The bright side of unemployment

With over a half million jobs lost last month, the unemployment rate climbed to a 16-year high at 7.2 percent. No occupation, except perhaps bankruptcy and divorce attorneys, has been able to avoid the splash zone of the unemployment wave. From highly compensated investment analysts to the person that gets that analyst coffee in the morning to the barista who made that coffee to the well-paid executives that manage the company that barista works for, more and more people are taking pink slips home from work in place of paychecks.

The situation appears quite bleak when, after already having seen their college or retirement savings disappear in the past year, people lose their jobs as well. Apart from being unable to afford a $17,732 diamond encrusted computer mouse for a 60th anniversary present (as is recommended by the seller) for your grandparents who still write with a quill and inkwell, the newly unemployed face an uncertain future more frightening than a mouse embellished with mere sapphires.

But let us not dwell on these unkind realities. Indeed, 524,000 people lost their jobs in December, but the good news is 524,000 people are now free to finish the memoir, sculpture, poem or novel that they have been putting aside for years. Forty hours more of free time each week allows the stay-at-home investment bankers and all the others now newly emancipated from the shackles of the nine to five to explore all that their jobs prevented them from doing before the pink slip.

A lady or gentleman of leisure (unemployed is such a negative term) has the opportunity to spend more time with the family, exercise, take up a hobby like knitting or smoking cigarettes, or simply sit around in a bathrobe all day watching Maury reform out of control teens. Planting yourself on the couch after waking up at the crack of noon isn’t the worst way one could weather the economic storm; definitely beats loading up all of your possessions into a Hudson truck to head out Californee way to escape both economic hardship and giant clouds of dust.

If lady luck gets out of rehab soon, perhaps the freelance consultants that make up 7.2 percent of the population could be the solution to the economic crisis. With more people at home in the late morning and afternoon, local businesses can take advantage of daytime television commercial slots to increase their revenues and reinvigorate the economy. When God closes one door, He opens another, right?

It looks like everything is going to be oooooook!