Both are unemployed and with tons of spare time. John decides to do something to keep the skills handy in case somebody hires him. Jim has decided to watch soap operas and catching up with tv series (hey, it could be that he starts meditating or mountain biking, but let’s get real ok?).

John one day might look at some glitch on an open source project, he then codes some stuff to fix it and presents a solution.

Jim is still doing nothing of the sort.

John hears somebody about some new tool, programing pattern or language… This makes him interested in learning more.

Jim has finished watching all seasons of Grey’s Anatomy (or whatever his girlfriend is watching).

John comes up with an idea that might generate a new program or service. It might as well not generate a stream of revenue yet, but this is a labor of love to him.

Jim that beard doesn’t become you.

Both John and Jim get called one day, there’s one position open on a new company… You, dear reader, own that company… Upon presenting themselves and explaining each in a separate internview that they have been without work all this time, Jim tells you that he has been looking for a job, while John comes to you and says all the other things he did while out of work…

Question: Who are you willing to hire? John, who in the face of adversity remained calm, sober and kept on developing his skills? Or Jim?

This tough times are going to make us all rethink what is that which we do. If we have a job during those times we will be doing our work better, just to try and make sure that we keep the job. If we lose it we should be doing something that might somehow resemble what John did… Our intentions might not be the most noble (putting bread on our tables and creating a cool application that tweets thoughts by staring at the screen might not help all humanity in the long run), but at least they might fuel something positive in the end (that whole “let’s NOT make the world suck even more” attitude).