care, homeless shelters, battered women shelters and other American worker's benefits organized labor is responsible for. But is your anger also directed toward persons who worked as hard as you and earned the same degrees as you, but chose instead to work in professions that do not pay great salaries, but yet satisfies their inner being, thus earning them rewards beyond your means to contemplate? What is so bad about the "autoworker" (Africana) (union worker) making a living wage, as opposed to them being the earthen slugs you apparently (understatement) think they are, people who should only earn subsistence wages so you can enrich your pockets and salve your massive, excessively bloated ego? You should be crowned the "King of self-pity"; or named the poster child for the "Get a life" movement. *You could always get a part-time job as a Republican huckster...or Klan spokesman. Mafud [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. 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