You have been talking to optimists...

 

We also got the news that no raises in 2009, plus they are going to stop Cafeteria service for half of the month, and all the employees in this site, sans IT, will take a reduction of 20% in salary, and everybody is going to leave a couple of hours early each day.

Not sure how long things are going to remain this ugly, I expected to last until the end of this year, not sure if we are going to get out of this until late 2010

 

ouch.. i can deal with pretty much anything but the salary cuts.. thats just horrid...

 

Better salary cuts than cut positions. In this way, the company keeps people employeed. Of course, it will be difficult to get benefits back later.

 

Salary cuts usually preserve both the jobs and benefits (like health, retirement contributions, etc.) for more people. I have trouble explaining to some people without finance backgrounds the cost of benefits such as health care, retirement, etc. - a secretary making 30K (like mine) receives 19.3K in default benefits and could actually end up receiving much more than salary if taking advantage of gym membership, tuition reimbursement, and other "opt-in" activities. If the organization made me send her home for a month without pay, she would probably take it and spend time with the grandchildren; I know without a doubt she would leave if the organization cut her benefits.

It also seems that the salary cuts are associated with fewer hours in jfe's case, which are both individually horrible but a better outcome than salary cuts associated with the same number of hours.

Being the Lounge, I'm going to go begging for some cognac.

 

I don't drink, but I think I am going to start

 

The good news is that all the salaried Lounge positions have just received their 2008 end-of-year bonuses (equal to 2 months pay), and across-the-board 20% pay raises.

Scoow, could you repost the current job roster, so everyone knows who's getting the big bux?

 

I heartily recommend XO cognac as your entry-level liquer. Men of means, landed gentry and mansioneers deserve nothing lesser.

Meanwhile, back on earth, it must be ruff for the big box stores. The CompUSA that I was going to shop at has been replaced by a freshly opened Staples (switchboard.com* is out of date), but I got what I needed at a Circuit City liquidation sale a block away.

*Maybe they'll close up next. Like, who needs them when I can Google addresses & phone #'s from my cell phone & actually get current info back?

 

Since when do you give the orders around here instead of Cholula? Unless you happen to actually have some cash to spread around, in which case you're ok.

 

You can't afford the bar tab to start drinking.

Perhaps you should build a still & start selling moonshine for extra income.

 

Can't Jesus forget about the still and just turn water into wine?

 

Moonshine, wrong part of the country

Right now we are savings mode, and try to weather the storm

 

Tequila?

Good luck. Speaking of weather & storms... I drove home from work through sleet; turned to a mix of sleet and snow. (Mike - you can quit reading now. I know my bid for sympathy isn't likely to work given that your yard has been white for months now.) About an inch of snow/ice right now. Expecting ~6 inches by tomorrow evening. Ick. Guess I'll take the bus tomorrow.

 

You could literally speak to some members of my family about this ...

National Weather Service is calling for an inch of ice (and ice only) here. Think I might be cranking up the gas fireplace and moving the CO (not the airline) detector in a few hours ...

 

Hope you don't lose power! And if you do, hope you don't sleep through it. Nothing worse than waking up to a frozen house 'cause your power went out.