Coronavirus

I work for a very large technology company, and we've all been "strongly encouraged" to take 5 days of vacation in the 2nd Quarter. At least they aren't phrasing it like "for your mental health" but more so people are available when the economy starts back up. Hah, I don't see that really being an issue this year. Still pisses me off, but hey, I have job security so I should possibly be more grateful...

RobertB wrote: My company is demanding that we take 10 days off between now and the end of August, for our mental health. I suspect it's more to get some receivables off the books to make a prospective sale look better - our private equity company owner is planning around a sale in the next few months. Your notion sounds good too; if everything comes back in August (I'm not convinced), the whole company will want to go to the beach.

That's a good guess. 8 years ago, I was working for a small company that ran into cash flow problems after an aggressive expansion. We laid off half our staff and got permission from our investors to find a buyer to take over our company. That July, we partially shut down for three weeks, requiring all staff to use up their accrued vacation time if they wanted to get paid. So instead of our usual big payroll expense, we got to reduce our liability for accrued vacation, improving the appearance of both the balance sheet and the income statement.

My job is required to take two consecutive weeks vacation every year as fraud prevention and this year is no exception. Apparently a lot of employee fraud requires the person to continue being there so they can cover it up on reports and whatnot. We're not even allowed to talk to anyone in our department during the two weeks.

On the plus side the company has promised no layoffs during the pandemic which they expect to last until at least 2021. They also gave everyone 10 extra sick days this year.

I work for the municipal government (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan). We've been asked to still take our vacations so there isn't a rush to take them in the fall if restrictions ease enough that people can travel. (Which I highly doubt will be possible this year at this point.) I guess it'll be 3 weeks of staycation throughout the summer and fall.

I'm working from home until the end of June but I presume that will be extended since it isn't imperative that I do my work at the office. Working from home has been relatively seamless.

Our state restrictions just got extended to May 18th. Good, because our death rate is still climbing. Our number of cases is impressively low, except that it is likely a result of our low rate of testing.

Just got news that our ppp loan got approved. I dont have to cut my wifes hours, so that's good for the household, and we should be able to get through summer with enough capital to make necessary business adjustments to see what this looks like on the other side.

I run a property management firm. We haven't really been hit too hard yet....4 out 100+ tenants that could not pay full rent. And 3 of those tenants were matched up with owners that called to see how they could help before the tenants called for help. But I expect the delinquency rate to increase this month, I expect to spend most of whenever we open the courts back up working through 10-12 evictions/workouts. I expect to miss out on at least 10% of our summer income working through those situations and the subsequent vacancy. Luckily we do some maintenance in house, and we will probably end up.painting a number of places rather subbing it out to try to fill in the gap.

I do have 5 tenants that I spoke to that are pleased as punch to be making more on unemployment than they were making weekly in their service work jobs. They will not be looking for work until the benefits go away. And then they will move away for that work. My sleepy little coastal retirement village is going to flush out the meager and inadequate workforce we've attracted since the last recessionary purge. Probably better for the short term, as this tourist season is gone. At best, our longeterm evergreen retail and restaurants will still be here after taking a year off, but 2/3rds of the shops will not reopen, at least not with the same owners.

My evening commute featured the most traffic that I've seen since early March. I also drove past an outdoor party with at least 2 dozen people, plus two other groups consisting of several adults not wearing masks and not maintaining a safe distance. The weather is getting really nice out, and some people are apparently subconsciously associating nice weather with safety. They are also getting a lot of bad information from the president and from right wing media.

boothwah wrote: I do have 5 tenants that I spoke to that are pleased as punch to be making more on unemployment than they were making weekly in their service work jobs.

As someone on Twitter noted: if you're paying less than what unemployment provides, you're not a "job creator." You're a "poverty exploiter."

cdennett wrote: I work for a very large technology company, and we've all been "strongly encouraged" to take 5 days of vacation in the 2nd Quarter. At least they aren't phrasing it like "for your mental health" but more so people are available when the economy starts back up. Hah, I don't see that really being an issue this year. Still pisses me off, but hey, I have job security so I should possibly be more grateful...

So I've been on a project to replicate a purpose built application for controlled and logged document clearance to one that uses the Microsoft O365 cloud. Cobbling together several application because the current system uses a SQL server and doesn't work for teleworkers. So I am doing programming, loads of training over Teams (I hate it, did professional training for three years before but in person), and managing a team. That is in addition to the regular stuff I have.

I'm busier than I have ever been. Meanwhile I decided to cash out the mutual funds and buy a house about a forty minute drive away. I think having some acreage is more prudent than ever and likely a better investment than stocks. I don't know if I'll get time off to settle in properly. despite having enough leave that I could theoretically take the rest of the year off. This whole situation feels like the twilight zone.

Jackwraith wrote:

boothwah wrote: I do have 5 tenants that I spoke to that are pleased as punch to be making more on unemployment than they were making weekly in their service work jobs.

As someone on Twitter noted: if you're paying less than what unemployment provides, you're not a "job creator." You're a "poverty exploiter."

That sounds plausible, but that isn't how unemployment normally works in the U.S. Normally unemployment pays significantly less than your wages from your lookback period, to give the unemployed person an incentive to start looking for work right away. So normally it would be impossible for unemployment to pay more than your old job. But the recent legislation passed by Congress as part of the overall economic aid allows for an additional $600 per week for people collecting unemployment. That's the equivalent of an extra $15 per hour, or about $30,000 per year. For everybody's wages to go up by that amount permanently would require massive inflation in the price of many products and all services.

Right. But the point has more context. Say you're working that minimum wage job, but the only way to get there is to drive 45 minutes each way and pay insurance and maintenance on that old truck that gets you there. Now that job is paying a lot less than sitting at home does. Anyone suggesting that no one should be driving 45 minutes to a minimum wage job has probably never lived out in the sticks in any state in this country. Then the argument usually turns to: "Well, then they should move out of the sticks!" Except... to where? To a more urbanized locale where the cost of living is significantly higher? That doesn't help their situation.

This is where part of the foundation of the argument for a universal basic income comes from, which is essentially what unemployment becomes for many people. If those underpaid jobs continue to exist (let's just take Wal-Mart, for example, given their predilection toward paying their workers in some areas so little that said workers have to apply for food stamps/assistance; meaning that Wal-Mart is directly profiting from public assistance), then it's incumbent upon the government to do one of two things: Either provide enough to cover the gap in the cost of living and open a pathway out of those minimum wage jobs or require a minimum wage that actually reflects modern reality.

If a UBI enables someone to kickstart their own business which later employs more people (at a decent wage), then that's actual job creation, rather than serfdom. That kind of program would go a helluva lot farther in terms of helping people recover from a public health crisis, but it also reveals the fallacy behind the "free market" ideology that enables people to profit from the current situation, which is what the original quote was intended to highlight, despite it not matching up with how unemployment often works, as you say.

For context, in Oregon minimum wage is 11 something. Only the gas stations and McDonalds pay their workers that in my town. Labor is a commodity here. If you 2 working arms, legs, and the ability to communicate better than an 8 year old, wages start at 15.00. If you have a history of showing up on Monday after getting paid on Friday, wages start at $20.00.

I had to go look up the fed min wage. 7.25$ wow.

boothwah wrote: I had to go look up the fed min wage. 7.25$ wow.

At which a months work comes to about $1,200....