I was listening to the radio while driving to dinner a couple of weeks ago. The host was Tom Leykis, a Los Angeles radio veteran on Monday through Friday from 3 to 8pm on 97.1 KLSX. 95% of the time, Leykis discusses “issues” that focus mainly on men, such as how to get “laid” more, how to spend only $40 on a date, or how to “dump that bitch” the moment she starts talking about a relationship. Very highbrow.

Lately, however, Leykis has been focusing on the economy. It seems as though whenever I tune in, the topic has changed from “signing racks” to “how has the economy affected you?” On this particular Thursday evening, he had on a caller, a young man it sounded like, who just a few days earlier had lost his job working for Wachovia somewhere in Southern California. Apparently, he had called in the week prior and was talking to Tom about how thankful he was that he was working for a beleaguered bank and still had a job. Speaking too soon is an understatement.

He proceeded to tell Tom how he had been working diligently at the bank for the past couple of years, and then all of a sudden, he was let go. He was awarded no severance (which I assume means he was hourly) and had to leave the office that day. He went on to explain how he also had a roommate in his apartment with whom he split the rent. Unfortunately, the roommate had decided to return to school in San Francisco and had bailed on him a month earlier.

At this point, the tone of the call shifted dramatically, because this man completely broke down.

Within just one month, he had gone from working for a bank, doing a job that was helping him pay for his college tuition and living with a roommate in an apartment, to living in his car. He explained that he could not stay with his parents at the time because he they had no room due to his other siblings, and that he was, in fact, helping them pay for their mortgage. He was going to cancel his cellphone next and was using some of his remaining minutes to call Tom and ask for advice. Throughout all of this, he was sobbing, saying what a “failure” he was and that he did not make himself more indispensable at his job.

“I never knew how good I had it,” he said. Continue reading We Never Know How Good We Have It