the economy's effect on us

for the last couple of months at Tim's work they have been putting into effect a couple of different strategies to save them money. it started with a wage freeze across the corporation and then they let the temp people go. they planned to cut hours down to a 36 hour work week, but that was not enough, it seems. the other day Tim got the bad news that they are closing his shift. several people lost their jobs and the rest of the people on Tim's shift are being moved into jobs on the day shift.

Tim is still working.

it has been bothering him quite a lot. I can understand how he feels. he is loosing his shift differential and the bit extra he was getting for doing not only his job but his supervisor's job while he has been on leave for the last 10 months. so that way we are going to have to figure out how to stretch our budget better than we have been for a while. but we have lived on that before so we'll be alright. but the list goes on why he's been angry. He's getting a short end of the stick and so are quite a few others, but for the most part the day shift people remain unaffected.

We didn't say anything to anyone right away because we just didn't want anyone to worry about it.

on one hand I am angry right along side Tim. I know how much he has put into that company and I wish they would have offered him something higher up the ladder than they did, but I'm grateful that he still has a job, especially when some of the people that were let go have been working for the corporation longer than Tim has. I'm glad that because he will be working in the day time we will have more opportunities for a more "normal" family life. but I know how hard this is going to be on him physically since he has been on nights for 15 years. So maybe that kind of disruption in his schedule and what has been normal for our family from the beginning just wont be worth it, but I guess we have no choice but to see how it goes.

Tim and I have been saying it for years now that we will have to start doing more in terms of exercise to get healthier. maybe this will allow us the time to get out and do some of that.