Everyone knows about AA - they meet in church basements once a week, stand up and say hi my name is (katie) and i'm an alcoholic, and get positive feedback for their heartwarming stories of chronic abuse. Not everyone knows about Jobless Anonymous, however, or JA, as I like to call it. JA is an unemployment support group, and is actually called something like WIND Not sure exactly what those letters stand for, but they probably don't come nearly as close to hitting the nail on the head as JA. Why? Because these people are in fact jobless, they meet in a church basement to talk about it every week, and sometimes give each other advice and pats on the back. They even serve coffee out of the same huge metal urns as AA, but trust me the AA coffee is much stronger. I'd know.

Anyways, my boss Ken decided to make up for the fact that he didn't come in at all yesterday by giving us the privilege of watching him speak at one of these JA meetings. He neglected to tell us, however, that while the meeting started at 9, he wouldn't even be going on until 11:30. So me, Steve and Ryan all show up in our professional work clothes at 9 am to find a largely empty church parking lot. We wander around the church for a while, find where we're supposed to be going, and realize that it is in fact the most depressing place in the entire world. The man at the door had a greasy, floppy combover and a striped short-sleeve button down with his pants too high and his glasses too '80's. And they wonder why they can't find jobs. I don't think they own mirrors.

At the risk of sounding seriously insensitive and snobby, if I ever end up like any of these people I hope to god it's because I've acquired some kind of early-onset Alzheimer's that makes me forget what it means to pull my shit together and stay far far away from church basements under any circumstances. We then called Ken, essentially to say what the fuck please, and he told us he wouldn't be there for another 2 hours. THANKS BOSS. So we went to a Dunkin Donuts and sat there for approximately two hours twiddling our thumbs and thinking of creative ways to all quit simultaneously.

The speech Ken gave was entertaining, but the crowd was one of the more dismal assemblages of people I've ever witnessed. And you know I've been through my share of actual AA meetings. At least the ones in AA are the winners, the ones who got out. The JA crowd sits there in their ill-fitting black pants and sweater sets from Kohls and thinks about the easiest way to tell someone you meet at a networking event that they've been out of work for the past 3-6 months. If there is a karmic force in the universe it's going to come back and kick me in the ass for being so wildly insensitive on an internet forum, but I really was scarred by what I saw this morning.

Also naturally Ken sold some of his books to these down-on-their-luck individuals, and proceeded to take us out to lunch with the earnings so I guess I can't really say I minded that.

Gotta get outta here now. Times UP.