WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A campaign worker for President Bush said on Thursday American workers unhappy with low-quality jobs should find new ones — or pop a Prozac to make themselves feel better.

“Why don’t they get new jobs if they’re unhappy — or go on Prozac?” said Susan Sheybani, an assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry Holt.

The comment was apparently directed to a colleague who was transferring a phone call from a reporter asking about job quality, and who overheard the remark.

When told the Prozac comment had been overheard, Sheybani said: “Oh, I was just kidding.”

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Across America, workers echoed Ms. Sheybani’s call for a medicated solution to employee depression. To them, it’s not a joke, but a path to a happier life.

“My life is totally better now,” said Anthony Lombard, 34, of San Jose, CA. A former software engineer, Lombard had experienced some difficulties adjusting to his new career cleaning lavatories at a bus terminal. “Zoloft is what really pulled me out of all that negativism,” said Lombard. “Zoloft and Paxil. Now I go into work with my head held high, and everything’s cool. It’s, like, I remember feeling bad, but now I just look at my problems and kind of laugh them away. I was holding my daughter last night as she was crying about her new school and how brutal and teacher-less the envorinment is and I was thinking… wow, she’s so beautiful.”

“Back when I was a marketing director, I never took the time to see colors. I mean, not really see them, you know what I mean? And after I lost that job, well, I was like totally angry,” agrees Naomi Connolly, who was recently promoted to head fry cook at a local fast food eatery and now takes Prozac, Celexa, lithium, and morning glory seeds to regulate her attitude. “Now I can work all day without all that pressure and just enjoy looking at my hand. Ever do that? I mean really look at it?”

Nearby, Bruce Conklin, a recent Stanford graduate and new WalMart employee, summed up his generation’s attitude. “At first, we were all, like, angry. We were listening to Democrats and our own negativity. But then we realized that there were totally legal ways to get hi- to get happier. Me, just give me an Effexor in the morning, a Xanax with lunch, half a Luvox in the afternoons when I sometimes used to harsh on the endless expanse of limited opportunity and hopeless debt that loomed ahead of me and crushed the dreams of a better life that I used to hold close to my heart, and then a Lexapro before going home so I don’t just sit home and cry all night, and I’m totally fine.”