The insecurity at Gardner's Pendleton Printers resonates throughout the

Exhilaration used to sweep through Pendleton Printers as workers watched their progress toward the company's profit-sharing goal for each month. Then came Sept. 11 and the recession.

"If you're having a losing season," Pendleton said, "it just brings everyone down." Feelings of financial insecurity and low morale become magnified in a small, privately owned business enduring rough times. But the struggles facing the crew of Pendleton Printers in this economically depressed Massachusetts town resonate at workplaces throughout the country.

Insecurity is the reigning sentiment in an economy that has shed an unprecedented 3 million jobs. Employees of all incomes and in all occupations feel dissatisfied or overworked. In addition to job-loss fears, rising premiums for health insurance and the smallest pay raises in nearly three decades fuel their anxiety. Many feel stuck in a job market with few escape hatches.

"Employers are getting more out of the people they have, which creates stress," said Kathleen Brown, a consultant for King & Bishop in Waltham. "People feel trapped that they don't have control over their lives. They have to have a job. They're afraid of not having a job."

Workplace morale nationwide has reached new lows in an economic slowdown that has extracted a greater toll on workers than the recession of the early 1990s. In a survey last month of 5,000 households, fewer than half of the people were satisfied with their jobs, according to the Conference Board, a New York research organization. That's down from nearly 60 percent in 1995. In New England, where the high-tech industry soared and then crashed, job satisfaction is the lowest in the country.

The mood at Pendleton Printers emanates from the top. Doug Pendleton, despite laying off one-third of his staff, has dipped into his personal savings to meet payroll for the surviving 15 employees. For the first time in two decades in business, he faces a dilemma: "It's not any fun as an owner, because I risk either not making money for myself or burning out my staff," he said. "If I don't make any money, I don't stay in business, and I don't have jobs for them. It's a delicate balance."

He and his employees are family, close, at times dysfunctional. Employees rallied in April to fill a rush order for 990,000 menus from their biggest customer, Togo's Eateries, a Randolph-based restaurant chain. Pendleton helped his employees by swallowing the entire $22,000 increase in this year's healthcare premiums.

But his workers worry about job security in a region that offers few employment options. Pendleton Printers is located in Central Massachusetts, near Fitchburg and Leominster, the most depressed area in the state. Unemployment there reached 7.9 percent in August, about two percentage points above the statewide rate.

Paul Donahue, who drives the delivery truck, worried about being replaced when he took a week off after the birth of his son. "Anybody can drive a van," said Donahue, 32.

Business has suffered at all printing companies in the area, and two nearby companies closed recently. Cutthroat competition and falling demand after Sept. 11 reduced Pendleton Printers' orders for everything from corporate reports to wedding invitations and cost it an account with Fidelity Investments.

Pendleton Printers gained some ground recently, landing a new contract with Commerce Insurance Co. The Commerce account is expected to boost 2002 sales to $1.6 million, but the printer has yet to return to its revenue high of $2.4 million in 2000.

Doug Pendleton said he has lasted because he has little debt. The company also runs a lean payroll, which is at the heart of some personnel problems. Workers are grouped into two types: the overworked and the underemployed. Some employees, Doug Pendleton included, work longer hours since others were laid off. But people assigned to specific tasks who are paid by the hour -- the pressmen, the driver, cutters and folders -- reluctantly clock out early when there isn't a full day's work.

"A layoff is always in the back of my mind," said Steve Foster, who is standing on top of a press and pouring cleaning fluid on spinning rollers in preparation for a customer's printing job. Foster, 42, is the only one who can run complex jobs on the four-color press that reproduces photographs for clients' brochures.

Foster volunteered last summer to be laid off. He collected unemployment and picked up odd jobs. He works occasionally on special printing projects, but the twice-divorced father of four needs to get back to full time. Doug Pendleton knows this and fretted all summer about losing his "superstar" pressman for good. He plans to restore Foster to fulltime by the end of this month as the new Commerce contract creates more work.

Morale has been strained in the pressroom. There were not enough orders to occupy two full-time pressmen, but there was more work than the one who remained could handle, Doug Pendleton said. While the other pressman got the hours he needed after Foster left, he was "unhappy because he had to work overtime, too," Pendleton said.

Brian Cobiski, manager of customer relations and business development, is another Pendleton Printers employee who is overworked. He rolls on his office chair, from telephone to computer and back, his voice losing its frantic edge when a customer calls. "How's everything going?" he coos, furiously clicking a ball-point pen. His responsibilities: handling important clients, quoting jobs, trouble-shooting, billing, training staff and, when he has time, selling.

Yet his salary is $15,000 less than he earned four years ago. Cobiski said he left Pendleton for another printer in 2001 after a consultant proposed restructuring his job. Doug Pendleton persuaded Cobiski to return in 2002 but could no longer afford what he had paid him before.

Cobiski feels busier than he once did, because there are more small accounts to maintain and fewer large, profitable ones. "I don't know if it's age," said the 39-year-old about the stress, "or the work is harder."

A frenzy of activity broke out briefly in April after Doug Pendleton was summoned to Togo's headquarters in Randolph. The restaurant chain needed menus for a statewide promotion of its 330 California franchises. The deadline: seven days for an order that usually takes up to six weeks. If he refused, he might risk losing the account, which brings in one-fourth of revenues.

Pendleton called employees to his office. "We've got a major problem," he said, explaining they had a week to price and print each Togo's menu -- three versions for each restaurant.

"You're kidding," said Lisa Stone-Mutti, the typesetter responsible for the account.

The rush order was almost more than the small staff could handle. "There was a certain desperation," said Debbie Curtis, a graphic designer. The troops deployed. Guinivere Barbieri, newly hired, called each restaurant for price lists. In the design department, Curtis and Stone-Mutti entered thousands of prices into the computer. Doug Pendleton paid for Stone-Mutti's baby sitter so she could work a 60-hour week and paid overtime even to salaried employees. Dennis Casault, quality control manager, pitched in with ideas for organizing the unwieldy job.

Doug Pendleton bought lunch for his workers every day, Chinese or pizza. "It was absolutely nuts, and everybody loved it," he said.

At the end, not a single price error was made, not a single menu delivered to the wrong restaurant. "Everybody had a great sense of teamwork," said Mason Shives, head of design.

After the menus shipped, the lull returned and job dissatisfaction crept back in. But while times are tough, Doug Pendleton and pressman Foster, despite an occasionally rocky relationship, maintain a mutual respect. Foster said about his boss, "He's still surviving. I'll give him credit for that."

Kimberly Blanton can be reached at blanton@globe.com.