大學生就業各種崗位 沒有泳衣時,我們就裸泳

“馬克庫伯是一個清潔工，他早晨工作第一件事，就是用抹布把他幹活的辦公大樓門把擦乾淨，把入口處塑料腳墊上的泥土抖到地上去，並用拖把拖過長長的走道。”
Mark Cooper started his work day on a recent morning cleaning the door handles of an office building with a rag, vigorously shaking out a rug at a back entrance and pushing a dust mop down a long hallway.

這是今天紐約時報網站頭版故事。講述一個曾經在五百強企業拿七萬美元年薪、擁有一百二十萬美元預算的主管，在金融危機中失去工作後的生活現狀。爲了生存，他被迫做了一個清潔工，收入銳減了百分之七、八十（相當於股市崩盤），地位也墜落到最低層，心情更是壞到了頂點。
“You’re fighting despair, discouragement, depression every day,” Mr. Cooper said.

“每天每日，你都在和絕望、沮喪和抑鬱搏鬥。”馬克庫伯告訴記者。

對於很多類似從高位降落在底層崗位上的工人而言，心理調節和經濟適應一樣艱難，因爲他們的身份意識和個人價值被徹底顛倒了。
For many of the workers, the psychological adjustment was just as difficult as the financial one, with their sense of identity and self-worth upended.

這樣的故事，在上一次亞洲金融危機時，我們讀到不少。

中國大學生就業難，確實已經進入了一個很難的時刻。

我通過轉述這個故事，鼓勵就業難的大學生，向馬克庫伯先生學習，勇敢走向每一個能夠得到的工作崗位上去。

你還沒有拿過七萬美元的年薪，你也沒有管過一百二十萬美元的預算，你去做清潔工，也就沒有什麼大不了的！

當今中國的領導人、高級主管、各行各業的領導者——包括臺灣、香港——只要他們當年出國留學過，絕大多數都在國外做過清潔工、洗碗工、雜工、搬運工、伺應生（waiter）、家庭工、送餐工……結果是，他們不僅學到了先進的科學文化，他們還得到了最深刻的底層感受，和最現實的人生體驗。

鄧小平早年留學時，就曾在法國雷諾汽車廠做過工人。

徐小平當年留學時，也在加拿大必勝客餐廳送過比薩。

我祝願所有大學生都能找到自己心儀的工作。但我鼓勵所有暫時沒有找到這樣工作的大學生，放下架子、降低期待、先把自己的sense of identity 和self-worth顛倒一下，確立“實現理想是人生最高綱領，但養活自己是人生最低綱領——而找不到理想的工作則要爲最低綱領奮鬥”這個人生暫行大綱。

養活自己是硬道理。

這樣，當你被迫拿起抹布、拖把、你就不會讓despair, discouragement, and depression 統治你的心靈，你就不必像馬克庫伯那樣需要和這些黑暗情緒作鬥爭，你就會從生活的磨練中迅速崛起，成爲就業的強者、人生的強者。

Now Mr. Cooper is grateful for what is known in unemployment circles as a “survival job” at a friend’s janitorial services company.

此時此刻，庫伯先生充滿感激地做着這份被稱之爲“活命工作”的事兒，在他一位朋友開辦的這家清潔公司裏。

瞧，即使幹清潔工，也能幹出一家清潔公司來，也是一種創業機會啊！

只要有人類需要的地方，就有就業機會，都有創業機會，都有商業機會和掙錢機會。

大學生們，努力尋找、抓住並珍惜這些機會啊！

沒有泳衣時，我們只好裸泳。一旦金融海嘯退潮之後，我們就知道誰的裸泳最漂亮！

Forced From Executive Pay to Hourly Wage NewYork Times

Mark Cooper started his work day on a recent morning cleaning the door handles of an office building with a rag, vigorously shaking out a rug at a back entrance and pushing a dust mop down a long hallway.

Nine months ago he lost his job as the security manager for the western United States for a Fortune 500 company, overseeing a budget of $1.2 million and earning about $70,000 a year. Now he is grateful for the $12 an hour he makes in what is known in unemployment circles as a “survival job” at a friend’s janitorial services company. But that does not make the work any easier.

“You’re fighting despair, discouragement, depression every day,” Mr. Cooper said.

Working five days a week, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Mr. Cooper is not counted by traditional measures as among the recession’s casualties at this point. But his tumble down the economic ladder is among the more disquieting and often hidden aspects of the downturn.

It is not clear how many professionals like Mr. Cooper have taken on these types of lower-paying jobs, which are themselves in short supply. Many are doing their best to hold out as long as possible on unemployment benefits and savings while still looking for work in their fields.

About 1.7 million people, however, were working part-time in January because they could not find full-time work, a 40 percent jump from December 2007, when the recession began, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

And experts agree that as the economic downturn continues and as more people begin to exhaust their jobless benefits and other options, the situation Mr. Cooper is in will inevitably become more common.

