With the latest news about job layoffs, I am also affected because most of my work comes through the state from my contract with them. I have ridden out several recessions and lowered income because my overhead is low and I keep a reserve of a year's income. I have also been very lucky since I started my career 30 years ago this June.

I fell into rehabilitation when the federal government offered me a stipend which paid for my graduate degree. When I graduated and moved to where my husband found work, there were no jobs available in my field. After 6 months our next door neighbor told me there was an opening for an evaluator at Goodwill, where she worked. I began my career that week.

The following month I found out there was an evaluator job open at a rehab facility in Atlanta. I was their 3rd choice but got it because the others turned it down. We moved here and I got excellent training in that job for the next 3 years. I left to be an evaluator in the private sector and worked at Emory with Workers' Compensation chronic pain patients. The group decided to go out on their own after 4 years. This proved to be a mistake and I left to take a job at Georgia Baptist after 2 years.

After there were several layoffs at the hospital and the writing was on the wall. I went out on my own in June, 1990. I made many mistakes in my expenses but again got lucky by finding a doctor who sent his patients to me for testing. I gradually built up other sources of revenue as pain management centers grew out of favor and they went out of business. However, in 1992 the state stopped requiring vocational rehab for Workers Comp clients and that work started to dry up. By 1997, with less and less business, I nearly moved to Seattle to take a job as a Workers' Comp coordinator, since vocational rehab was still required in Washington state.

At that very time, the State fired all of its evaluators and closed rehab centers. I registered to be one of the 1st contract evaluators and this has provided the majority of my income since, with some very  good years and some leaner years. Oddly, with the state budget tightening up this year, about 25% of my business has been coming from those Workers Comp counselors and attorneys who still work in that system.

So I have always managed to stay one step of the axe and have not had an actual job for over 18 years. I hope to continue until I can retire. Economies and technology make many jobs obsolete; it's getting trickier to stay ahead of the curve. I'm grateful for the luck I've had!

The Clash
Clampdown

What are we gonna do now?
Taking off his turban, they said, is this man a Jew?
'Cause they're working for the clampdown
They put up a poster saying we earn more than you!
When we're working for the clampdown
We will teach our twisted speech
To the young believers
We will train our blue-eyed men
To be young believers

The judge said five to ten-but I say double that again
I'm not working for the clampdown
No man born with a living soul
Can be working for the clampdown
Kick over the wall 'cause government's to fall
How can you refuse it?
Let fury have the hour, anger can be power
D'you know that you can use it?

The voices in your head are calling
Stop wasting your time, there's nothing coming
Only a fool would think someone could save you
The men at the factory are old and cunning
You don't owe nothing, so boy get runnin'
It's the best years of your life they want to steal

You grow up and you calm down
You're working for the clampdown
You start wearing the blue and brown
You're working for the clampdown
So you got someone to boss around
It makes you feel big now
You drift until you brutalize
You made your first kill now

In these days of evil presidentes
Working for the clampdown
But lately one or two has fully paid their due
For working for the clampdown
But ha! Gitalong! Gitalong!

And I've given away no secrets
Who's barmy now?

(I had the lyrics to this song on my billboard in my cubicle when I worked at the rehab center. My boss and me hated each other.)



The Clash
Career Opportunities

The offered me the office, offered me the shop
They said I'd better take anything they'd got
Do you wanna make tea at the BBC?
Do you wanna be, do you really wanna be a cop?

Career opportunities are the ones that never knock
Every job they offer you is to keep you out the dock
Career opportunity, the ones that never knock

I hate the army an' I hate the R.A.F.
I don't wanna go fighting in the tropical heat
I hate the civil service rules
And I won't open letter bombs for you

Bus driver....ambulance man....ticket inspector
They're gonna have to introduce conscription
They're gonna have to take away my prescription
If they wanna get me making toys
If they wanna get me, well, I got no choice

Careers
Careers
Careers

Ain't never gonna knock



The Clash
The Magnificent Seven

Ring! Ring! It's 7 A.M.!
Move y'self to go again
Cold water in the face
Brings you back to this awful place
Knuckle merchants and you bankers, too
Must get up an' learn those rules
Weather man and the crazy chief
One says sun and one says sleet
A.M., the F.M. the P.M. too
Churning out that boogaloo
Gets you up and gets you out
But how long can you keep it up?
Gimme Honda, Gimme Sony
So cheap and real phony
Hong Kong dollars and Indian cents
English pounds and Eskimo pence

You lot! What?
Don't stop! Give it all you got!
You lot! What?
Don't stop! Yeah!

