I go to the unemployment office.  Usually once or twice a week. 

I see more and more people applying.  I see longer lines.  I now see men in suits who look uncomfortable being there; figity, obnoxious, panicky.  I suppose this is their first experience.

The wait for the computer job search invests more and more time waiting.  They have more chairs now, but it looks disorderly and cramped.  There are desks that used to be filled with workers, now being used by job seekers doing their "job search."

Most glances reveal multiple windows opn on any given desktop; Google, Myspace or Facebook, and then sometimes eBay.  But there's always a tab just one click away to hide everything the applicant has been doing instead of a job related query, and if anyone passes by, it is clicked.

These are the "Discouraged" workers.  They are a subset of what the government calls "marginally attached to the workforce.  The government counts them, statistically speaking, not as employed nor unemployed.  They are in a sort of purgatory both within and outside the workforce.

These people say, if they open up, "I have looked and looked.  What is the point?"  They point out that looking for a job takes up a huge amount of time and mney, and having only an unemployment check makes their income very little.  To look, and consistently get nowhere is one thing.  But to feel you are also wasting what funds you have on wasted trips in your car is another.  Others call attention to the fact that getting an interview is virtually non-existant.  The days of going in and dressing up, and getting call backs are over.  Once they see your resume, they eliminate you before anyone sees you or hears you.

"To do the same thing over and over again--and achieve the same result is lunacy," said one 40-ish yr old man.  He had been a factory worker for 25 years.  He was let go along with his whole crew.  Then they eliminated his particular trade shop at the factory, so he knows he won't get called back.  He has never done anything else.

People check in every week, report that they've contacted X amount of employers, and then they leave, if they are not going to play on the internet today. 

There are people of every age, every background, every cultural shade of the spectrum.  All hopeless, all discouraged, and all wondering at how many new faces are at the office today, just laid off.