Interviews with more than two dozen laid-off professionals across the country, including architects, former sales managers and executives who have taken on lower-paying, stop-gap jobs to help make ends meet, found that they were working for places like U.P.S., a Verizon Wireless call center and a liquor store. For many of the workers, the psychological adjustment was just as difficult as the financial one, with their sense of identity and self-worth upended.

“It has been like peeling back the layers of a bad onion,” said Ame Arlt, 53, who recently accepted a position as a customer-service representative at an online insurance-leads referral service in Franklin, Tenn., after 20 years of working in executive jobs. “With every layer you peel back, you discover something else about yourself. You have to make an adjustment.”

Some people had exhausted their jobless benefits, or were ineligible; others said it was impossible for them to live on their unemployment checks alone, or said it was a matter of pride, or sanity, that drove them to find a job, any job.

In just one illustration of the demand for low-wage work, a spokesman for U.P.S. said the company saw the number of applicants this last holiday season for jobs sorting and delivering packages almost triple to 1.4 million from the 500,000 it normally receives.

When Ms. Arlt applied for the job, she sent in a stripped-down résumé that hid her 20-year career at national media companies, during which she ascended to vice president of brand development at the On Command Video Corporation and was making $165,000 a year. She decided in 2001 to start her own business, opening an equestrian store and then founding a magazine devoted to the sport. But with the economy slowing, she was forced to shutter both businesses by June of last year.

After applying for more than 100 jobs, mostly director-level and above in marketing and branding, and getting just two interviews, Ms. Arlt said she realized last fall that she had to do something to “close the monthly financial hemorrhage.”

Her new job at HometownQuotes pays $10 to $15 an hour and has mostly entailed data entry. But even though she has parted ways with some friends because she is no longer in their social stratum, Ms. Arlt said she was glad she was no longer sitting at home, “thinking, ‘Who have I not heard from today?’ ”

Her new paycheck covers her mortgage but not her other living expenses. Recently, she cashed out what was left of her retirement portfolio, about $17,000.

“It has been the hardest thing in my life,” she said. “It has been harder than my divorce from my husband. It has really been even worse than the death of my mother.”

Nearly all of those interviewed said they considered their situations temporary and planned to resume their careers where they left off once the economy improves. But there are people like John Eller, 51, of Lee’s Summit, Mo., who offer a glimpse of how difficult it can be to bounce back.

Mr. Eller had been a senior director at Sprint, earning as much as $150,000 a year and overseeing 7,000 employees at 13 call centers, before being laid off in 2002 amid the economic contraction after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

A year later, he found another job, at roughly half the pay, managing a call center in New Jersey. After he lost that job two years later in a downsizing, Mr. Eller found himself out of work for another year before landing a contract position running two call centers in Kansas and Illinois, earning close to six figures.

But after that ended a year later, he was unable to find work for several months. In July 2007, he took what he thought would be a temporary job for $10 an hour as a baker in a grocery store. He was laid off again last October.

Mr. Eller quickly landed a new survival job, working as a supervisor on the overnight shift for a contractor processing immigration applications for the federal government at a salary of about $34,000 a year. But with eight children and a wife to support, Mr. Eller said he was still “below poverty level.” The family has not been able to make mortgage payments in five months and has been on the brink of foreclosure.

“I’m still scratching and clawing and trying to work my way back,” he said.

In Mr. Cooper’s case, relying on unemployment checks was never a serious consideration. The maximum benefit that jobless people can collect in Arizona is $240 a week, among the lowest in the country — and much less than is required to cover the mortgage on the comfortable four-bedroom home in Glendale that he and his wife, Maggie Macias-Cooper, share.

Mrs. Macias-Cooper, who works as a personal trainer in a gym built in what used to be the couple’s three-car garage, has seen her client base shrink to 10 from about 50 over the last year.

In addition to giving Mr. Cooper a job as a janitor, his friend agreed to pay for the couple’s benefits through Cobra. Maintaining health care coverage was paramount for the family because Mrs. Macias-Cooper recently had breast cancer.

Some unemployed professionals said they decided not to seek even part-time work because it might interfere with their job searches. But Mr. Cooper rises every day at 4 a.m. and, after a time of prayer, devotes two hours to his job hunt on the computer. He prints out a detailed call list of prospective employers to take with him, squeezing in phone conversations during breaks throughout the day from his pickup truck, which he calls his “office.”

“There were times I broke down,” Mr. Cooper said. “I broke down thinking, ‘This is what I’ve become.’ ”

But Mrs. Macias-Cooper, who admitted that she was initially embarrassed about her husband’s new job, says she is now grateful.

“There is no shame,” said Mrs. Macias-Cooper, who grew teary during an interview at their home. “I am very proud of my husband that he will go to any lengths, do whatever it takes, to keep his family afloat, if it means mopping floors, cleaning urinals.”