Did you happen to catch the CBS Sunday Morning story on unemployment in America? Physical faces, honest fears, self contained bewilderment during a time when being the best no longer inspires the top of the company ladder; it’s a portrait of this great nation the Saturday Evening Post would never publish.
Although a few of the important numbers have dropped, what still remains is a constant company need to shed employees from the books like a snake ridding its body of dried flakey skin.
I spent the majority of my weekend studying human behavior—there are tremendous amounts of entertainment located in the art of conversation. Grocery store cashiers are like a radio morning show; they make or break the future deal. How a cashier acts and reacts to someone barely fit to purchase the stores 80% markup determines if the client will return.
Seriously, movie theater ticket takers and the custodial staff are the biggest stars in Hollywood—their performances at the front door and inside the rows and on top of the stadium seats are far greater than George Clooney appearing in three pictures the same year.
If CBS is spending valuable time putting a heck of a lot of attention on those no longer working…why am I completely fascinated with the gainfully employed? They have what a lot of people want. They hold an invisible key that keeps them working.
People watching uncovers the important behavioral skills required to land the next performance. Name the last time you entered an interview thinking your delivery was hip, on top of pop culture and later learned you came across older than your mother?
So who’s sticking the jobs?
One quick glance at the current trend of everyday places all people visit without judgment and you’ll easily identify the current wave of American workday fame, it’s no different than the uncorrected angst delivered to the world by Curt Cobain and the billion other wanna-be Grunger’s who two decades ago let go of trying to please the decision makers and did what makes life fun…their own thing.
Free spirits are everywhere…except on top. But is that a bad thing?
I fell to my knees in shock when a company manager walked over to an employee and said, “You’re going home.”
Unmoved by the sudden change the employee looked to the floor and smiled.
“I’ve asked you a hundred times to stop updating your Facebook at work.”
I’m not a Baby Boomer but nothing generates more blood flow than watching the gap between the ages shrink to near nothingness. Inside my imagination I picture the older person taking the time to showoff their skills, a stealing of the arts, this is how you do it better type of conversation only to learn as you near the blurted out words the Gen Xer barely recognizes the mindset of the taller more experienced employee and feels a need to reprimand the aged like fine wine worker for not stalking a shelf properly. No grin, not even an insane smirk, a calm, “Yes sir,” is heard and the day moves forward.
CBS didn’t cover the story that needs to be told—the inside secrets of those holding what everyone wants to own. Let us look into the eyes of the employed to see how unprotected multitasking has nearly capsized the family dream. You can’t help but believe that N1H1 and other sicknesses will one day be linked to a society that couldn’t stop working. If our daily lives were the NBA, NFL and the Actors Guild, it would be a much different America.
I’m not screaming unions…take a good gander at who the healthiest people are shopping this holiday season…small businesses owners with teams of two to five. They’ve developed plans that make grassrooting the true path to success. They’re not worried about George Clooney’s bottom line firing devices displayed in the new film Up in the Air to walk in and easily erase eighty collective years of hard work and dedication.
Keeping it small is like saying keep it real. It reminds me of a speech my radio mentor Andrew Ashwood once shouted during a time of rebuilding the radio station, “I don’t want to be a listener’s first or second choice! We’ve done nothing to earn it. My goal today and everyday is to be just one of the five buttons on that car radio. Once we begin to appear there and not something someone scans into then we have the right to say we’ve accomplished something. Until then…its time to hit the streets and promote what we do with lots of hand shakes and lasting smiles.”
He was a one of a kind with a vision and voice that stood out like someone trying out for American Idol the rejection episodes. Yet if you took the time to get to know the man...the mission became easy.
Have you ever watched a flock of morning doves? They follow each other everywhere singing what seems to be the same coo coo coo over and over again. Survival to them seems like a solid team effort until you drive beside a collection of above ground telephone lines and notice a single dove staring off into the world. That Andrew Ashwood style of individualism takes on a new role without becoming depressed by morning dove peer pressure. By flying alone he’s allowed himself to believe in the spirit of locating newer places to eat, grow and take shelter during bitterly cold mornings.
True story…seconds after I took note of the dove, a red tail hawk flew in to sit beside him. I naturally assumed the hawk was recently fired and was trying to land a gig with the dove family. If it was about having dinner the hawk is blessed with enough skills to swipe dove meat right off the line without skipping a beat. Seeing them together holds the message: It doesn’t matter how big you are or how power your reputation is…in the end there can be no success if what we develop isn’t equal to everyone who participates.
Which is my poetic way of saying, “The stock market and banks might own America but it’s ultimately the average everyday person who makes it worth its weight in gold.” That’s the real face we need to get to know…what do you have that we all want to own? Maybe it’s time you let someone steal your art. The best students in a martial arts class are the instructors who never stopped recognizing themselves as a white belt.
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
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