We live in a world of gaps. There is the Generation Gap. The Budget Gap. The Red State-Blue State Gap. There is even the gap between those who still shop at The Gap and those who do not.
And now, thanks to an irritable stock market, some ill-intentioned credit-swappers and the highest unemployment numbers we’ve seen in decades, we’re standing at the edge of a new divide: the epic, yawning gap between the Busy and the Un-Busy.
It should have been predictable. Company managers everywhere are “cutting costs” (read: unceremoniously firing whole departments and dropping extra work on remaining employees), which leaves the rest of us in one of two camps: overworked or unemployed.
Busy or Un-Busy. And the ranks of the Un-Busy are growing rapidly.
Need proof? Check your inbox. It’s probably overflowing with e-mails (a singing YouTube baby! a virtual fortune cookie! a 10-meg photo of a floppy-eared bunny on a hot dog roll!) sent by well-meaning, newly jobless friends whose hands are filled with a glut of creative and potentially useful energy — and nowhere to put it.
Don’t get me wrong. I love a picture of a bunny on a hot dog roll as much as the next guy. But, well, when you’ve seen one bunny on a hot dog roll . . . Look, you know who you are, and something had to be said.
Recently, I called my father in California, who’s relatively (although not completely) Un-Busy. It was a Thursday afternoon. I had about 17 unanswered “urgent” e-mails, a teetering stack of unopened mail and 400 more things to do before quitting time, but I called my father to say hello. I asked what he was doing. He said, and I quote, “Watching the ducks.” That was it.
Watching the ducks. It sounded pretty good to me.
We on the working side of the Busy Gap certainly have our blessings to count: a regular (if shrunken) paycheck, continued (if reduced) benefits, daily (if stunted) interaction with live human beings, a reason to shave.
We may stay awake nights wondering whether we’ll be the next to go, but in the morning we still get up and come into the office. For someone who wants to work but doesn’t have the opportunity right now, that’s a lot to envy.
But what we don’t have on the working side of this gap is free time. Me, I’ve never been so busy. And while I appreciate every moment I’m employed, I can’t help gazing through these rose-colored office windows and into the fresh air blowing around the resplendent, mysterious Capitol dome across the park and thinking, somewhat guiltily: Boy, that sunshine sure looks nice out there.
Funny, isn’t it, how the currency you don’t have is the currency you covet. Funny, how sometimes you just want to watch the ducks.
And so, as the Un-Busy among us forward e-fortunes and share tips on free Wi-Fi hot zones, and as the Busy sweat the small, unimportant stuff at work and watch our pile of undone tasks grow taller by the hour, what we’re really all doing is wishing we were together. Working overtime or watching the ducks, it wouldn’t matter, really. We just want to be together.
Maybe the gap isn’t so wide after all. There are seven days coming up for me, seven days of furlough where I’ll have the chance to close the Busy Gap and spend some time on the other side.
One thing I’ll do is right outside the window: First I’ll stroll downtown, then I’ll become the first person I know who has actually taken a tour of that resplendent, mysterious dome atop the state Capitol.
Unless you beat me to it.
Tours of the Capitol are free and furlough- friendly. For more info, call 303-866-3834.
Tucker Shaw: 303-954-1958 or tshaw@denverpost.com
