The recession, indeed, hits home
By: Pam Hersh – Special Writer
"I will work for food," proclaimed the young woman to her friend, both of whom were standing in the PJ’s Pancake House Sunday brunch line, next door to the Historical Society of Princeton on Nassau Street.
Clasping pinkies with what seemed to be her toddler child, she offered profound thanks to her friend who was paying for their brunch and keeping her in a PJ’s Pancake House line, rather than a soup kitchen line. She noted how a lot of her over-educated friends were in the same boat, one which was about to capsize because of the ever-increasing numbers of unemployed.
Having friends and family in this overcrowded boat, I eavesdropped with great empathy.
The young woman seemed unaware that she could have been a living exhibit in the Historical Society of Princeton’s current exhibition, "The Recession Hits Home: Job Loss in Central New Jersey." The Tenement Museum in New York City sends its social and historical messages by means of actors portraying the lives of the immigrants living in the lower East Side in the early 20th century. The Princeton Historical Society could have employed the same technique – if it had the money to employ some of the unemployed to talk about their experiences of trying to find work.
The exhibition, open until Aug. 22, reports some unsettling statistics. Area retailers in 2009 experienced a 20-to-50 percent reduction in sales. According to Princeton Township Mayor Bernie Miller, the Princeton Human Services Office reported "many more" individuals seeking welfare/social services assistance. In May 2010, Mercer, Middlesex and Monmouth Counties had unemployment rates between 7.9 to 8.9 percent.
The exhibit is not just a house of unemployment horrors, however, because it puts forth some local resources providing a pathway to employment. After seeing the exhibit, I returned to PJ’s to interrupt the unemployed woman’s attack on a stack of pancakes. I wanted to pass on information I had gleaned. Mercer County has a One-Stop Career Center www.nj.gov/counties/mercer/commissions/investment/career whose mission is to connect employers to the workforce and promote life-long learning opportunities. And the Princeton Public Library is a treasure trove of job-finding riches ([email protected]). It offers everything from monthly support group discussion sessions to individual appointments with reference librarians who are experts in job-search tools, such as resume software and data bases (Reference USA and Factiva). The library also works with the national organization known as SCORE: Service Corps of Retired Executives, which advices entrepreneurs who want to open or expand small businesses. SCORE was instrumental in launching our local iconic coffeehouse Small World.
Another encouraging aspect to the Princeton employment scene is on exhibit at Princeton University, directly across the street from the Historical Society. It concerns not the unemployed but rather the employed, particularly those individuals whose family demands often jeopardize their ability to stay employed. Vice President of Human Resources Lianne Crowley-Sullivan said she came to PU several years ago to help build a human resources function that would emphasize the human in Human Resources. And inherent in this humanizing is flexibility in the work place, i.e., allowing a working primary caregiver of the young or old family members to adjust his/her in office schedule to accommodate the various demands on caregiving.
Karen Jezierny, Princeton University director of Public Affairs, has been a long-time advocate of the flexible "it-takes-a-village" approach to operating an office. She began thinking about a different approach to running an office when she became aware of the fact that women (predominantly) with public policy expertise as well as demanding family care responsibilities were unable to use their talents and education. The rigidity in the workplace was making these very employable (from the point of view of brains, training and work ethic) women unemployable. It should be possible, she said, to do high level research into and analysis of governmental policy issues and still get to the soccer game, the day care center, ballet recital, the pediatrician’s office – without a enormous stress and guilt that one is cheating on one’s job commitments.
It takes work to make flexibility work for workers, a strategic orchestration of schedules, involving job sharing, flextime, and telecommuting. However, Ms. Jezierny has found "the effort more than worth it relative to the productivity," she said.
My granddaughter who at 3 is still adorably, rather than annoyingly, precocious, told me yesterday that her favorite word is "flexibility" because it is fun to shape "flexible" spongy toys (balls and play animals). "But it also is something that Mommy says she needs. Can we buy some for Mommy at the store?" she asked,
Not at the toy store, but perhaps more and more employers will be selling it and doing their part to serve up a more fulfilling employment meal.
A longtime resident of Princeton, Pam Hersh is vice president for government and community affairs with Princeton HealthCare System. She is a former managing editor of The Princeton Packet.