First Furlough Friday

For those of you who don't live in California, let me get you up to speed: CALIFORNIA IS A MESS! SERIOUSLY!

The state is facing a 40 billion dollar deficit so Arnold the governator imposed a mandatory day-off without pay 2x a month on state employees to save money and help us out of this fiscal crisis. Of course, the state employees union wigged out (surprise!) and sued, and so on and so forth, but a judge ruled that the governator is within his authority, and the furlough was imposed. Friday, the 6th, was the first Furlough Friday, and many state employees were locked out of their offices.

As much as I am sad for those who got locked out of their jobs (they have families to support after all), I thought about thanking the governator for Friday's rare pleasure of an easy commute brought by a historic government shut-down. I work in downtown Sacramento right next to government buildings and a couple of blocks from the state capitol so it was surreal for me to see the impact of the furlough. It usually takes me a long time to extract myself from traffic jams and get myself to work on time. Not today. As I drove to work, sad thoughts of the furlough's collateral damage like the downtown coffee shops who found themselves without government workers to buy their doughnuts where tempered by the pleasure of my unusually smooth commute. I was pleased in a guilty sort of way.

I had my car radio turned on to a news station during my commute and heard some of the residual fire storm that this furlough business created. Like I said the union was all bent out of shape about this move by Arnold. A woman called the radio station and complained about how she and her husband, both state employees, lost $800 on Furlough Friday. Although I want to be sympathetic to government workers because nobody wants a cut in pay, I about drove my car off the road when I heard this. Are you frickin' kiddding me? Did you just say you and your husband make $800 a day? Woman, if you are not stupid I would hope you saved up some of that fat paycheck for a rainy day. Does anybody need $800 a day to survive? Shouldn't you be grateful you are being furloughed instead of being laid off? Seriously! It would have been better for the government workers union's case if they had the workers making minimum wage calling-in to complain about the furlough on the radio shows. Oh, wait---does anybody who works for the state make minimum wage anymore? No wonder there was very little sympathy expressed for government workers. Caller after caller and person after person I talked to today had this to say to government workers: SUCK IT UP!

Through all this back and forth tug of war between the governor and the state employees, I honestly tried hard to be populist and sympathize with the "common man", who chose a government job and to become a noble civil servant. But to be honest, I personally had to dig down deep into my soul for that sympathy. Using the word noble in the same sentence as a unionized government employee kind of makes me flinch.

You see, unfortunately for all the hundreds of hard-working, and honest government workers out there, there is one bad-apple who spoils the bunch. Like my acquaintance, Kendra (name changed), a clerk in one of those government offices. Kendra likes to brag about how much luckier she is than me and the rest of her former lunch crowd because she landed a state job. She enjoys paid holidays galore, while we are stuck in the corporate world with just 7 paid holidays. And while we often work through and skip our legislated 10-minute breaks to get things done around the office, Kendra and her government co-workers MUST take their 10 minute breaks. Union rules. Never mind that they were not really working before their breaks. She says she finds herself often times without any work to do because they are NOT allowed to assist others with their tasks like we would in the business world, when they finish theirs early. Supposedly another state employee union rule. So in order to pass time until a union-sanctioned task comes across their desk , Kendra and her other clerk-friends bring curling irons and manicure kits to work and play beauty shop. I kid you not! She honestly bragged about this.

The fact that my taxes are paying for her paycheck for doing nothing seem to be lost on Clueless Kendra and her cohorts. Would a sensible corporate person brag to a stockholder how wonderful it is to do nothing while collecting a paycheck? I don't think so. But Kendra not only brags about not having to do much work at work but how her government clerk's paycheck allows her to afford a "His and Her Harley" motorcycles for her and her sweetie.

Fortunately, Kendra didn't come to lunch with us today to complain about being furloughed and not being able to now afford the payment for the His-and-Her-Harleys. I would have punched her. Seriously!

In fairness to government workers, many of them actually expressed gratitude over being furloughed rather than being laid off. But to those who vocally complained let me say, there is an economic crisis out there, okay? It may not be our fault, but we are all in it. So all of us have to contribute and share in the pain to help our country, our state, our companies get back on their feet. My colleagues and I were recently told we will no longer be bonused this year. For me that is over $10,000 in lost income. Am I complaining? No. There are over 600,000 people across the country who lost their job last month, so losing my bonus is nothing. And if you are one of those complaining about being furloughed twice a month, I'm sorry but I have no sympathy.

Having said all that, I am not a big fan of Arnold and the state legislature either. They all need to be tied to a pole next to an anthill. They got us into this mess after all. Why are they not furloughed? I think their paychecks should all be frozen until they fix California. If we the working class have to suck it up and do our parts, then the private jet class should also take some of the pain.

Let's find creative solutions other than let's squeeze the last drop of blood from the middle class. We should for instance maybe have those Hollywood ga-zillionaires pay into some fund to help us out. They won't mind. They are liberals and socialists by principle after all. If they are capable of raising ga-zillion dollars to help some disease-infested corner of the globe far away, they can come up with ga-zillion dollars to pay for California's debt. Maybe George Clooney can volunteer to entirely fund California's Sexually Transmitted Disease Education program. Tom Hanks, meanwhile, can cover the expense of buying the supply of condoms for distribution by Planned Parenthood clinics. Brangelina can also donate what would be the cost of fashionably adopting and raising another kid from an exotic country to adulthood, to fully fund the education of children of illegal immigrants instead. If all the Hollywood stars pitch in, I bet they'll cover all the liberal pork in the state and national economic stimulus plans, and our taxes can go to what will really create jobs and jumpstart the economy. Then the poor government workers and their union won't need to be furloughed anymore. Cool beans!