Did I mention that five folks I work with suddenly got laid off earlier this week?

Well, to add to the stomach-turning nervousness of the department, we’ve all been invited to a mandatory meeting tomorrow afternoon! Sweet!

Not.

After the mandatory meeting email went out, I noticed a few folks casually checking online want-ads… just in case.

Out of curiosity I visited the Iowa Workforce Development and looked for jobs in my area… do you realize that to continue to make my current hourly wage, I’d have to be a certified CNA, a nurse, a dog trainer, or a truck driver?

I realize that not all jobs are listed by IWD, but it’s just dismal as hell to see the teeny tiny wages people work their asses off for. I often think of myself as being underpaid for what I do, but I’m comparing it to a job in a ‘real’ place. For Iowa, the simple fact is that I make a killer hourly wage. I mean, I make more in 20 hours a week than a lot of people make in 50.

That’s just horrible.

I heard some vague mumbling in the corridors along the lines of, “If they ask us to take another pay cut, I’m quitting. I never got my pay reinstated after the last ‘temporary’ pay cut.”

As a matter of fact, I know I have coworkers who not only never got their pay reinstated since the last “temporary pay cut,” but they’ve never had raises, either. There’s one peron I know of who has never had a raise at all, and whose only pay change in three years was a mandatory pay cut two years ago.

If I were still full-time, and I went to the meeting tomorrow and they said, “We’re sorry but we have to ask you to take a/nother pay cut,” I would say, “Thanks for asking, but no. You can either choose to lay me off in two weeks and I’ll train my replacement in the meanwhile, or I’ll simply quit right now with no notice.” Seriously.

I mean, I understand that business ain’t easy, but you can’t expect to give your employees no raises, no bonuses, and no company parties for two years, and then expect them to take two pay cuts on top of that. Can you?

If they ask me to take a pay cut, I’ll take it, of course, because it’s gonna take some serious looking to find another part time job that pays even what I’d make after a pay cut! But I’ll start looking, of course.

…all of this is speculation, of course. The meeting might just be to say, “We’re having a rough time so we have to tighten our belts, we had to let a few people go but we didn’t want you to worry.” I’ve been to meetings like that. But I’m afraid it’s going to be worse than that.

I’m the only woman in this department; my coworkers are husbands and fathers for the most part and it’s three weeks before Christmas. I devoutly hope its not a pay cut meeting, I really do.

(Is this too much? Am I gonna get dooced for this?)