When All You Have Left Is Your Pride

[groovedaddy]

Look around you. On the train platform, at the bus stop, in the car pool lane: these days someone there is probably faking it, maintaining a job routine without having a job to go to.

The Wall Street type in suspenders, with his bulging briefcase; the woman in pearls, thumbing her BlackBerry; the builder in his work boots and tool belt — they could all be headed for the same coffee shop, or bar, for the day.

“I have a new client, a laid-off lawyer, who’s commuting in every day — to his Starbucks,” said Robert C. Chope, a professor of counseling at San Francisco State University and president of the employment division of the American Counseling Association. “He gets dressed up, meets with colleagues, networks; he calls it his Western White House. I have encouraged him to keep his routine.”

The fine art of keeping up appearances may seem shallow and deceitful, the very embodiment of denial. But many psychologists beg to differ.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/health/07mind.html?th&emc=th

[sarcasmo]

1. The correct term is Denial. I don't see how a Psychologist could say this is Healthy.

[amitten]

2. I think it is probably better than sitting around the house watching

daytime T.V.

That can kill your soul in less than two weeks. At least being out and about keeps you active and hopeful.

[Warpy]

3. They're not denying much of anything

They're hanging onto a routine they established while they still had worth as human beings, meaning a job that paid them enough to live on.

The worst thing that happens after a while is that they give up that routine, that they start isolating and letting their appearance go. Once that happens, it's pretty much all over. Nobody's going to hire somebody who has given up.

Keeping up appearances in the middle of disaster might look silly to someone who hasn't yet experienced disaster, but it does have a useful function.

[Why Syzygy]

4. Who wears pearls to work? nt

[xchrom]

5. me -- goes with my white T and khakis.

mostly people notice my glasses though.