Here’s a tale of woe I found today on an old hard drive uncovered in the dust of time. It was written as the introduction to a book with the title Mr. Unlucky’s Almanac (never completed), and I quote:

By the time I had been unemployed for something like 14 months and rejected by scores of potential employers, I had lost so much respect in the eyes of the world that dogs quit barking at me. I couldn’t get a reaction from these critters even if I rattled a neighbor’s door or window. 

Needless to say, the phone had quit ringing well before that.  People who had praised my friendship and extolled my skills at work (however disingenuously) forgot I existed lest they somehow share in my fate. 

I guess unluck can rub off on others.  Either that, or a lot of people were just whistling past their own professional graves as usual.

Ah, cruel irony of life — being forced into retirement with no way to pay for it.  Those of you smugly sitting at your desks at work thinking life is grand and someday you’ll sail into the sunset of luxurious retirement, I’ve got two words for you, “You’re next.” 

Welcome to the United States and the American Dream in the 21^st Century.  Find a way to survive on your own, or don’t survive at all.

That’s why I’m penning Mr. Unlucky’s Almanac.  Herein you’ll find the ways and wisdom, time-honored and new (if there is such a thing), that will help you navigate past the shoals of a man-eat-man economy that no longer offers a gold watch after 40 years. 

In fact, if you have a gold watch, hold onto it for the day of reckoning (downsized and out), for it could be worth something at the pawn shop. 

Believe me, I unloaded and raided everything I had — stocks, bonds, retirement plans, bank accounts, credit cards — when I wassupposedly downsized.  Name it.  If it could yield money, I used it, bankruptcy court be damned!

Now I say “supposedly downsized” because I don’t believe most layoffs are even necessary.  Where I worked, there were a least one or two million dollars in wasted expenses for consultants, outsourcing, needless printed documents, junkets, tchotkes and the like in each year’s expenditures, and I’m speaking just of my department. 

I could’ve cut half of that with no effect whatsoever on what was going on at that particular place of work; nor would the cuts have affected a single desired outcome.  Sad but true.  I bet thousands could step forward with similar tales.

However, reality is reality, and that is what we must cope with.  Hence Mr. Unlucky’s Almanac.  Let’s now rename Poor Richard for what he has become in 1996 — plain old unlucky.  Is there a solution to unluck?

POSTSCRIPT: Destitution does breed a sense of doom, doesn’t it, as my words of yore reflect?