A recent study found that nearly 55% of Americans are unhappy in their jobs. Frankly I think that if you have been paying attention, you should not be surprised by this statistic. The American worker has been losing ground for some time now.

Let’s use me as an example. I graduated from college with, what was then, a coveted Computer Science degree in 1986. I had been taught growing up that if you did a good job for your employer you would be rewarded with a steady pay-check and a good solid middle-class lifestyle. This was all I required, being one of the “Work to Live” types. I didn’t want to be CEO or even a division manger, I wanted to do interesting work and have a stable family life, with a bit of time to pursue my various non-work related interests.

I was thrilled to catch with a big computer company that had a reputation for being good to its employees. I could wear shorts to work, work with interesting people, and do interesting work. I had a good steady paycheck with regular raises, health care, pension, 401K, profit sharing, the works. Yep. I was happy. I worked hard, and I did a good job. My competitive rankings reflected this, I was always at or near the top and I got regular raises to prove it. When a big project was finished, we had a celebration and patted each other on the backs. Work Life was good.

Then the tech bubble burst; the company got a new CEO who came from outside the company and my happy days at work were over. Lay-offs became a regular occurrence and a culture of fear crept in and silently evicted the culture of contentment and cooperation that had existed. That culture of contentment and cooperation, I may add, that made the company the big, admired corporation it was. But now the culture that got us there was suddenly considered hopelessly old-fashioned and out of date in today’s fast paced world.

 Raises became rarer than Republican health care reform. Increased health care costs cut further and further into my paycheck. The bean counters reworked the profit sharing formulas to slice that benefit down to less than half of what it once was. My take home pay did a U turn and headed down while inflation passed it, headed up. The pension plan went buh-bye, and the company match for the 401K was cut in half. This was for a company that was making billions in profit, but Wall Street felt we should be doing better.

I hear the conservatives out there screaming “You could have left, you could have changed jobs!” But, and this is key, where was I going to go where conditions were any better? Short answer: there was no place better. And once the Tech Bubble burst, there were very few jobs out there to move too, with plenty of competition to get them.

By the time the company laid me off, I was beyond caring. I was miserable. So much had been taken away from me, I had essentially absorbed a serious pay cut. I was worse off than I had been at the start of the decade. And I was not happy about it.

I think my story pretty typical. I worked hard for the company, and I simply was not rewarded for it, so my job satisfaction took a serious hit. Bit by bit, my compensation for a job well done was hacked away, and all the while I was told to be “grateful that I had a job”. Yeah, whatever.

So, what are the consequences of all this? I think the author of the report is correct in that this can negatively impact American productivity and the economy. What’s the point of working hard if you lose ground? I could lose ground with half the effort.

Much has been made of the productivity of the American Worker, what becomes of the country when the America Worker is too fed up with corporate crap to be productive? Is it really any wonder that our economy is in the dumpster and everyone is Angry?