It's Friday, a little after 1:00pm and I'm listening to some good music while blogging on my couch. Normally on a Friday at this time I would be at work wishing for the time to go by faster so the weekend could start. But not right now; right now I'm glad that it's only 1:00pm. Today was my furlough and I made sure to schedule it on this day so I could take advantage of getting a four day weekend with Memorial Day being on Monday. And while I am thoroughly enjoying my furlough time today, there is a bittersweet ending ahead as next month is the last month that we have furloughs.
Being forced into furloughs last year was a really hard pill to swallow. You're being told that you can't work two days a month, your salary is being reduced by 10%, your workload stays the same so you're having to work harder to get things done, and there's nothing you can do about it. I remember asking myself when we were told that we would have furloughs, "Why are state workers the ones who have to be punished when it's the entire state of California's fault that we're in a budget crisis?" And I can't speak for all state workers, but I know that a majority of them aren't getting paid a lot already, so taking away 10% of their salary is a big deal. Then after being on furloughs for a few months I read an article in The Sacramento Bee that basically said furloughs weren't really saving all that much money for the state like they had originally planned. That made me even more upset.
After getting used to a 10% pay cut in my salary - budgeting has taken on a whole new meaning for us - I actually was enjoying having two days off a month. We were fortunate in the sense that most months we were allowed to pick whatever two days in the month we wanted; they didn't necessarily have to be Friday and they didn't have to follow the rest of the state furlough schedule of the first and second Friday of each month. So having a random day off during the week became the silver lining to a crappy situation. I took pleasure in knowing that if I needed to run errands it wasn't going to be crazy busy like it is during the weekends, or if I needed to schedule doctor or dentist appointments I wasn't going to have to use my sick leave credits to do so.
Now that the year of furloughs is almost up and extending them for another year has been taken off the table for Sacramento State employees, I'm realizing that a part of me is sort of sad to see furloughs go. I've gotten spoiled by having these extra days off. However, I am also so thrilled that with the elimination of furloughs means I get my 10% back. And if there is ever a time when that 10% means something it's now; with a baby on the way we need every penny we can get to build up that savings account even more. I'm also looking forward to not having to be so overwhelmed with workloads and meeting unattainable deadlines. Furloughs have been stressful in more ways then one and yet, they are also a bittersweet ending.
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