What are YOU So Sad About?

I’ve noticed that everyone I talk to is depressed. Cranky, even. Everyone knows someone who’s out of work, and even those of us with jobs seem dissatisfied, and edgy. This happens every January in the midwest, I’m aware, about the time holiday bills start arriving, the sun disappears for weeks at a time and the temperature stays stuck at zero.

But this year is different. Ad agency superstars I know around town are anxious, unhappy with their jobs (hey, at least they HAVE them) and bitter about work, clients, food, music, sports, their friends and their sex lives, and not always in that order.

Hell, everyone’s already bitching about Obama’s lack of impact. The guy’s been on the job for less than a week!

To learn more about this trend, I googled depression + ad agencies, and got a link to a russian dating service as a way to escape the blues. (Be Happy International, if you’re interested). That’s one way to go. But I was more interested in why we’re feeling this way. Is it a natural reaction to the contentious election, the housing disaster, the banking fiasco, and the collapse of the automobile industry? Bush hangover? The Blagojevich effect?

Actually, I think it’s the reality of immobility.

For decades, unhappy agency people could scheme about their next big move as a tonic for their dissatisfaction with their current jobs. Always a better agency, client, boss or project around the corner; a better apartment, or a nicer car, or a cooler vacation when i leave this stupid job . . .

Now the fantasy is gone. There ARE no other jobs. (Pfizer, Sprint Nextel and Home Depot all announced, today, that they will cut a combined 23,000 more jobs.) Forget upward mobility. We’re begging for stability. We’re all creative people stuck in the same old routine without the escape of The Next Big Thing. Same Boss, less pay. Same assignments, but smaller budgets.

Wait a minute–maybe that’s why we’re all so sad. All the budget cuts and layoffs have effectively rendered us creatively impotent.

Maybe Pfizer can come up with a pill for THAT.