In the five years he lived and worked in the Philadelphia area as an executive in a recruitment firm, he never understood why Philadelphians were always down in the dumps.

Exhibit A: Twin findings from the Federal Reserve and a monthly survey by Bosse's firm, Hudson Highland Group Inc.

Of the 12 metropolitan regions that Hudson surveys about worker confidence, Philadelphians have been among the most pessimistic in the nation, ranking only above San Francisco last month.

They said their personal finances were getting worse. Fewer expected their companies to hire, and more foresaw layoffs.

They fret and fret, even though yesterday's Beige Book report from the Federal Reserve paints a different picture. The Fed issues monthly reports (whose covers are beige) on the economies in various regions, including Philadelphia.

The news?

Not bad. The local economy grew, albeit slightly. There are definite hints of slowdowns, but most businesses are still forecasting modest, if somewhat constrained, growth for 2008.

"Living there for five years, the attitude there seems to be more pessimism more than optimism," said Bosse, who, until June, was an executive vice president assigned to the Philadelphia market, working in the company's Lansdale office. Now he is in Chicago.

"Chicago has experienced problems in the financial space," he said, "but . . . it's more optimistic in Chicago."

To be sure, workers around the entire country have become more pessimistic.

"Amid increasing talk of recession, workers' outlook can be significantly shaped by what they see and hear in the news," said another Hudson executive, Robert Morgan, co-president of Recruitment and Talent Management. "In actuality, the situation may not be as bad as some believe."

So why the sad-sack attitude here?

Gayle Porter, an associate professor of management at Rutgers University in Camden, studies attitudes about work, but her comments are strictly personal. She thinks that Philadelphians tend to stay in the region for a long time. They have long memories, and like many people, they tend to remember the bad. When there's a hint of problem, they immediately assume the worst, because they remember the last bad time.

But, she said, they also adjust.

"It's like family," she said. If the economy does something Philadelphians don't like, "they just accept it." Other places, she said, they'd be more inclined to pick up and leave.

That adjustment may come easier because Philadelphia doesn't have as many extremes in its economy - bad or good. "Maybe there is something in those extreme fluctuations that energize people a bit," she said. "But I don't see it here."

Or maybe, as Bosse's boss, Brown, said in his statement about Hudson's recent findings, it's the news media.

Villanova University economics professor Kishor Thanawala says the media have been relentlessly beating the recession drum, and that can't help but depress people. But, he said, we won't know whether we're in a recession until we're actually in it, because of how recessions are officially defined - two consecutive quarters of falling GDP.

"What we're talking about is perception, not reality," he said.

Bosse, who left Los Angeles five years earlier to come to Philadelphia, has one theory. But in proffering it, he admits that he's skating on the thinnest of ice.

"I think people in Philadelphia work harder than they do in Southern California. They take their work seriously," he said. So maybe, when the news hints of trouble, "they take it harder."