But she and I are the same size and age and have similar sensibilities.

We almost always make exactly the same mistakes, which is why we’re such good friends.

She called to ask me where the line is between exploring your options and cheating. How far out can you step before you say goodbye?

She hates her job, so she has been gritting her teeth and getting through it for well over a year. She’s undervalued and underpaid. So she’s been stealing time from her other duties and using it to look for a job while she’s at her job.

As far as I’m concerned, this is too normal to be worth talking about as a transgression. It is just too minor.

Recently, however, she’s started to get some job interviews. She comes up with an excuse and sneaks out. She told me she even leaves her interview clothes in the car so her co-workers don’t wonder why she’s all dressed up.

After the interview, she removes her lipstick and other makeup so she can blend into the blandness of her office without attracting attention.

When she dithers about cheating on her employer this way, I can tell she’s not genuinely troubled by it.

You don’t need to quit a job and be unemployed in order to find another one. Since you can get fired for even telling your boss you’re looking for another job, there is no choice. That’s just how it has to be.

Her approach to dating is very similar.

She’s always got a guy or three coming after her—one or two who think they are going out with her and at least one who she’s dumped but who hasn’t given up hope.

She doesn’t lead them on exactly, but she does manage all this male attention adroitly so she never has to be alone or pay for a meal in a nice restaurant. She tells them little lies so that Man A will continue to consider himself in the pole position (of course) despite the fact that she’s doing the same with Man B and often Man C, too.

It is always just about to collapse, on the verge of going out of control.

In the nightmare scenario, all these suitors arrive on her doorstep the same night with flowers, running into her other suitors. As I picture this, a battle ensues and the man left standing at the end gets her.

She’s not exactly cheating, I say, because she’s so adept at being vague. She lets the guys think what they want to think. She knows that clarity and transparency are not her friends, and that deception is allowed right up until the point she makes a commitment to one of the men.

She never seems to get to that point, however. If she told a guy she was also interviewing and auditioning other men he might not want to go through the evaluation, right?

I tell her you go girl, that’s just how it has to be.

ANN’S NOTE: Taking the day off—check back Sunday for a fresh post. Even Ann needs a mental health day!

When God created man, he created Adam and Eve and commanded them to “be fruitful and multiply.” And, multiply they did.

Whether you believe in Adam and Eve, you cannot deny their enduring popularity throughout the centuries. They are, perhaps, the most famous couple in the history of mankind.

Their story has inspired Ann to couple up if you can’t make it by yourself. Others have. Why can’t Ann?

But she’s going to stick with the twist that has reaped huge rewards. She’s going to find her better half, not for love but for money.

Some famous work couples that leap into her mind—the singing duo of Sonny and Cher. Even after they broke up, Cher’s star still rose. But poor Sonny. That skiing accident did him in.

Since Ann’s forte is journalism, her mind swims with the idea of catching a writing teammate. Others who have done this successfully include newscasters Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, political pundits Robert Novak and Rowland Evans—and—James Carville and Mary Matalin, a team that added the dimension of romance, marriage and a baby.

Famous work couples tend to compliment each other, sort of like the whole is more valuable than the parts. Would Broadway star Fred Astaire be as good a dancer without Ginger Rogers? Or would William Masters succeeded in debunking the widely held notion that orgasms originated from the cervix without Virginia E. Rogers? Ann thinks not.

The longer a couple couples, the more they tend to think alike. Come to think of it, this behavior happens in marriage, too.

Work couples also share tasks, cooperate closely and collaborate regularly throughout the day. Like a lover or spouse, you share the details of the daily trivia of your life with the person you work with.

Many of these couples are same-sex, especially the two-men variety, which leads to “bonding,” as psychologists put it.

As with relationships in the non-work world, there are jealousies and disputes and break ups and people who, for reasons ranging from intellect to body odor, never get picked by the other kids when work diads are formed.

