Furlough!?

The Presbyterian Center leadership went ahead and announced that all employees are going to have an unpaid one-week "furlough," May 17-23, during which we are not allowed to come in (to the building pictured to the right - in the middle - of the 2nd Street bridge) or work at home. This will cut our pay 2%. It's not clear how this will affect my recently scheduled trip to South Florida for the May 14-17 American Association for Public Opinion Research conference at a posh beachfront hotel in Hollywood, Florida (which was to include some pre-conference training). I have a feeling that will still go through, but I will be volunteering on the final day (Sunday). It's not clear whether the savings (ostensibly half a million dollars) will substantially cut into our deficit (which is said to go as high as $10 million) and whether this means a bunch of people will or will not get laid off in early April. We're told we may know within a week or two (in general). They also made official what we really already knew, that no one will get pay raises next year. Obviously, lots of other people around the country and world are going through this. They ostensibly timed this partly because May was to have three paydays, and people like us who face monthly bills will still get 2 1/2 pay checks in there (we'll see how that goes over with my family and my colleagues). I wonder about all of the many people working to plan the Big Tent conferences in June in Atlanta. They're not going to be told the conferences will be canceled because there isn't enough time. They'll just have to work harder/longer the rest of the time. I've already started to tell clients to expect delays of up to a week because of the furlough.

-- Perry