March 26, 2009

The great recession hits home

Earlier this week all our support staff were reduced to 3/4 time, at 3/4 the pay. Today lay-offs were announced, effective May 31st, for four dedicated young lawyers in my office. The rest of us will do one week's leave without pay and apply what were our COLA's to our health insurance premiums. If only we worked someplace that provides a service to society, like AIG.

3 Comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow. I'm sorry to hear. Your AIG quip would have been really funny, but for the fact that there's nothing funny about this.

Anonymous said...

Oh, no. I am so very sorry. And the AIG comment? Was priceless.

Mark Derricott said...

What really gets me about this is the backward approach to the outcomes we want out of our government. By cutting law enforcement at a time when crime could very well surge, we are setting ourselves up for a backlash once the law and order crowd takes power. (Think Nixon in '68).

Next come the cuts to the society building aspect of government that whether you agree with it or not, acts as something of a safety net.

Either way the cycle is vicious and because carelessness reigned during the good times, we will have hell to pay when we are least able to cope.