The Shrine

Just got a memo a few minutes ago. We have to take 5 days unpaid between Feb and March apparently. I kind of suspected something like this coming. I have 5 months of expenses in the bank... but time to start filling out paper work and exploring options.

Considering our interactive department is so small and we don't really have people to cover out jobs when we switch of Furlough's this could be interesting.

Does a Furlough really work in the scheme of things?

I have no experience with this, but my gut reaction is you should start looking for another job.

What kind of a place do you work at?

AOL just sent out a company wide e-mail. No raises this year, no employee bonuses (which would have been 10% of my salary roughly), and they are chopping off another 10% of the workforce in the next few quarters.

Fun economy, fun times.

Kupek wrote:I have no experience with this, but my gut reaction is you should start looking for another job.

What kind of a place do you work at?

-_- I work at a newspaper company

In the interactive department as a webdesigner and do minor dev work too.

When I finished college in 07 I came to crunch mode to find a position so I could stay in Los Angeles and thus I ended up here. In the grand scheme of things I planned to stay one year tops, but as we all know 08 had not been a good year. So when it came time to start looking again I kept hearing Freeze from the places I had applied. I never got serious enough to look harder, and now my company/industry is DYING.

No offense to both of you, but newspapers are slow to adapt to change (which is killing them), and AOL is becoming largely non-existent to the public eye.

The cable industry, on the other hand, is realizing that nobody is going to give up TV or broadband any time soon. Employees are being HIRED, not laid off.

SineSwiper wrote:No offense to both of you, but newspapers are slow to adapt to change (which is killing them), and AOL is becoming largely non-existent to the public eye.

The cable industry, on the other hand, is realizing that nobody is going to give up TV or broadband any time soon. Employees are being HIRED, not laid off.

Dude I take no offense to that, personally I think I'm a moron for taking the position, but like I said desperate times and an offer came along

I see on a constant basis how stupid our corporate office is

Hey, I'm a journalism major.

We're practically coworkers already.

RentCavalier wrote:Hey, I'm a journalism major.

We're practically coworkers already.

You do know that handing Anarky his coffee when he stops by Starbucks on the way to work doesn't make you a coworker, right?

As to Anarky's question: Furlongs can save a company from going under in the short term until cash comes along... but I've only heard them being used a forced furlongs. My mom's company has moved to a 4 day work week and their office is closed on Fridays. Half to reduce costs, half cause there's not enough work.

My company wasn't doing well during the up times, but it looks like we're not doing too bad now I think... less seats per client (call centers) but we're going after new clients like mad. Although we did lay off a good number of people last month and have seen other changes (such as biweekly paychecks now) so I don't now. At this point it's probably a good thing my annual review got moved to July instead of Feb.

My current plan: get a few more certifications while they'll pay for some of it, then start looking elsewhere.

my advice: i cosign Kup, make sure you have another job lined up. your company is not doing well and trying to save money, and it might not work.