Dive into the archives.
- Spinning the Wheel Faster
It is official. Deloitte reports that the return on assets at US companies has been in free-fall since 1965. Competition has tightened margins. Both consumers and valued employees have benefited as prices have dropped and salaries have increased. And the counterweight to the bottom line problem (at least at banks) has been increasing leverage. Leverage [...]
- Them were Us, Yesterday: Not Coping With Recession’s Realities
Long ago, in another era, I worked as a volunteer following the 9/11 attacks. I began my work serving on a telephone information bank, manned by mental health workers, for the purpose of identifying 9/11 survivors. Working there, I noted an increasing kind of desperation. For example, on that first night (9/12), one of our [...]
- The Madoff Metaphor
While the sentiment of moment is harshly judgmental, it is difficult not to think about Madoff as a metaphor of recent times. He has played his role well in the public drama of shock and blame: stoically bearing guilt within the rituals of censure and condemnation. His decision to turn from trading to the fabrication [...]
- Annals of Denial: Follow Your Bliss
Two moments, several hours apart, gave me plenty to think about. The first happened, as three neighbors, all returning from walking our dogs in the park , paused on a street corner, to wait for the traffic light to change. We were chatting about friends and colleagues who’d recently become unemployed. A well-dressed, middle-aged man, [...]
- “Recession Psychosis”
My psychotherapist colleagues knew it was coming, but Saturday’s Times confirmed it: the severe symptoms of anxiety, despair, and even sucidality they’re calling “recession psychosis”— not a formal DSM diagnosis— but descriptive enough. Studies of unemployment reflect that downsizing is the only traumatizing life event which prevents sufferers from returning to their pre-morbid ‘setpoint” of [...]
- Retirement Tsunami
Those of us who have worked in organizations know that as individuals leave their roles in departments, or on committees, vital knowledge is often lost. With single departures, we find that certain problem dimensions are not addressed. My colleague Angela, for example, paid particular attention to economic trends in the staffing of R&D departments. With [...]
- The CEC: Stacking the Middle-Aged Deck To Failure
The developmental effect of the “Current Economic Climate” upon the under-employed middle aged worker, is to force the normative later-life crisis of generativity vs stagnation before its time. The crisis itself is to be expected– worked through across the years in contemplation of one’s lifetime of accomplishments and failures. But the additional external pressures of [...]
- A Very Human Response
The poignancy and resilience of the human experience, especially as we undergo difficulty and hard times, is not only a “human asset”. It is our blessing. A reader shares this response to the blog post a few weeks back. Ian- Just finished rereading your post on “Adrenaline Withdrawal” and feel like it was addressed directly [...]
- Thanksgiving: Holidays and Loss
Unlike my experiences of posting resumes to the internet, my experiences of blog posting have been rich and rewarding. Your comments, however, conveyed by e-mail, have been personal because the posts have evoked a feeling or memory that is sensitive and private. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I am thankful that reciprocally, even through we’re [...]
- Executive Summary: Unacceptable Adult Losses
Three categories of loss affecting the maintenance of healthy self-esteem result from the trauma of involuntary occupational displacement at midlife: economic deprivation; relational dislocation; and assault upon normative adult development. Economic deprivation begins with “belt tightening” and limitation of the accustomed activities and purchases that allow the individual and family a subjective sense of leisure. [...]
