Kvetchers to the Left of Me, Kvetchers to the Right

There is a rather crazy amount of angst in my school district, as there is likely across the state. I've learned recently that the federal stimulus money meant for our district is being redirected by Governor Asshat Meathead Schwarzenegger for some other purpose. He's decided in his asshatter brain that the $7 million slated for my district would serve a better purpose than the one it was intended.

One of the very real possibilities of this move on his part is that I, along with a whole shitload of other people, will lose our jobs. Even with the money it wasn't a done deal that I'd keep my job. But without it, the odds just went way up for me to get tossed, again. I lost my job last year but got hired back in short order.

Pretty much everyone in the district is talking about it. There's been so much hand wringing over the potential job cuts that real work is suffering. Can you blame people for being worried? Can you blame people for losing track of what they're supposed to be doing?

I can't and I won't. Its hard to concentrate on doing a good job when that job is perilously close to being liquidated in the interest of saving a paltry $45k.

One refrain I hear from most people I talk to is that the highest paid people in the district, the administration, should take a 10% across the board paycut. It would save a crapload of money, it would show some solidarity with the rank and file.

And I just found out that all of the site tech positions have been, officially, liquidated in the name of saving money. It doesn't mean I'm out of a job though because the sites can choose to recreate the positions. It does mean that there's a whole heckuva lot of ambiguity, uncertainty and anxiety everywhere.

This is a really bad time to be looking at a layoff too. But I'm trying not to let the shitty economy and decrees from asshats in ivory towers get me down...too much.