Forget James Taylor – I love traffic jam.

Don’t care what highway or parkway, and I’ll tell you why….

As a kid with a parent in the recruitment business, I learned at a young age that there were many non-conventional ways to get a feel for which way a job market, or economy for that matter is heading. Some people look at how full Trucks or Trains are, how many cardboard packing boxes are being sold, etc. We used to walk through Macy’s in New York, (the Flagship store on 6th & 7th avenues ) on the way to see the NY Rangers games. Ground floor at Macy’s – between Thanksgiving and Christmas was about as good an indicator of the economy, as you could get. If I wasn’t getting knocked to the ground by pint-sized New Yorker Grannies ready to commit misdemeanor crimes for the next bargain – then things were bad. This coming from someone who lived to experience New York’s bankruptcy first hand. Let me tell you – you could toss a football across the cosmetics department and not hit a soul in those days.

Anyhow, when things hit the fan a couple of years ago, a buddy of mine employed at a high level for a major automotive manufacturer give me the 1st anecdotal evidence on what was to become the most massive job carnage in our times.

“Hey Matt, have you noticed you little traffic there is on the commute home lately?” I hadn’t then – but started to. As the weeks turned into months, months to years, I actually began to miss my lunatic roadmates. Granted, they ALL drive too fast or too damn slow and at many times, I HAD wished that they all go away. But when it actually happened…I wondered…was I responsible for their disappearance? Where was Rod Serling and the crazy spinning pyscho-hypnosis wheel?
(original Twilight Zone – look it up).

As luck would have it, maybe it’s the affordable price of gas – or at least in my neck of the woods, we seem to have a glimmer of light on the horizon – cause I can tell you first hand – TRAFFIC STINKS AGAIN.

Every one of my lost friends it seems has returned, back to cut me off, jam the brakes in front of me, while simultaneously applying make-up at 75 (years or miles per hour….take your pick) and generally
remind me that without jobs there’s no traffic, and without traffic there are no jobs.

So don’t be a hater, LOVE your traffic jams – because there are GDP points in every break light, every exhaust fume and every gesture casually exchanged between us as we journey to and from.