Why is this Recession so strange?

I finally realized what it is about this latest recession that is so different from any of the other ones I've lived through, people have lost confidence.  Actually, people are hopeless, but they need not be.

There is a lack of stability that has entered our lives that no amount of pundits talking about end of recessions and recovery can replace.  For many of us for the first time we go to work unsure if that job will be with us the next day.  We haven't changed or lost our skills or anything like that.  We are just unsure if those jobs will be there for us a week from now or a year from now.

I talk to people everyday who are quaking in fear about their future.  People are not sure what will happen to them and that is making them seize up, doubt themselves and become so unconfident that they cannot stand up for themselves.  They've lost that sense that things will be alright.  It's unknown.

It used to be that if you worked hard, paid your dues and did your duty you would have a successful career.  It was always an unsaid given that good workers would be safe and secure.  Unfortunately, someone left the back door open.

The difference is of course that no amount of hard work is a guarantee of continued employment.  Companies even when making record profits are still laying people off or not hiring.  The overall mindset of business has changed to a solely bottom line driven miasma that is always out for that extra half of a percent of profit on the backs of workers.  People can sense that they are no longer the heart of a company, but finance is.

So we work and we fret.  We think about the problems and what if's more than the have's and how it is.  We are looking over our shoulder, reading too much into emails and worried. We're afraid, but we need to buck up.

Confidence has nothing to do with circumstance.  It is an emotion that is separate from rational thought and reality.  We have to have it first before a cause.  The cause is ourselves and we cannot fail.  We can get through this latest challenge if we start to demand that companies start putting more thought into more than the bottom line.

Companies that put the need of their employees as part of the formula of their business's success not only make profits, but they secure a loyal workforce.  That workforce is the company in the flesh and if they stay true the company will prosper.

We want so much to be connected to something that is bigger than ourselves and if we can get that idea back into the heads of CEOs and managers, maybe they will see the benefit of having a workforce that is proud to say where they work, proud to clock in, and proud to wear that name badge.