<I think we can blame this on the way companies work employees to death.
Back when my father worked for the phone company in the 60's and 70's he
used to car pool every day to Washington, DC>

Ahhh, yes the good 'ole 60's & 70's. I'll bet he had fully paid health care too! If he did have a copay for a doctors visit, it was probably a buck or two. He was certainly a member of the CWA (Communication Workers of America) as well. I too, commute into DC every day, 120 miles round trip, in a company vehicle, an AWD Chevy Astro. The gas I use each week is shocking. Funny thing is I hardly carry anything in the Astro, haven't for years. Back "in the old days" ( I'm in telecom as well) I carried 3 or 4 of each type of phone we sold, plus dozens of printed circuit boards. If a switch went down, the customer expected us to have the part with us, and believe me, back then switches went down OFTEN. Now if we have a down switch, the customer waits 'til the next business day for the part to be over-nighted. I still carry a few phones, but if I don't have one, I have it shipped to the customer and tell them to throw the old one away-we used to actually fix them! Thanks to child labor in
 foreign countries, though, this suff is now so cheap it isn't worth repairing. I heard just yesterday Hershey's is laying off 1,500 workers and moving production to Mexico. Guess I've eaten my last Hershey bar! At least it's not China, though, can't imagine what chocolate made with anti-freeze would taste like!   Companies, and most of the folks in this country just don't get it. Jeff