A group of hungry people, talking about steak

Human Services buildings score high on the misery scale, right behind trauma centers and police stations; if you're there, and not paid to remain there, you've got some pretty dire problems cooking. Everyone is familiar with Emma Lazarus' lines from The New Colossus etched on the Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." These buildings are where society cashes that invitation's checks.

Today, as part of the huddled masses, I invaded the basement of one of these buildings to re-acquaint myself with an old nemesis; The Professional Services Group. It is an odd duck program; unlike most of the activities in buildings like this one, it is aimed at the white collar workers.

The people that, in theory, were never supposed to end up here.

My first experience with the concept was not promising - in fact, it bordered on the delusional. Set adrift from the workaday world, it was the business world recreated in microcosm, in a small cloistered room at the end of some anonymous hallway. There, people marched in at nine in the morning sharp in full business attire, and wrote newsletters to each other. The topics were surreal, considering the sources - "How to find and keep your dream job," by Eddie Kloyski... an 8-month unemployed middle manager.

Once enough of these pearls were strung together, they were printed out, collated and stapled, and everybody who contributed got a copy. Then a pile was left on a table somewhere, in case some passing drifter needed free enlightenment.

In between issues, they would interview each other, offering the kind of sage Human Resources advice that can only come from someone who has never actually worked in Human Resources before.

It was make-work; it was a support group, disguised as positive action. It was an illusion of normality in an extremely abnormal situation for people used to having some control and function in their lives. In the end, it was a non-reality I could not subscribe to.

And so, here I am in a different building, the same program, and a laced, tacit promise of a different mindset. Laced with warnings of "clunkers" and "troublemakers" that didn't fit the program. And, among the handouts... a newsletter.

I wonder - does my skepticism rank me as a "Clunker" and "Troublemaker?" It wouldn't be the first time.