TGIF

This is the end. The last Friday I have to work. Governor Jon M. Huntsman in his infinite wisdom has signed into law that employees of the Great State of Utah will beginning Monday August 4th, 2008 commence a four day work week. Sure we have to now put in 10 hour days to get the hours, God forbid we actually show how progressive we can be by actually pioneering a shorter work week by cutting back the number of hours worked. Everybody knows that government employees don't ever work 40 hours anyway right?

So the reason that you may detect a hint of sarcasm in my writing is that our Division rushed into this proposal by the Guv without fully thinking things through. Hey no skin off my nose, for me it works. Ok granted I am the last person that wants to be in my office by 7 am. I am just not a morning person. (thanks for that mom, why couldn't I get THAT from my father?) Regardless, this new schedule works to my advantage. But several of my compatriots have bigger issues with the new schedule.

You see, people don't stop abusing their children just because the government shuts down. The Guv thinks that this is going to have all sorts of benefits for the workers at the same time saving the State beau coup bucks. Sure in theory it all sounds good, but me, a peon, a virtual nobody, can see all sorts of flaws in the plan. Hell I read the initial proposal and noted right away that there were going to be certain divisions that could be exempt from this. My thoughts were that we would be one of them. Did we ask for this? No! We jumped in with both feet, the train was barreling down and we jumped in front of it. Now we start on Monday and our Division's plan hasn't even been approved by our Department. Some of the things that the Guv has listed in his reasons why this is a good thing are as follows.

Spend more time with your families because you are off on Fridays! Yeah, well in another month the kids will be back in school, sorry, no benefit there. Reduced commuting obligations thereby reducing the impact on the environment? Riiiight, we are all going to sit at home and absolutely go no where. In fact we will probably drive more releasing more emissions into the precious atmosphere. Take that Al Gore.
Offices will be closed thus reducing energy consumption? Ok I'll buy that, but the reality is that those savings are going to minuscule because the fact of the matter is that business must go on, there is still a mandate by statute that says we have deadlines to investigate abuse allegations. This is going to necessitate workers coming into the offices, accessing databases and doing business anyway, not to mention the projected overtime costs because these things occur at intervals that can not be planned for earlier in the week to flex your time to compensate.

I am sure it will all work out. Hell I hope it does, like I said it works for me. I don't have to worry about child care or getting my kids off to school. With any change comes growing pains. It will take some time, there will be some adjustments to be made. In the end, the crown jewel of this whole thing is that about the time we work out all of the kinks, guess what? This is only in effect for 1 year! That's right. 1 year, make all the necessary adjustments and I bet you that all of the headaches and glitches that haven't been thought through will cause him to pull the plug on the deal. Nice, thanks Guv. Even better we could get lucky and he could get defeated in re-election and the new Guv will come in and change everything anyway just like our boy Johnny did. Yep I love working for the government.