Sunday, May 8, 2011

All Roads Lead to Swatragh - Chapter 26

Grace had not slept well that night, or the next. Wednesday was to be a second meeting with ideas on how to cut company costs without losing personnel. At least the company cared enough to try and save jobs. The redundancy rate in Ireland was tough and so many people were out of jobs. Even some of the strongest companies were laying off staff.

No matter how much Grace crunched numbers she could not live on a part time salary. She wondered if everyone took a small cut in pay if that would help. As long as she didn't have any extra unexpected expenses, she could take a cut of one day a week. But there were men at the company who were supporting a family. How could they afford to take one day less pay.

Today's meeting was going to be a tough one. As Grace entered the meeting room she could feel the heavy atmosphere and somber mood. This was going to be brutal and everyone knew it. Everyone was part of this team and they all wanted to help things go smoothly, but they all faced the possibility of losing their jobs.

As the meeting progressed, the idea of a shorter day with less pay was brought up. But if they were not available for clients, they would lose even more money. It was then that Grace suggested giving up one full day a week in pay and having a furlough day. If half the staff took their day off on Monday and the other half on Friday, there would always been someone in the office to respond to clients. The idea of a full day without pay was not going over very well, until everyone realized that they then would have a three day weekend, and possibly a four day weekend on Bank Holidays. Many could try and find a part time weekend job if they needed to supplement their lost pay. There were more of those available for workers in Dublin than the higher paying full time jobs.

They knew that in the end they would possibly lose some employees to another full time job, but this might work out well for all. Everyone agreed to a one month trial after which they would meet again to assess the situation with the company, and see if this was something that would work until times got better.

Grace was worried about the loss of pay, but she also realized that she would have an extra day to go up to the cottage and make sure things were taken care of. As the stress of this week had continued, she realized how peaceful it had been in Swatragh at the cottage and that she missed that peaceful environment.

They would start this new plan with half the staff taking a furlough day on Friday and the other half on Monday the following week. Some people had strong preferences as to what day they wanted to take off, others didn't care. Grace was given the choice and she chose Friday as her day off. She felt this kept her schedule more normal with heading to work on Monday morning. She kept hoping that her calculations for expenses were right and she had enough money to get through the month without the loss of four days of weekly pay.

When Grace arrived home that night she had two frantic messages from Peter. It seemed that while he was over watering the roses and shrubs a couple stopped by and asked about staying at the cottage. He didn't know what to tell them. Should he have given them Grace's phone number? Obviously he was taken by surprise with their request as they thought he was the owner of the cottage. He did say the best excuse he could come up with was that it was currently undergoing renovations and they should check back later. His second call was a repeat of the first with the same concerns.

Grace called him back and told him the response was fine for the time being and that she would be returning in the next week or two as she had planned. She was having difficulty with trying to deal with Peter and her job situation at the same time.

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