The JetBlue flight attendant who flipped out on the annoying passenger and then slid down the inflatable slide, beer in hand, has become something of a celebrity or folk hero on the internet, including Facebook, where several pages have been created devoted to the individual.

However, as many people enjoy their cathartic glee, employers besides airlines should be taking notice, especially on a day when The Labor Department reported an unexpectedly big drop in productivity in the second quarter and just days after yet another Chinese factory tried to commit suicide.

For, like it or not, all three stories are connected.

The underlying theme: The 90.5% full-time workers who still show up in the employment statistics are stressed as hell and can't take it any longer.

They have been pushed to do more and work longer hours, pick up the accounts and tasks of co-workers who were-in some cases mercifully-fired. Many workers are afraid to go on vacation or even take maternity leave, for fear someone else will be sitting at their desks when they return, or more likely, the desk is sold at a garage sale and is no longer waiting for them.

So, at some point, they crack. Many people can't keep up this unrealistic pace forever, hence the decline in productivity.

Others go off on customers-the airline attendant-or on co-workers.

Remember, the truck driver who killed his bosses and co-workers in Connecticut last week was being fired. It is irrelevant if his charges of racism are correct, and therefore his case is not related to the overall economy.

Anecdotally, it seems we have been hearing about more and more workplace shootings. We don't hear about the workplace fist-fights or brawls.

The next stage: The "sick days" start-workers taking days off to chill out, although not too many in a row.

Then the real sick days begin, as bodies cave in and illnesses develop.

The last stage is the job hopping. Once the economy starts to recover resumes will be clogging up company e-mail systems.

In China, however, it is different. The lives of people working in those horrendous dorm-like environments is so bad, their seemingly only escape is suicide.

Which reminds me of a real life conversation I had with a friend-who was also running a large, significant  department within a company--toward the end of the first Bush recession (don't forget he had two) around 2002, 2003. Although this guy is brilliant, his Achilles heel was his people skills, or lack thereof. So, as we strolled around the corner for coffee, I said to him: "Once the economy starts to recover, you're going to see a lot of people [in general] changing jobs." His visceral reaction: "Yea, like my entire staff."

He knew.

So do most employers who are currently demanding more and more of their already over-stressed rank and file. They just aren't admitting it yet.