"so, why are you looking for work?"

I've heard it's easier to get a job when you already have a job. Maybe it makes a person look more competent or attractive, ambitious or easy to work with, or more of *something* recruiters or hiring managers look for. This is the first time I've tried to do a serious job search without being unemployed or a student. (Or there was the time I was finishing the research project I'd worked on as a grad student, as an employee, not enrolled at the university. That was horrible in terms of explaining why I wasn't going to have the PhD, but at least my advisor and colleagues could recognize and support my job search, and I had a flexible schedule.)

I know how people with permanent jobs are supposed to look for work (though I've never done it and don't know how effective it is.) They conceal their job search from their current employer until they are ready to give notice and leave. It's rare for employers to see one of their employees looking for work and try to tempt that person to stay; they seem more likely to see the person disloyal to the company or project job seeker as a sort of strip mine. There's a whole structure of recruiters selling discretion as much as databases about weirdly specialized skills. It all reminds me of some romantic models of adultery. I've also heard about how people with short term contract jobs look for work, though I've never done that, either. In that situation, everyone is presumed to be looking all the time, and it's apparently not a problem. Recruiters say, "Who's your supervisor there now? What's his phone number?" That's a different sort of thing than asking, "Is it ok to contact your current employer? Who do you want to use as a reference there?"

Everyone seems to ask, "Why are you looking for something new?" or "Why are you available now?" I suspect it would be imprudent to say, "I want to work with people who aren't mean," and even more imprudent to use a heavily charged expression like "hostile work environment." I don't care if it's hostile enough to be legally actionable. It's plenty hostile enough to make me miserable, yet complaining about that kind of hostility makes the whiny bitch complainer seem hard to get along with. That's exactly what I don't want.