Fair-Market Friends

In a Sunday New York Times article about individuals and families managing the transition from executive to so-called survival jobs, this poignant note about human nature:

[Ame Arlt's] new job at HometownQuotes pays $10 to $15 an hour and has mostly entailed data entry. But even though she has parted ways with some friends because she is no longer in their social stratum, Ms. Arlt said she was glad she was no longer sitting at home, “thinking, ‘Who have I not heard from today?’ ”