Getting laid and getting off

It seems that my delivery is valuable enough after all as - that is all I will be doing at my second workplace for the next three months - as all of my other tasks have been stripped away. I found out in the morning that I will be cut down by 60% with all of my non-earning workload put on hiatus. Which means, no bonus next year either - since it is tied to my completion of tasks outside of delivery. Score!!

Tomorrow I have the day off as I am on an imaginary holiday in Copenhagen with my wife, so I will spend the time calling to the various offices to find out what options there are. It is a bit complicated as I have a business also that is getting crushed into the zeroes. At least it is only for 3 months - at this point.

A few moments ago, I got some "good news" that instead of the 60% cut, I will lose only 40% of my income, which means that since morning,* I got a 50% pay rise!* It is all about framing. I am pretty sure that this was because they realized that while someone else can do the deliveries that don't fit into my 2 days a week, I am pretty good at them and generate more work from the sessions.

When I talked to my supervisor we were speaking about how other colleagues had approached her to know more specifically what was happening to them. The original plan mentioned was to grate everyone down some, but I knew just doesn't work that way. People do different tasks, some tasks can be done by others and therefore consolidated. People take this personally, even though it is not actually personal at all - for the most part.

While it is obviously personal from the respect of impact on individual lives, businesses do not care one way or another, even if those making the decisions do. My supervisor isn't a cruel person, she doesn't like this, she doesn't benefit - but the business demands it. The entire business model is about generating profit and in hard and lean times, this takes the position of limiting loss or minimization for survival. Business is designed to cut and cut in order to save itself to the point it can no longer stand at all, then it folds.

At university I heard that if a decision will amount to even one dollar of extra profit, the business should do it, no matter the work involved. While this isn't a truth, it does speak about the design and also indicates at the adage, A dollar saved is a dollar earned. It all adds to stakeholder value.

While some take it personally, I don't, even though it impacts me just as heavily, especially in the current circumstances I find myself. I have never been laid off before, but I have been around the block for long enough to understand the world in which I operate. Now for me, it is about seeing what I can do to save a dollar to earn a dollar, or more ideally, work out ways to make an extra dollar too.

One of the ways for us to save is of course that the additional "time off" allows me to do more of the renovation work to cut away any fat I can from the workload of others that take an hourly rate. This is the problem with the economic crush as it will affect the entire supply chain, my pain becomes someone else's, they in turn pass theirs onto the next up the line. Business.

As I have said a million times already, this economic model is not sustainable and will always crash while supporting the growth of fewer and fewer corporations. This all comes at the expense of people, real people - not the corporate people who have human rights but are nothing more than a P.O. Box somewhere.

But, at the end of the day I will fall onto my go-to phrase, It is what it is and there is only so much within the parameters that I can affect. It is those three areas again - What I can control, what I can influence and what I cannot affect. I can control myself, which gives me a greater degree of influence and then, all the rest, Will be what it will be.

Right - I have to pack - as I don't want to miss my pretend flight to Denmark. It will be good to imagine getting away for the weekend.

Taraz
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