Layoffs Causing Remainders to Bail

My employer, under a hiring freeze has fired three workers in the past 2 months. As a result, there are not enough people to cover the shifts of a 24/7 help desk-call center. In response to this, management has redone our schedules and will, come the beginning of March, require us to work different shifts, ranging from 7 a.m to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, to 12 hour shifts from 7 p.m to 7 a.m. spanning weekends. Also, the workers will now be "on call" for covering for evening and weekend workers. To make matters more interesting, employees will not be paid for the on-call time. In short, our free time is now no longer ours.

We were blind sided by the email that arrived yesterday and, according to management, if we have problems with the schedule as it was delivered to us, we are to resolve the issues between ourselves.

It seems that the economic situation is now to a point that the reduced work force is causing more pressure on those who remain employed and many of them are now at the breaking point. For myself, this new schedule precludes my having a second job and caring for my mother who I visit nearly every weekend.

The new schedule almost seems designed to force us to quit. If any more employees are taken from the schedule, then coverage will be impossible. But, being a college town, management will, no doubt, be allowed to hire from the hungry pool of newbies at below fair market wages and save tons of money on wages and benefits.

Conspiracy theory? Yup. No doubt. Whether this is the case or not, the reality is that I cannot work the new schedule, my cube mate, a single mom currently on hemodialysis will not be able to work the new schedule and our former supervisor, a family man with a wife who rides to work with her husband every morning not just to save money, but because they only have the one car, well, unless they can get someone to pick one of them up way out in the country when their schedules diverge or when he is called in after hours, he will not be able to work the new schedule.

That's three of us. Three out of hundreds of thousands of people out of work.

Doing Well, Not Doing Well

What's been happening in my life? Well, I've been sick. Yes, I've had a bout with some sort of bug that slapped me down for a few days with a 103 fever and a headache from the dark side. And sweating...never thought a human could produce so much water through their pores. Enough fluid to put out a medium sized fire!

I took a trip to the ER where I was poked, prodded, bled, x-rayed, CAT scanned and tapped. Yes, they stuck a spigot in my spine and took some fluid. I'll write a detailed piece on the whole episode later. It was not a good PR experience for the health care system.

A real downside to the visit was that they found a dark spot on my right lung. It's hard to tell, so they say, if it's pneumonia, fungus, tumor or what. The doctor's response? A needle biopsy. That was supposed to happen yesterday, but in the infinite wisdom of the machine of the hospital, no one told me not to eat past midnight the night before, and I was led to believe that I would be able to drive myself home after the procedure. That was so much not the case that it was decided to postpone the biopsy. Now it will happen on Friday and I will meet with my doctors on the next Friday.

In the meantime, I've decided that I no longer can work at my present job. The stress is enough to kill a man and, though I don't really have a plan for making money I have come to the conclusion that there has to be a better, healthier way.

So, today I visit some social service institutions and try to arrange some assistance. If working part time is the way to go, then that's what I'll do. I need to be able to pay my bills and pay off my debts - no small feat - and I need to be able to take care of the Max Monster - the astounding Beagle who shares my life. He's getting older, too, and sometimes his health is not what it could be. I need to make sure he gets the best care that can be afforded when he needs it.

Okay. Enough for now. I will post more when I know more. My spirits are high, though perhaps artificially propped up for the time being. I am scared, but that isn't such a bad thing. I have Max to protect me - right? Right.