In tough economy, working 7 days becomes norm for some

This article gives you an insight into the lives of four different people who are all taking on jobs which give them no days off in order to make enough money to live on. I think it is crazy that it is becoming normal for people to never get to rest. I myself work about 30 hours a week, and after adding in time for school, I feel almost as if I don't have enough free time. I could hardly imagine working 40 hours at one job, then working another job for 25 hours like one of the men in the article. One part that I thought was particularly interesting was from Kevin Fernandez’s story. He works for FedEx, and instead of laying workers off the company simple cut its worker’s wages. That is an interesting way to deal with downsizing that more companies should look into, because it would be better to have more people working for less than firing more workers. It is good to hear that these people are working so much, but keeping their spirits bright and actually enjoying their situation. I for one probably wouldn’t be too happy working that much, but I guess if you can make it work and live comfortably without the free time more power to you. At first I thought this article would be pretty depressing, but it turned out to be sort of uplifting because it is a story of people making their problems a lot more bearable.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/02/23/seven.days.irpt/index.html

Wow, I think it is great that the workers agreed to take a cut in pay in order to keep the jobs that were there. I know that if the situation came when I am, I would rather take a cut in pay than: a) risk having no job at all
b) have my co-workers lose their jobs

Times are tough and they are going to get tougher. I think that people are going to have to get together and be much more cooperative in general in order to get by. We will be seeing families getting together more I hope. Sharing meals and sharing goals of staying healthy financially and physically.

I predict that there may be more multigenerational households seen soon in an effort to make more from less.

If I were in this situation I would much rather take a pay cut than lose my job. Where I work we are currently going through the whole downsizing process and since summer of '08 we have laid off about a total of 90 workers. We go through an up and down process...sometimes we have a lot of work that needs to get done and other times we dont even have enough to keep the workers that are there busy and they get sent home. Last month we had to bring in people from the TEMP agency and this month we are shutting down every other weekend. I wish that my work would have thought about the idea of pay cuts before they laid people off.

It's hard for people now these days to find work and to keep a job and not worry about getting fired or laid off. I know a few people who do this and it's very hard on them not being able to see their families and just being to rest. And then I know people that are out of jobs and can't find anyone to hire them and just trying to live by. People give up things to make ends work. People working 40 hrs a week then going to work 25 that’s insane but they have to do it.

I too work thirty hours a week and still have to make time for school. It really does seem like there is not time for anything else. I agree that working forty hours would be a very challenging thing to have to do, especially if you had another job on top of that. I definitely could not do that! Cutting wages is a very interesting thing to do to prevent laying off workers or having to fire people. My dad’s company recently told them that they will not get a bonus this year in order to keep as much of the staff as possible in this tough time. I think everyone understands and thinks that it is a good idea. Cutting wages is very smart too.