Office Correspondence

On Friday, and then again today; our official layoff notices were issued. In keeping with bureaucratic double speak these are being called, "mandatory furlough" days. It starts with one unpaid day in May, and then another in June. When the new fiscal year commences in July, we will be issued twelve more of them.

You have to understand that everyone in my office understands what is going on in the nation, and that this is an unprecedented time. What's got our collective goat, is that just last week we were emailed notices of several people being appointed to very high paying positions in other sections of our division.

On top of this, management has been interviewing people for promotional positions for the past two weeks.

Oddly enough, there seems to be enough money for political appointees and new managerial positions - but not enough money to avoid 14 days of forced unpaid leave.


What's up with that?

Our union called a meeting this afternoon and briefed us on our next move. Sadly, many seemed resigned to the entire fiasco. Why is it that some people prefer to just roll over and play dead? Whatever happened to "...not going gentle into that good night"?

We'll be having a march next week at lunch. I've already planned to make my own sign. It will have a copy of the furlough letter on it, and read, "Twenty Two Years As A State Employee, And All I Got Was This Lousy Lay-Off Notice!"