Co-workers > News and trends > Work/Life

When furloughs aren’t what you envisioned

June 15th, 2009
By Anthony Balderrama in Co-workers, News and trends, Work/Life
2 Comments

The “Be careful what you ask for” adage has proven true for many workers in the last year. Plenty of us have wished for extra time off for work or longer weekends. Then the company announces layoffs or furloughs and we think, “Well, that’s not exactly what we meant.” When we said we wanted three-day weekends, we were thinking a few more Labor Day-esque holidays, not unpaid, mandatory time off.

This article in yesterday’s New York Times looks at employees who are forced to take furloughs, but they’re still having to work on their supposed days off. I think it’s worth a read because, if you’re in a similar situation, you can take comfort in knowing there are others out there going through the same thing. Plus, as frustrating as it is, you also see why some employers have their hands tied–fewer employees means they can’t do enough work, which means they’ll never earn the revenue needed to keep the business afloat.

Can you really be shockedthat so many workers are burned out? Not really.

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About Anthony Balderrama

Anthony Balderrama writes about hiring trends, workplace issues and job search tactics for CareerBuilder.com and its blog The Work Buzz. He was born and raised in Dallas (115° degrees isn’t hot!) before moving to Chicago (-23° isn’t cold!). He studied creative writing, therefore everything he writes is usually cut in half once he realizes he spent 400 words just on the intro. He knows that looking for a job and dealing with co-workers are not always fun activities, and reading about them is even less thrilling. That’s why he’ll take any opportunity he can to mention his favorite TV show or band in an article. Basically Anthony’s doing whatever he can to avoid hate mail.