…as the Bard famously wrote. (And that’s not Daniel Bard, the pitcher for the Red Sox, either!) Un-employment. Job-less. Let go. Fired. Out on the street. Think of all the terms we have for that period when you don’t have a full-time job – note “you don’t”. It is, at least linguistically, an empty space, a nothingness, an emptiness, as opposed to those lucky ones who are full and complete and whole. In fact, one MPNer recently wrote in an email that when he was negotiating with a potential employer, he was looking to be made “whole” again. Yet… if you stop and look at people who are, in the far more pc appropriate way of putting it, “in transition”, they are busy either looking for a job, networking with people who might help them find that job, taking courses and seminars to polish up their skills to qualify for a new job, or actually doing contract or freelance work that is paying the bills. Or, they may be working at a “survival” job. Or, as in more cases than I can count, they are caring for a sick family member; often an elder who is failing and the duty naturally falls on the one who has the most time. Supposedly. That’s fine about the time, but don’t tell me that the so-called job-less are not working, and working hard, because I see it every day in all the meetings and all the emails and all the questions they have. Sometimes I think MPNers are getting more out of life than those stuck in cubicles and in roles that may be as constraining as they are supposedly fulfilling. So don’t put down those in the job search mode. As one MPNer said at a meeting the other day, “It’s an adventure!” And it is; here’s hoping those of you who are not working at an “official” job have the best adventures of your life this summer!