The Economy and You
This week, I am taking forced Paid Time Off (PTO). My employer is publicly traded, so it is important for them to have extra-healthy financial statements right now. To achieve this goal, they are encouraging (read: forcing) all employees to take Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday as PTO this week. Thursday and Friday were already holidays, and they figured many employees would take the days off anyway. That typically results in a week of reduced productivity. Instead of taking that week of lessened productivity, they decided to “close the offices”. The real benefit is for them to reduce their debt. By having a bunch of accrued time-off on their books, the company has lots of money tied up in accounts payable. This is bad. To fix the situation, they simply eliminate the debt; they spend the money and thereby reduce their accounts payable. It seems counter-intuitive, but I’m sure it makes perfect sense to the bean counters.
On a personal level, I don’t really mind. However, this is the first real impact the economic crisis has had on my life. I’m wondering if any of you readers are actually feeling anything from this? Have you been laid off or had your hours cut back? What about in your family or circle of friends? Is this crisis really a crisis for you?
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November 24th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Forced PTO. That’s an innovative way to balance the books.
I’m in the non-profit sector, and the economy hasn’t really hit directly until this last week - when we laidoff approximately 15% of our staff. My neck wasn’t on the chopping block, but it likely will be if there is a next time around in a month or two.
In the meantime, I’m packing my bags and preparing for departure… probably out of non-profit because the sector in general is hurting so much due to the financial crunch. If your pocketbook is feeling smaller, will you donate to your favorite, non-necessary, cause? I didn’t think so. That’s basically the sentiment, as best I can tell, across the non-profit industry.
Any upcoming tips on this blog for jumping into corporate as a young professional from the non-profit sector?
November 25th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Thanks for sharing, moe. I don’t have a full post on that topic in the pipeline, but I do have one piece of advice. Measure what you have done at your non-profit. Get some metrics and highlight those on your resume and in your interview. Nonprofit or not, top performers with measurable results are in demand.
November 27th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Well, I was in the newspaper business until my paper started doing things like using way too much advertising content and canceling its janitorial service. So I jumped ship and moved to a public agency — thinking that would be more safe. But rumor has it that they’ll be doing layoffs soon too. Lovely.
December 3rd, 2008 at 4:28 pm
I am a self-employed marketing/writing/editing consultant, so the economy’s great for me because everyone wants to outsource to avoid payroll tax. However, not so much for my husband, who works in construction. He found a job after a brief period of unemployment, a custom home builder and everything was dandy for a week until two custom homes fell through due to financing. So now the builder is AWOL and my husband’s hoping to get on with Pizza Hut - ANYTHING but construction. I am sort of managing to cover the bills, but we did have to drop our private health insurance, so yeah, you could say we’re feeling it.