Must be nice...

ROCK FALLS, Ill. — Alan Beggerow has stopped looking for work. Laid off as a steelworker at 48, he taught math for a while at a community college. But when that ended, he could not find a job that, in his view, was neither demeaning nor underpaid.

So instead of heading to work, Mr. Beggerow, now 53, fills his days with diversions: playing the piano, reading histories and biographies, writing unpublished Western potboilers in the Louis L’Amour style — all activities once relegated to spare time. He often stays up late and sleeps until 11 a.m.

“I have come to realize that my free time is worth a lot to me"

The picture you see above is Alan Beggerow. The text above is the first couple paragraphs from a NY Times article titled, "Men Not Working and Not Wanting Just Any Job" I initially felt a surge of anger as I read the extremely well-written and well-researched piece by Louis Uchitelle & David Leonhardt. Who the hell were these guys that just gave up work but then I realized it was something else...jealousy...resentment. Why do they get to not work when I need to work just to live? It became much more of an existential read. Here's some of the more poignant quotes.

“I was always thinking if there was some way I could get out of this, do something else,” Mr. Beggerow said. “What made me so upset was the insecurity of it all and the humiliation. I don’t want to take a job that would put me through that again.”

“I’ve been through a lot of layoffs over the years, and there is a certain procedure you follow,” he said. “You contact the headhunters. You go looking for other work. You do all of that, and this time around it didn’t work.”

How about you Zoooheads? Happy with your job? Have a job? Do you relate to these guys? Angry at them? Jealous? Grateful? I'm all of these...

I will say this. I recognize I am in serious trouble when I have too much freetime. Unemployment is the kiss of death for me...I need, truly need to keep occupied. Idle hands are the Devils playthings is not an abstract concept for me. It's a truth.

Stay together friends and as always..

Stay Naked.

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