Working for a rise, better my station
Take my baby to sophistication
She's seen the ads, she thinks it's nice
Better work hard - I seen the price
Never mind that it's time for the bus
We got to work - an' you're one of us
Clocks go slow in a place of work
Minutes drag and the hours jerk

"When can I tell 'em wot I do?
In a second, maaan...oright Chuck!"

Wave bub-bub-bub-bye to the boss
It's our profit, it's his loss
But anyway lunch bells ring
Take one hour and do your thanng!
Cheeesboiger!

What do we have for entertainment?
Cops kickin' Gypsies on the pavement
Now the news - snap to attention!
The lunar landing of the dentist convention
Italian mobster shoots a lobster
Seafood restaurant gets out of hand
A car in the fridge
Or a fridge in the car?
Like cowboys do - in T.V. land

You lot! What? Don't stop. Huh?

So get back to work an' sweat some more
The sun will sink an' we'll get out the door
It's no good for man to work in cages
Hits the town, he drinks his wages
You're frettin', you're sweatin'
But did you notice you ain't gettin'?
Don't you ever stop long enough to start?
To take your car outta that gear
Don't you ever stop long enough to start?
To get your car outta that gear
Karlo Marx and Fredrich Engels
Came to the checkout at the 7-11
Marx was skint - but he had sense
Engels lent him the necessary pence

What have we got? Yeh-o, magnificence!!

Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi
Went to the park to check on the game
But they was murdered by the other team
Who went on to win 50-nil
You can be true, you can be false
You be given the same reward
Socrates and Milhous Nixon
Both went the same way - through the kitchen
Plato the Greek or Rin Tin Tin
Who's more famous to the billion millions?
News Flash: Vacuum Cleaner Sucks Up Budgie
Oooohh...bub-bye

Magnificence!!



John Lennon
Working Class Hero

As soon as you're born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function you're so full of fear
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

There's room at the top they are telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

If you want to be a hero well just follow me
If you want to be a hero well just follow me



Dolly Parton
9 to 5

(The words are actually on the video!)



She is certainly one of the hardest working people in show biz!

We have such ambivalent feelings about work; migrants risk death coming here illegally to earn a few dollars, but we often hate the fact that others control so much of our lives and/or the work we feel we have to do.

Lastly, Donna Summer supposedly wrote this after she started talking to a bathroom attendant at one of her shows. I always felt that having to tip the ones who hand me the soap and paper towel was like paying the street beggars. Unless they also clean the room, it seems they may be there to prevent people from doing drugs; maybe that's worth something, I guess.

Donna Summer
She Works Hard For the Money

She works hard for the money. So hard for it, honey.
She works hard for the money. So you better treat her right.

Onetta here in the corner stand and wonders where she is.
And it's strange to her, some people seem to have everything.
9 am on the hour hand and she's waiting for the bell.
And she's looking real pretty. She's waiting for her clientele.

She works hard for the money. So hard for it, honey.
She works hard for the money. So you better treat her right.

Twentyeight years have come and gone.
And she's seen a lot of tears
of the ones who come in. They really seem to need her there.
It's a sacrifice working day to day. For little money just tipsfor pay.
But it's worth it all just to hear them say that they care.

She works hard for the money. So hard for it, honey.
She works hard for the money. So you better treat her right.

She already knows she's seen her bad times.
She already knows these are the good times.
She'll never sell out, she never will, not for a dollar bill.
She works haaaaard.........