Downsized Book Jacket
The radio news report tells us 15,000 jobs were lost in company X. Another 4,000 people were let go from company Y.
A neighbor or relative loses his job. Right. Hmm. What's on my agenda today? What do I have planned for the weekend?
LA is a big place
A gazillion songs have been written about Los Angeles, California, another gazillion commentaries describe this unique and dynamic place in Southern California. Alan Sackett is ready to assume a greater position with his company in LA. His lifestyle is abruptly and undeniably thwarted when his job is eliminated.
A sales career can be a raw deal. Take a look at Willie Loman in Arthur Miller's The Death of A Salesman. The new economy and modern conveniences such as lap tops, cell phones, e-mail, and fax machines doesn't change the age old maxim: If you're not needed: you go ...
Lee J. Cobb as Willie Loman
I once had a 20% sales gain and was summarily zapped out of a company. They called it downsizing. As I set my sights on a new sales job I wrote a book appropriately titled: Downsized. My emotions ran wild. When would the new job arrive? But my heart went back home; home to a time when summer days blended like the haze settling across Massachusetts's South Shore. In my mind I landed back the town where I grew up.
North Easton, Massachusetts
1950's
I remembered all the kids and the people back in that time, but most of all I was again filled with an unbridled, youthful exuberance.
Robert P.Fitton
North Easton, Massachusetts 1950-60's
In the book I was now mentally immersed into a close knit Idaho community and suddenly realized I had therapeutically typed fifty pages of a pop novel. I couldn't stop and pursued a number of themes.
In the Baby Boom movie in the 1980's J.C. Wiatt found happiness in the simplicity of Vermont and the camaraderie of Bedford Falls was epitomized in It's a Wonderful Life. The town rallies for George Bailey by depositing money in the kettle to save the savings and loan. If you're reading this and live in the city you probably have a few choice words for country bumpkins. I realize happiness and camaraderie can be found anywhere. Hmm, the sense of new novel about the city in the making.
In Downsized Alan Sackett returns to the rural town where he spent his summers as a youth. In some ways things haven't changed a heck of a lot. He finds his destiny is not with the corporate world, but with the cohesive group of people in Barkley, Idaho.
