More MG News

And one more thing, Mizzou - since I'm on salary, they just take the money out of my check without waiting for me to schedule my furlough days. Actually, if I don't take the time off at all, they don't really care. But I'm going to have at least $90 coming out of my paycheck next week, which I wasn't exactly prepared for. Still have to pay the rent on time, though.
Thanks, IJAG, for what you wrote to Mizzou. There's definitely a sense within MG that this is only a warmup for much, much more bad news.

 

It's a ridiculous hardship. It sucks. Everybody in the journalism business just keeps getting hit and hit and hit and while the economy is eventually going to recover, things are not going to get better for newspapers.

But when these companies announce furloughs, it's usually in place of layoffs. Could that announcement come soon as well? Of course...

I know a lot of good people who would have killed for their bad news to be a furlough and not have their livelihood taken from them.

 

I don't believe those will be the only ones.

 

But they are taking your livelihood from you -- just one piece at a time instead of all at once. A hundred bucks less a paycheck doesn't sound like much to some folks--but it's a huge difference when you're barely getting by as it is.

 

It is a lot. But it's nothing when compared to losing your job when there are no other jobs available.

 

It's five days on top of the 10 already taken, 'zou. That's six weeks of vacation for me -- three paid, three unpaid. And they wonder why there's nothing int he fucking paper.

 

Seriously, he's right. I'd take a week, two weeks, three weeks of furlough over a layoff. I can make up a few weeks of unpaid. What is a bitch is trying to find a new job when you're 50. Try that.

 

As a MG employee, obviously I'm glad I haven't been let go (yet?), but this is really difficult to deal with. How are households supposed to budget when our salaries keep getting chipped away at. I'd like to get the dent in the side of my car fixed or buy new glasses, but who knows if the company is going to take even more money from me in a month or two. So those things have to wait.

Between furloughs, not getting any raise this year and not getting the overtime I was promised when I took this job, I'm making about 18 percent less than I was supposed to be at this point. It's just about enough to make me say fuck it and take a job, any job, that pays me more than minimum wage and allows me to be home with my wife and dogs in the evenings.

 

Oh and this is after they patted us all on the backs and brought in a cake a few weeks ago because our paper met all its revenue goals for the month. I'm making thousands of dollars less than I should be because of shit that is going on at other papers, but hey, I got a slice of cake out of it.

 

Of course, none of us can afford to pass up free food.