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Losing a job? Just plain careless

BY BOB BRODY | Bob Brody lives in Forest Hills.

October 11, 2008

Almost six months ago, I lost my job. At first I thought I might have misplaced it. I've done that with my keys a few times. So I checked all my pants pockets. But no go.

Then I thought I might have dropped it somewhere. So I got my flashlight and looked under the sofa and behind the refrigerator. No luck on that front, either.

I started to speculate about my job's likely whereabouts. Maybe the office cleaning lady made off with it because it was better than hers, or my son took it to school for show-and- tell, or the IRS confiscated it. Maybe it was going around disguised as another job somewhere in France and now lives there as a bohemian expatriate wearing a wig and fake nose. Or maybe it was taken out in the pine barrens late at night and shot in the back of the head, gangland-style.

So it went for 159,000 Americans in September - the ninth straight month of job declines, the U.S. Department of Labor reported last week. The national unemployment rate has risen to 6.1 percent. In all, 760,000 Americans have lost jobs so far this year.

Everywhere, in other words, the newly unemployed are down on hands and knees behind the refrigerator or scouring the countryside with search parties for jobs they lost.

Meanwhile, I've tried all kinds of approaches to locating my lost job - GPS, Google, bird calls. In the process, I spotted all kinds of other stuff - Bigfoot, Jimmy Hoffa, the Ark of the Covenant, Heinrich Himmler, a sailboat that disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle and even a Snickers bar I'd long presumed gone for good.

Everything, except for my old job.

By the way, if you lose your job, does that mean no one who finds it is allowed to do it, either? Or is it pretty much finder's keepers?

Now, I may have no idea where all our jobs have gone missing, but at least I have a clue why. As I understand it, a tank of gas now costs about the same as a three-day weekend at an oceanfront bed-and-breakfast in Montauk. I'm also given to believe that our dollar overseas has lately had approximately the same value as spit.

My predicament has forced me to consider other options, too. Maybe I should place a photo of my job on lampposts, or hire a bounty hunter to track it down and bring it back to me in handcuffs, or ask Ben Bernanke for advice. For all I know, there's some Lost-and-Found Department for jobs somewhere, that - ironically - nobody can ever find.

It's all sort of odd, really. It used to be that people would lose only small belongings, like mittens or earrings. Or, once in a while, at worst, a person might somehow lose an entire day. But it's rather a rare feat to lose anything that takes up quite as much square footage as your average full-time job.

All in all, though, I'm feeling lucky. I know that my job, just like the truth, is out there. So if you happen to see it, please let me know (for future reference, my job looks like me: lean, with glasses, and pretty bald).

And while you're at it, ask it to come home. I promise to do the same for you.

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