2009.04.04 Brooding Doom
Everyone working for Daimler Trucks North America are all meeting this coming Wednesday - across the whole continent, at the same time. Meanwhile, just recently in Germany, Daimler announced that their employees would be cutting back their work week from 35 to 30 hours and taking a 14% pay cut.
So, it's fairly reasonable to expect that there are going to be some more cuts. Rumours vary, up to the possibility of a 4-day work week and 20% pay cut.
-sigh-
Selfish jerk that I am, I find myself hoping that they just fire a bunch more people instead of cutting my pay - mostly because I doubt that I would be one of the culled. I can argue that it isn't just self-centered greed, saying that there is still quite a lot of poorly-performing people working at the office, and that the company would be vastly improved by losing some of that dead weight instead of just kneecapping the motivation of everyone. But I suppose that I should recognize that I don't really have an objective view, and have an overall tendency to undervalue other people. As long as I keep this job, that I do enjoy so much, I should be OK.
Though, I can't help but grumble about the timing with respect to us having a baby and looking for a house. And Richthofen is probably going to need tires this year...
Thinking about a shortened work week, most of my contemporaries seem to think that it might be a welcomed respite. It's possible, I suppose. Less likely for me than most, though, because I doubt that any of my deadlines would be moved or my projects cancelled - seeing as how they're required regulatory work. So, I'll still need to be doing the same amount of work in the same span of time. Except that possibly I'll have less help from my subordinates. On the other hand, shortening the work span has the advantage of having an implied reversibility once conditions improve - something that didn't happen with the last simple pay cut.
On the other hand, the worries of being moved to South Carolina seem pretty dead now.
UPDATE
Temporary measures include:
- 10% base pay cut
- every second Friday off
- suspending 401k matching
Permanent measure:
- reduction of variable pay rate (ha) from 20% to 15% of annual salary
Temporary was clarified as meaning until economic conditions change, with a review of the situation no later than the end of the year.