These individuals miss the benefit of having a work spouse watching out for you and caring about what happens to you throughout the work week and potentially your career. Without one, work is more lonely and you don’t have someone guarding your back when bureaucratic wars break out. You may be vulnerable when layoffs come, but your work wife has a friend in HR.

What’s more, if two won’t do, try three. The Three Stooges remain a licensing hit with C3 Entertainment Inc. And who could forget the classic TV puppet show of Kukla, Fran and Ollie, a popular hit from the 1940s through the ’60s.

Ann’s not sure who she should coddle up to. While men abound on online dating sites, she has yet to find an online employment site that creates dynamic duos from unemployed job seekers.

But she’s sure someone will start “The Beehive” soon, at least that’s what she’d call it. With so many worker bees buzzing around, there’s got to be a queen willing to take them all in.

Ann Powers Appears on Fox Business Happy Hour to Discuss the Manifesto.

ANN’S NOTE: I decided to post the manifesto early given the outpouring of support and response I received from my appearance on the Fox Business Happy Hour yesterday. Tune in to NPR affiliate the Louisiana Radio Network at 10:45 AM EST on Labor Day to hear me speak more about it. Read the manifesto through Labor Day.

Manifesto of the Idle Workers of the World

We are more than 15 million individuals in the prime of our lives who have lost our place in the world of work. We call upon our representatives on Capitol Hill to help us directly, rather than assisting our institutions first in the hope that their recovery might also bring us along.

We declare ourselves too big to fail. But we are being pushed by circumstance from the comfortable middle-class to the terrified middle-class, and from the working poor to the hopeless poor. We have lost our savings, retirement, and, in many cases, our monthly income to sustain our lives. We fear homelessness and a loss of stability as we struggle with rebuilding our assets.

We can and will help ourselves. We take jobs for which we are over qualified. We work longer hours. We work odd jobs. We downgrade our lifestyles. We deny our children their birthday gifts and vacations. We try to educate ourselves to the options for cure and take positive steps every day.

But still our financial standing degrades, and we feel the journey of recovery will be long, and we will cry and stumble.

Despite the names chosen by officialdom to describe us, we are not displaced, dislocated, discouraged, disadvantaged, disaffected or disgruntled.

Instead, we are disappointed and disillusioned that the financial condition of our households is of secondary consideration to the economic stabilization of huge Wall Street financial firms, curiously declaring their own recovery just months after calling themselves near death.

Last month, six of the seven biggest financial institutions reported quarterly profits that surpassed expectations, despite deteriorating loans on many of their balance sheets. Many of us, however, teeter closer to foreclosure, find ourselves in distressed sales or evicted from our homes.

We are distressed that the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has money to keep us unemployed for longer but not to get us back to work. In July, one in three unemployed individuals were jobless for 27 weeks or more. And, the number of workers who have stopped looking for a job rose to 796,000, up 335,000 over the past 12 months.

We feel disrespected that our government has committed trillions of dollars to get the nation moving again. Yet, we can see no change in our own daily lives.

Has any of this $1.5 trillion bought a single Happy Meal for an unhappy family? Has it sent the creditors that hound us by telephone into silence by making a mortgage or credit card payment for us? Has it bought us groceries or paid the utility or insurance or tax bills? Has it paid for our health insurance?

On this Labor Day, we declare that we are lost, lonely and forgotten, but that we vow to become loud, united and forceful so we will claim our rightful place at the center of the political debate. The body politic is seriously diseased if those of us who have been the very backbone of U.S. prosperity can be left without direct assistance when we are facing the loss of our homes, careers and all the possessions we need to maintain a safe home for our children.

Patience is no longer the order of the day. There is a rabble to be roused, virtual signs to be made and held up, marches, petitions, visits, phone calls and every manner of communications used to say to the public authorities now it is our turn. Now you must save us.

[podcast]http://www.girlonthebrink.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/powers-interview.mp3[/podcast]

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