It use to be back around ten or maybe even fifteen years ago that when one was in a conversation with someone and during that conversation when it was discovered that the other party was unemployed. There would be a quiet response from the other person.
Quiet as in they would tell you “I am sorry to hear that you lost your job.” But in the back of their mind they are thinking to themselves. “How can you allow yourself to become a lower member of society, and just live of the system and do nothing?”
Back then it was somewhat frowned upon not to be working. It was as if your social status was downgraded and you had gone from working and or middle class to poverty once it was found out that you were unemployed.
And it did not matter as well what your personal education was. You could have been someone who started working right after high school. Or stated after you got your degree from college but once it was found out or discovered that you was unemployed, you were looked down upon.
It was as if people looked at you and thought you were lazy and did not want to do anything with your life. Being unemployed back then was the one club that a person should not be a part of. It was as if people thought you joined a violent gang and become a thug or hoodlum.
And even the people who you knew for a period of time would start to treat you differently. Like as if you had just gotten out of jail after being there for a few years and they just did not know how to deal or treat you, there was a quiet stigma about being unemployed.
But now over the last two years or so it seems now that being unemployed had become somewhat socially acceptable. We have gone from not knowing any of our friends or family members to be unemployed to knowing one or maybe even a few people who are out of work. As if there was a population explosion of people who have migrated into the United States.
But the population explosion that has developed is not one of people who have migrated here; it’s of individuals that currently live here. Whether they were born in the United States or abroad and they are currently living here. Once you became unemployed you was just part of a massive group of people in employment limbo.
Nowadays if two people have the same conversation mentioned above. And the other person discovers that you are unemployed there is a sense of sympathy from the other person. You are comforted with words of support and maybe even an offer of help if need be. What was once shunned is now more acceptable, for it can happen to anyone.
Being on unemployment a few years back was one club you can say that was like being a member of a “dark fraternity.” A secret club or organization that very few people were a member of and would try to avoid to become a member of such a club. But now it seems that its members are growing and the dark secret fraternity is now coming into the light and the masses. A club that once people did not want to be a part of is now to an extent one that everyone is getting into.
Membership that one tries to avoid, but for one reason or another still becomes a member once they lose their job. This “dark fraternity” is no longer dark and secret. It has become a major club that people are becoming a member of. Granted unlike some fraternities or sororities that once you join you can be a lifetime member and support the organization.
The fraternity of unemployment has one simple rule when you join. And that rule is this… You can leave at anytime once you find employment, and leaving the fraternity of unemployment is highly encouraged.
Lu Logic
