inBOIL

There's a lot of talk about taking any job you can get in this economy. Of course, few of us would literally take any job. I doubt anyone would take a job stomping on babies, but there are real jobs that make some of us uneasy.

Where would you draw the line between a job you should take and one you shouldn't? Are your criteria just for you, or do you believe they should apply to others? Does it depend on how desperate you are, or whether you have dependents? Does the amount of pay dictate whether a job should or shouldn't be taken? Does it matter if the job is illegal? Degrading? Dangerous? Immoral? Does it matter if you're incapable of doing the job competently?

I think there's a gray area, where the degree to which the job is undesireable matters. Taking a job under a manager who insults and belittles his employees is probably bad if you've got savings to live on for a while, but if your food stamps have run out and you've got kids to feed, you should probably suck it up and deal until you can find something better. Similarly, if a delivery job requires you to drive 5 mph over the speed limit, or drive through a dangerous part of town, that's a much better choice than letting your kids starve.

However, there's a point at which a job becomes so immoral, degrading, illegal, or whatever that it's always better to stay unemployed.

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And you believe Bush and the liberals and divorced parents and gays and blacks and the Christian right and fossil fuels and Xbox are all to blame, meanwhile you yourselves create an ad where your kid hits you in the head with a baseball and you don't understand the message that the problem is you.