On a Furlough, but Never Leaving the Cubicle

Wendy Roberson, a state employee in California, founded the Fun Furlough Fridays Club partly as a joke, but also because she honestly believed that she would be having long-weekend-type fun on her forced time off.

Not quite. The Fun Furlough Fridays Club? It never met. Instead, Ms. Roberson has found herself working as hard as ever on most Fridays, and every other day of the week. Further, she has come to resent the very idea of a furlough more and more with each paycheck, every one 10 percent less than it used to be, as mandated by California’s budget cutters.

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AP

And she has taken off only about half of the time to which she is entitled.

“Sometimes it’s just too busy at work,” said Ms. Roberson, whose pay was cut in February as part of the state’s effort to close a multibillion-dollar budget deficit. “You start to feel guilty.”

In California and elsewhere, people have put their imaginations to work trying to make the best of furloughs — temporary, usually unpaid, leave — ever appreciative that they are a far better alternative than layoffs.

But for many, the plans to turn the unpaid days into modest holidays spent appreciating the simple things in life like afternoon movies, walks in the park, naps or trips to see Grandma have given way to a different reality.

Some people take the time off but feel bad about doing so, out of loyalty to bosses and colleagues left to carry the workload. Others work quietly — and sometimes openly — through furloughs, because they fear for the long-term safety of their positions and hope their self-sacrifice impresses the management.

And some say the message from the management is unclear, leaving employees wondering: Is this real time off?

“I think it’s a joke,” said Roland Becht, who works at the California Department of Motor Vehicles in San Diego. (More than 200,000 state employees are supposed to have two furlough days each month.) “I’ve tried to schedule furlough time and was denied because we’re short-staffed.”

American workers are finding themselves at a new frontier, and the rules are being written on the fly. Some companies have strict policies forbidding work during furloughs, or close down for days at a time. Others simply tell workers, however unrealistically, to squeeze in furlough time when they can.

“In terms of what employers are doing, it’s all over the map,” said Alison Hightower, a lawyer in San Francisco who specializes in employment and labor disputes. “Employers have to think about it ahead of time and clearly tell the employees what they can and cannot do.”

Trying to cope with budget shortfalls and huge amounts of red ink, governments and companies across the country are turning to furloughs as a cost-saving measure that allows them to retain their employees. Furloughs are being instituted this year at law firms, city halls, states, media companies and myriad other businesses.

Your Job, Your Life | A CNBC Special Report
Your Job, Your Life | A CNBC Special Report

Robert Bruno, a professor of labor relations at the University of Illinois, Chicago, said the furlough experience could be traumatic.

“A furlough is a dangerous and risky bet because it severs the relationship between an employee and their compensation,” Dr. Bruno said. “A worker’s emotional reaction to a furlough takes control of rational thought.”

“It begins to look punitive, intentional or not,” he said.

Ms. Roberson and Mr. Becht were among the few people interviewed for this article who were willing to allow their names to be published. Others asked to have their names and workplaces withheld out of fear of retribution from bosses or colleagues. And some were hesitant to complain openly about their employment situation, given how many of their friends and family members had lost jobs.

“You’re not sure what they’re watching,” one furloughed man, an online salesman in Chicago, said about his bosses. “Do some people feel that they have to work those hours? Yes.”

And as more people are laid off or placed on unpaid leave, the burdens rise for those left at their desks.

Mr. Becht, who has managed to take two of his eight furlough days, said he was often overwhelmed on the front line dealing with customers at the motor vehicle office. He works about an hour of overtime a day to keep up with the crush of customers. Work is more stressful than ever, he said.

“I really don’t blame the management at our local level,” said Mr. Becht, who took a 9.2 percent cut in pay several months ago. “I understand they can’t let three or four people off when you’re already understaffed.”

But of the furlough, he added: “It’s not doing what it was designed to do. We were imagining three-day weekends. There was some optimism. It was a trade-off for sure, but people were O.K. The mood now, I would say, is down. People are working in fear because they don’t know what’s going to happen next.”

To make extra money, Ms. Roberson teaches belly-dancing at girls’ birthday parties on weekends, something she has been doing more of lately.

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“I really try hard not to even check my e-mail on furlough days,” she said. “That would be cheating myself, because I’m not getting paid to work.”

Karen Ann Cullotta contributed reporting from Chicago, and Malia Wollan from San Francisco.