{"id":1262,"date":"2009-05-16T16:47:45","date_gmt":"2009-05-16T20:47:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/homemaderavioli.com\/woodstock\/weblog\/?p=1262"},"modified":"2009-05-16T16:51:39","modified_gmt":"2009-05-16T20:51:39","slug":"in-this-time-of-financial-trouble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.homemaderavioli.com\/woodstock\/weblog\/2009\/05\/in-this-time-of-financial-trouble\/","title":{"rendered":"“In this time of financial trouble…”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve worked at non-profits of one flavor or another for over a decade now. Financial hardship and accounting and budgeting practices<\/acronym> that would astound even the quants<\/a> at AIG are commonplace so I’m rarely amazed at the monetary machinations around me. Right now, I find myself utterly stunned.<\/p>\n

My connection to the grapevine is strong at work. My company is going to start doing “voluntary furloughs” in the next pay period. Except, management has no idea what “furlough” actually means.<\/p>\n

What they mean is: You defer your salary per a written agreement until the “current financial difficulties” have passed and you keep working full time. Now, as much as I enjoy the tasks that I do at work and I like the people I work with, my relationship with my employer is basically transactional: I need something (money) and they need something (the skills I have + the time of the practitioner of those skills).<\/p>\n

My first, gut reaction to this unreasonable request (seriously, is Visa going to “defer” charging me interest until later? I think not.) is to say “You don’t pay me; I don’t work.”<\/p>\n

One of my co-workers says this isn’t the first time this has happened and that the last time it did<\/acronym> everyone got paid back in full. And that’s fine and all, but something sticks. <\/p>\n

If I didn’t need the money I wouldn’t go there every day. And yes, I could live on less than what I make, but that’s not the point. What shocks me is that Management would have the gall to say “Hey, we can’t pay you but give us your time and your skills and your smarts anyway!” That’s called volunteering not employment.<\/p>\n

So while I am at the top end of the middle of the pay scale in my employer’s structure, I’m also a one-person department in a critical role: I will be one of the last people they layoff. I don’t want to be selfish – I’d be happy to take a “furlough Friday” every week this summer if that would help – but this time I don’t think I’m taking one for the team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve worked at non-profits of one flavor or another for over a decade now. Financial hardship and accounting and budgeting practices that would astound even the quants at AIG are commonplace so I’m rarely amazed at the monetary machinations around me. Right now, I find myself utterly stunned. My connection to the grapevine is strong […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-office-space","category-take-more-risks","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homemaderavioli.com\/woodstock\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homemaderavioli.com\/woodstock\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homemaderavioli.com\/woodstock\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homemaderavioli.com\/woodstock\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homemaderavioli.com\/woodstock\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1262"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.homemaderavioli.com\/woodstock\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1268,"href":"https:\/\/www.homemaderavioli.com\/woodstock\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1262\/revisions\/1268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homemaderavioli.com\/woodstock\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homemaderavioli.com\/woodstock\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homemaderavioli.com\/woodstock\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}