Courage and fear in the job marketplace...

It would be so easy to shrivel up, stay at home and stare at a computer all day, after losing your job.

But I saw something different this week: courage.

I went to a couple of job networking mixers, and a job fair -- all in all seeing hundreds of people looking for work in this crappy economy.

Desperation was in the air. People who are wondering how to feed their families.

But people weren't sitting still...there was the mom who after 17 years in accounting was standing in a crowd of hundreds at her first job fair. There was the 22-year-old trying to go to school because she's not sure her probationary job will last. And then there was the warehouse worker -- who just wanted any job -- and the underemployed Disneyland employee who was just looking for anything to make up for his cut hours.

"I need to feed my family," he said. 

They were facing the worst economic debacle of our time with grit, humility, ideas and focus.

What I got out of the job fair was not a sense that the more than 3,000 that were there were actually going to get a job. Most probably wouldn't from the fair. But rather, it was just like one big support group. Even though they were competing for jobs, there was also a sense that we're all in this together.

I know that's probably corny. But don't tell that to Edwin Duterte. Unemployed for more than a year, the former commercial real estate lender, started Pinkslip Mixers for unemployed professionals to look for job leads.

His hope? That people's self interest will work for everybody else's interest. That companies, businesses, volunteers will all pitch in to help a community of jobless people find work -- because we're all so connected.  

Using online tools, social networking and his skills, he's got a movement going -- and growing. And he doesn't want a penny for it.

To me, that's courage -- courage to keep moving, and make something -- anything -- happen for his life -- and others.

I wish I could have that courage.

I got the sense from Dutarte that after years in the corporate sector, he was ready for a new kind of marketplace -- one where ideas and altruism rule out over greed.

In the end, he was just rying to do his part to do something good, even in the midst of his joblessness.

It's better than just letting everybody look out for themselves. Better to help eachother get jobs than to hurt eachother when those jobs are scarce, he said.