I’ve lost my job multiple times. Culturally, my job is supposed to be part of my identity. And unemployment is generally considered to be the fault of the person who was fired/laid off/retrenched. That is a ridiculously arrogant belief.

To think that your individual set of skills is so unique and so important and that your loyalty is so valued is really arrogant. But the alternative is so much scarier.

This generation I think was a little more aware of such things? But watching it happen to the older folks is...hard. Work was one of their coping mechanisms. Pretty much all of us are a few bad days away from having nothing.