Career Happiness A Complete Delusion?

I read this article on msnbc.com tonight, and the first word that came to mind was, "Bullshit."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43683917/ns/business-personal_finance/

The article speaks of career "happiness" as if it were Santa Claus, a mythical "thing" that people are told exists only so that they can drudge from day to day through their dreary lives and have just enough hope that they won't go home and drink a bottle of Drano.

And as is usually found in these types of articles, the main writer is either schizophrenic or just sloppy because they cite contradictory quotes, such as:

"The Internet has only made matters worse for some because job seekers can readily see a host of often-unattainable jobs on job boards that sound so much better than what they have...They are like squirrels and shiny objects.” says Elizabeth Gibson, director of the University of California San Diego’s Extension Career Transition and Development for Professionals Program.

"Wanting to get out of a gig you hate makes sense," said Dian Griesel, co-founder of The Business School of Happiness and co-author of “TurboCharged.” “When you find yourself working only for the paycheck you are wasting your time and talent, and eight hours might seem like a lifetime,” Griesel said. “You can try to rationalize the situation, but you can’t fool yourself at the primal gut level. You know the situation is bad.”

First of all, I am offended that Elizabeth Gibson would equate unhappy employees with squirrels, but it obviously reflects her inner feelings towards us lowly peasants that she feels are "beneath" her.  And why wouldn't she feel this way?  She probably makes a minimum of $1,000,000 in annual base salary alone, works and probably lives in San Fucking Diego, California, and probably gets paid $100,000 minimum - a piece - to travel all over the world giving lectures on her "squirrel" theories.  Well, Ms. Gibson, if I were in your position, I'd probably be just as pompous and arrogant and out of touch with the real world.

Anyone who has ever had a halfway decent job knows that it is possible to be happy with your job and also be productive.  The problem is the multitude of educated idiots, like Ms. Gibson, who want to perpetuate the number of other educated idiots who own or run or work in our corporations.  It's the same mind-set as attorneys who want more and more laws - the more attorneys out there, the more laws are needed to justify their existence.  By the way, if I did a little research, I'd bet my next paycheck that the two fastest growing or most largely populated career fields are currently attorneys and HR personnel.  I honestly believe this is one of the biggest problems with corporations and why those companies who embrace and perpetuate this nonsense will always eventually fail, no matter how many times our government bails them out.  GM and Chrysler are two very prime examples:  Bloated executives and management who believed that they would never run out of paying customers no matter how shitty their product was as long as it was marketed well and had "sex appeal".  Twenty-plus years ago I knew the American auto manufacturers would eventually find themselves in the position of either going bankrupt or begging for money because of their complete and utter mismanagement, arrogance, and ignorance.  Marketing people have their place, but you cannot put frosting on cow manure and call it a birthday cake and expect people to keep eating it.  No matter how gullible the general population is, they will - and did - wise up.  I've never worked for the auto manufacturers, but I have worked for a couple of companies who had the same mindset and eventually went out of business.  These companies had horrible management and working environments, encouraged employees to "tattle" on each other, and developed ambiguous policies and procedures that were designed simply for gains in profit at the expense of the customer and the failure of the lowly employees.

I do not expect any employer to bend over backwards to make my job fun, but I do expect my employer not to be punitive.  "Be glad you have a job" is simply the battle cry of incompetent and sadistic employers taking advantage of a bad economy and to excuse or rationalize their appalling treatment of employees and encouragement of or involvement in hostile work environments.  Expecting employees to simply be "happy they have a job" is akin to telling the Jewish (and Polish and Slavic and Gypsy) workers during WWII "Arbeit macht frei" - at least up until they are literally worked to death or put in the nearest gas chamber because they are no longer useful to their employer.