From The Director…

Director Tobias Andersen

I confess to being a reader of the comics over my morning coffee. The other day I was reading Blondie, a strip that began running in the papers around 1936, the same year that You Can't Take It With You opened. In this one, that perennial breadwinner, Dagwood, briefcase in hand, is waiting at the bus stop with Elmo, one of the neighborhood boys.

Elmo: Mr. B, is your job fun?
Dagwood: A job isn't supposed to be fun, Elmo.
Elmo: Why isn't it?

Dagwood's puzzled face shows that he is pondering the question, perhaps for the first time. The last panel finds Dagwood standing in front of his ever-grouchy nemesis of a boss, Mr. Dithers, who scowlingly asks "Why isn't your job what!!?" And though this was printed in 2004, I would bet that a bit of research into the Blondie archives of the '30's would find Dagwood felt pretty much the same about his work back then.

My point is merely to suggest that we might want to pause and consider what has actually changed since Grandpa Vanderhof in You Can't Take It With You decided to take that elevator down and walk away from his job almost 70 years ago.

Seemingly, not much. A recent Oregonian article headlined "Top Corporate Executives Showing Disenchantment", points out that a whopping 73% of 369 chief executive officers answered yes to the question, "Do you think about quitting your job?" It goes on to say that 80% are kept awake at night by company demons and worries about the competition.

I'm pretty sure that, if alive today, Kaufman and Hart would take one look at our world of cell phones, 10-lane bumper to bumper freeways, CNN Headline News and Prozac, and advise us to take some time off and attend a commencement -- or at the very least learn to play the marimba.

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