Monday, November 10, 2008

Bouncing Back Just Got A Whole Lot Harder

I've not had a good couple weeks. First the $400 car repair, then craziness at work, then some craziness at home and finally, more craziness at work.

My business is directly affected by the economy. And now it's affected me. Because of a sharp downturn in our business, my work hours have been cut. Yup, cut. I'm not happy about it at all. Not happy because for the past couple months, we have been working like little crazy people to attract new business and work with existing clients. Just to keep it simple and straight, that strategy did not work and we did not get our new business and we ended up losing a couple clients as well. Then yet another closed door meeting and me getting lots of information for the powers that be for said meeting.

I was told my "work was valuable " to the company, and this is a "temporary reduction in hours", but non the less, still a reduction. I now have about 12 hours a week I need to fill with gainful employment. Sigh.

A couple things have run through my mind the past couple days. One, I am grateful I still have a job (at least for now), Two I am grateful I am able to keep my health benefits and Three I am kicking myself for some less than smart spending on my E-fund, but grateful that I still have an E-Fund.

What's going to happen next? I have to work out my reduced hours schedule with my office, I have to find out when it actually takes effect (this week, next week-my boss was rather ambiguous about the exact start date). Today, the only upside to this whole thing is that maybe this will force me to really get creative with my "plan" to work for myself or to get creative with alternative income sources. There are lots of downsides to this, but I just don't want to write about them today.

Just for giggles, here is what my favorite on line astrologer had on her web page today.


Monday November 10 – Moon into AriesMoon Meditation:

“Sassy wins the day…”

The Sun links first to Uranus and then to Saturn over the next 24 hours. If you’ve just had a big change in your life, today’s going to help you to take it all onboard and start to inculcate the ramifications. Which is a multi-syllabic way of saying we can all now start to get more used to some of the changes in the air (and I’m not just talking about the US presidential election, but you can bet Barack Obama’s really sucking up the change and acclimatising himself right now!)

7 comments:

Dawn said...

That's too bad! But I love your enthusiasm for figuring out the right plan for yourself moving ahead.

Anonymous said...

Ouch, sorry to hear about that! It doesn't pay a lot, but you might want to look into doing some writing for Associated Content. I have done that in the past during some rough patches. The pay is criminal for the work, but money is money. :)
Best of luck through these hard times!

Shevy said...

Oh no! Good luck with finding other work to cover for that lost income.

Anonymous said...

Sorry about the cut in hours. Hope you are able to fill those hours with some productive employment.

Ms. Liz said...

Have you checked your state's regulations for unemployment insurance? Most states have provisions that allow you to file partial unemployment claims if you're experiencing a temporary change in status from full to part-time.

Bouncing Back said...

ms. liz-I don't thik me filing for unemployment benefits would go over too well with my employer, even with me at temporary part time status. I have plans to check what unemployement benefits I may have access to this weekend. I did run some numbers and for right now, if I can pick up some "outside" work and be creative with some other projects, the reduction in hours MAY not be as horrible as it first appeared.

undercover vixen said...

sorry about this. the economy really sucks. Hope you started looking elsewhere